Nawal Noor (35 years old) is a Somali American that currently resides in Minneapolis. She is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Noor Companies a social enterprise corporation working on projects that bring public and private partnerships. She a serial entrepreneur and strategic problem solver. She was named one of 24 Bush Foundation fellows in 2019, through which she plans to expand her business and pursue national leadership opportunities.^[1]

Nawal Noor was born in Somalia, she moved to the United States on her own in 1996 at age 12 and lived with an aunt. Her parents and siblings joined her in 2000.

She graduated from the University of St. Thomas (Minnesota) in 2005. During college, she got her first experience in the sector while working for what’s now Aeon, a Minneapolis nonprofit affordable housing developer.

After college, she worked nine years in finance at Ecolab, the St. Paul-based cleaning and sanitizing firm, and was on the path to becoming a corporate leader.

She was inspired by her mother, who was an entrepreneur and into Real estate development, Noor took a career leap and a pay cut, deferring her plans to get an Master of Business Administration.^[3]

In 2015, Nawal Noor launched the Real estate company and was the real estate developer for her mosque’s 4 million dollars project. Soon after, she started the construction company. She is the first East African developer and general contractor in Minnesota, she launched a successful business to build affordable housing, employing and training workers historically left out of real estate development and construction projects.

She has previously served as a board secretary, for the Ecolab Credit Union and also the board vice president for the National Association of Minority Contractors.

She also worked with the Women Thrive Worldwide.

She is a serial entrepreneur and strategic problem solver that brings over 9 years of successful corporate finance, audit, strategy & marketing experience working for Ecolab; a $16B global leader in water, hygiene and energy technologies and services, hospitality, healthcare and food based in St. Paul Minnesota.

She wants to scale her model and become a transformational leader who can create inspiring solutions to entrenched economic disparities, as well as establish a financing institution or lending model for those who find traditional financing tools incompatible with their core values and Islamic religious beliefs.

To elevate her position in the community, she wants pursue national Leadership development opportunities, study social impact investing and learn from visionary leaders about how they investigate and solve pressing issues using the Bush Fellow grant.^[4]

Noor’s company won two Hennepin County, Minnesota construction contracts and hired ex-offenders for Hosmer Library in the Central neighborhood on Minneapolis and Estes Funeral Chapel in north Minneapolis. Noor Companies was also the developer on one of the last Green Homes North projects to revitalize north Minneapolis.^[2]