Former Catholic Relief Services CEO Carolyn Woo, a Purdue alumna, to join President Chiang on March 5 for Presidential Lecture Series event

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Purdue University alumna Carolyn Woo, who served as CEO of Catholic Relief Services from 2012-16, will join Purdue President Mung Chiang in March for a conversation as part of Purdue’s Presidential Lecture Series.  

The public event, titled “Global Progress for Tomorrow’s Leaders: Overcoming Challenges, Building a Better Future,” is at 5 p.m. Tuesday, March 5, in Stewart Center’s Fowler Hall. Woo and Chiang will discuss nonprofit leadership, business education and global impact.

While the lecture is free, a general admission ticket will be required.  

Mung Chiang Download image

“As a Boilermaker student and faculty member, Carolyn Woo exemplified the very best of Purdue. She developed and deployed her passion and expertise to leadership impact at our university, in our state and around the world,” Chiang said. “Purdue is delighted to invite her back to campus and discuss her journey as a higher education leader and a pioneer in a nonprofit organization, especially in living out her selfless calling as CEO of Catholic Relief Services that provided humanitarian relief and sustainable developmental tools for millions of people globally.” 

Additional information

• Purdue Presidential Lecture Series
• Carolyn Woo: Catholic Relief Services
• Catholic Relief Services
• Notre Dame: Kellogg Institute for International Studies
• Purdue President Mung Chiang

Woo was educated by the missionary sisters in Hong Kong and came to Purdue in 1972 as a foreign student with one year of funding. Thanks to scholarships and fellowships, she was able to complete her bachelor’s, master’s and PhD in strategy management by 1979.  

After two years in industry, Woo was recruited back to Purdue as a faculty member. Soon after her promotion to full professor, she was drafted into administration, first as director of the master’s programs in the School of Business and then as associate executive vice president for academic affairs. Under her leadership, the Krannert master’s program achieved a top 20 ranking in Businessweek, and she was cited as one of Change magazine’s Top Forty Leaders Under Forty.  

From 1997 to 2011, she served as dean of Mendoza College at the University of Notre Dame. She built a team, process and culture designed to systematically improve teaching, pursue curricular innovations, enhance placement of students and embed ethics in all business disciplines.    

Woo joined Catholic Relief Services as CEO in 2012, serving through 2016. The organization, created in 1943 to help resettle refugees in war-torn Europe, today undertakes humanitarian relief and sustainable development in over 100 countries. CRS serves over 100 million people each year through 1,000-plus programs developed annually to reduce poverty, diminish risk and foster prosperity. 

Woo is recognized for her teaching, research, service and leadership through numerous awards and honorary doctorates. In 2013, she was named one of the 500 Most Powerful People on the Planet by Foreign Policy magazine and one of 33 in the category “A Force for Good.” The same year, she also received the Catholic Press Association’s top honor for her column on spirituality. 

Woo is a frequent contributor to “Give Us This Day” and the author of two books, “Working for a Better World” and “Rising: Learning from Women’s Leadership in Catholic Ministries.” 

About the Presidential Lecture Series

Launched in 2014 by then-Purdue President Mitch Daniels and continued by President Mung Chiang, the Presidential Lecture Series exposes Purdue students and the broader community to inspiring ideas, courageous leadership and models of civic engagement and civil discourse. The Presidential Lecture Series has had over 40 guests of many viewpoints and perspectives and hosted some of the great intellectual, business and civic leaders of our time. As one of the world’s premier centers of scholarly leadership, Purdue is — appropriately and necessarily — a regular venue for great thinkers across a wide variety of disciplines.

About Purdue University

Purdue University is a public research institution demonstrating excellence at scale. Ranked among top 10 public universities and with two colleges in the top four in the United States, Purdue discovers and disseminates knowledge with a quality and at a scale second to none. More than 105,000 students study at Purdue across modalities and locations, including nearly 50,000 in person on the West Lafayette campus. Committed to affordability and accessibility, Purdue’s main campus has frozen tuition 13 years in a row. See how Purdue never stops in the persistent pursuit of the next giant leap — including its first comprehensive urban campus in Indianapolis, the new Mitchell E. Daniels, Jr. School of Business, and Purdue Computes — at https://www.purdue.edu/president/strategic-initiatives. 

Writer and media contact: Phillip Fiorini, pfiorini@purdue.edu, 765-430-6189