Meet a Nasty Woman: 5 Questions with Rukaiyah Adams
photo by: Sam Gehrke
Meet Rukaiyah Adams. Rukaiyah is a Nasty Woman, activist, visionary and investor. She is the Chief Investment Officer at Meyer Memorial Trust whose mission is to contribute to a flourishing and equitable Oregon. Before Meyer, she ran the $6.5 Billion capital markets fund at The Standard. She started her career as a mergers and acquisitions lawyer at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom in San Francisco.
Rukaiyah is very active in her community and beyond. She is the Chairperson of the Board of the Albina Vision Trust, an organization dedicated to honoring Albina’s past as a predominately African American neighborhood in Portland, Oregon by transforming what exists today into a socially and economically inclusive community of residents, businesses, artists, makers, and visitors. She is also on the Boards of Directors of Self-Enhancement, Inc., Oregon Public Broadcasting and OHSU Foundation.
Rukaiyah holds a BA from Carleton College with Academic Distinction, a JD from Stanford Law School, where she served on the Law and Policy Review, and an MBA from The Stanford Graduate School of Business. She is a 4th generation Oregonian and her family home is located in the Albina area of Portland, Oregon.
What makes you a Nasty Woman?
I am an unapologetically determined feminist. Clementine Paddleford put is best, “never grow a wishbone, daughter, where your backbone ought to be.”
Share an experience that shaped your views or helped get you involved in activism.
When I was in the first or second grade, my great aunt ran for the Oregon House of Representatives. It was deeply inspiring to see her endure public scrutiny in order to lead. She became the first African American woman elected to the state legislature. She is remarkable; but, so was my grandmother, as were my aunts and cousins, as is my mother. Looking back on that experience, I came to know that I am from a long line of strong women leaders. Leadership is in my blood.
What advice do you have for people who want to help enact change and push progress but don’t know how to get involved?
Well… there are the interior commitments we must each make to contribute to change, and then there are many external acts that are evidence of enduring internal commitments to progress. I encourage folks who want to get involved to do the interior work of examining and clarifying values and motivations first. Then, embark on a journey of listening and understanding. In the process of becoming informed, opportunities to engage will become clear. The determined acts and actions that inspire many come out of the alignment of values and information. Acts and actions of individual people then become powerful, perhaps even a movement, when the many come together as one.
But, it all begins with each of us making personal commitments. As thoughtful people, this is exactly what we must all do because progress requires a lifetime of actions from each of us. Arthur Ashe captured it perfectly “from what we get, we can make a living; from what we give, however, we make a life.”
If you could look into the future, 10 years from now, and see that real progress has been made, what does that look like to you?
Women run everything (or at least everything that matters).
Share with us a favorite wine moment or memory, or pairing.
In 2017, I attended an outdoor, late fall harvest and tasting in Newberg. We enjoyed the previous year’s vintages, they were paired with older European wines while we tied persimmons to be dried in the rafters of the winery. It was literally intoxicating to smell the fermenting wines in barrels and the sweet aroma of the fruit in such beautiful setting. It was a quintessential Oregon experience, full of abundance and simple grace.
The NASTY WOMAN WINE you appear on the label of is called Rise Up Riesling. Please share your thoughts on rising up and resilience.
Coming soon.