Michele Balfour Nathoo

Michele Balfour Nathoo joined the Refugees International board in 2024. From 2014 through 2025, Michele was a Principal at JOSS Realty Partners, a private equity investor in commercial and residential real estate with assets in Washington, DC; Philadelphia; Boston; Napa; and Silicon Valley. Ms. Balfour was a corporate attorney for Clifford Chance focusing on cross border finance, M&A, and structured finance. Immediately following law school, she managed a technical assistance program for the Federal Trade Commission’s Bureau of Competition with the former Soviet Bloc as well as Central and South America. She later served as a World Bank Consultant to the Russian Antimonopoly Office. Michele co-authored, “A Privatization Test: The Czech Republic, Slovakia and Poland,” published in 17 Fordham Int’lLJ 83 (1993).

Prior to joining JOSS, Ms. Balfour volunteered as the New York Liaison for Refugees International and participated in the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. In this capacity, Michele followed and studied how issues such as competing property rights contributed to population displacement and how access to food, water, and arable land affected displaced people and created crisis conditions for refugees around the globe.

Ms. Balfour earned a BSFS from Georgetown University and a JD from Fordham Law School. Currently Michele serves as president of her coop board in New York City.