When Waterford native Nancy Butler decided to start her own asset management and financial planning practice more than 30 years ago, she was a single mom with about $2,000 to her name.

“I knew absolutely nothing about it,” she said. “I had never heard of a mutual fund … never had a CD or anything.”

But she reasoned that even if the business failed, she’d learn something constructive along the way “that would help my kids.”

Now — more than 10 years after selling the company she grew to $200 million in assets under management — Butler is an author and business coach speaking to companies and groups across the country.

One of her speaking engagements — at Soroptimist International’s 2017 regional conference — led to an invitation to the United Nations’ Commission on the Status of Women earlier this spring, where Butler said her small start as a struggling businesswoman helped her sympathize and connect with women around the globe fighting poverty, poor education, violence and trafficking.

Butler, a Soroptimist Connecticut Shoreline club member for 33 years, was one of 90 Soroptimist invitees to the commission, which was established by the UN in 1946 and meets annually in New York. Soroptimist is a volunteer service organization working to improve the lives of women and girls; the group is one of many non-governmental organizations to attend the commission’s meeting.

After a series of workshops and learning sessions, the commission drafts recommendations and reports to the UN on women’s rights, the advancement of women and gender inequality.

Butler described attending the sessions as a milestone in her life, saying it was inspiring to meet and learn from a variety of international attendees and speakers, some of whom had survived child marriage, sexual assault, forced prostitution and child labor.

“There’s nothing like the experience,” she said. “What hit me the most — in every session I was in — there’s no politics or anything. It’s just the heads of major NGOs and the heads of countries getting together to share best practices and figure out how to fix things.”

While many of the sessions included harrowing stories, Butler said several included discussions on ways governments and women themselves were implementing policies to improve health care and access to water, technology and education.

In Sudan, the commission highlighted the country’s progress sponsoring contests rewarding women — the driving force of agriculture in the country — who present innovative ways to grow, manage and store their crops, Butler said. Zambia, meanwhile, has taken steps to reduce child marriage by providing greater access to education, including sex education; the country also has reduced or in some cases eliminated fees to health services and provided more free immunization and nutrient supplements for children, Butler said.

Butler said she hoped for a chance to attend the commission meeting again, noting there was no shortage of panels and presentations to help learn and share ways to combat gender inequality. In its conclusions, the commission recognized that, “despite gains in providing access to education, rural girls are still more likely than rural boys … to remain excluded from education.”

“Women and girls are disadvantaged everywhere, or not educated everywhere, even though it’s proven they’re just as smart,” Butler said.

b.kail@theday.com