About
A life rebuilt from nothing more than once.
Armand Kadima is a keynote speaker, author, and fractional CFO. His life has been rebuilt more than once, through war, exile, loss, and the death of his wife three days after their second set of twins, his seventh and eighth children, were born.
He speaks about what human beings are actually built for: resilience in the face of grief, leadership forged under pressure, and the urgent work around maternal health that his own loss made impossible to ignore.
The Foundation
The Yolanda Shiphrah Kadima Foundation
Yolanda lost her life to the very thing she had dedicated her work to preventing. In the days that followed, Armand founded the Yolanda Shiphrah Kadima Foundation. It was a way to keep moving, to hold on to her essence for their children, and to carry forward the mission she had lived.
She had taken the name Shiphrah in 2017, after the Hebrew midwife who defied Pharaoh to protect the newborns in her care. As a doula, a lactation consultant, and an aspiring traditional midwife, her dream was to build a birthing center where mothers like her could experience safe and loving births. The foundation is working to bring a birthing center in her name to life.
The foundation works to create safe birthing environments for women of color. It connects families to doulas and traditional midwives, supports the birth workers who serve them, and supports fathers and families who have been impacted by maternal mortality.
As its founder and executive director, Armand has been a featured speaker at congressional briefings on maternal health at the U.S. Capitol in 2024, 2025 and 2026, sponsored by congressional offices and the Black Maternal Health Caucus, in partnership with 4Kira4Moms and 4Kira4Dads.
In his words
Transparency births an authentic life.
Armand Kadima
Focusing on your past only re-creates it. Focus on NOW and the future you are creating henceforth.
Armand Kadima
Self esteem in its true essence is not circumstantial.
Armand Kadima
These things are not happening to me, they are happening for me.
Armand Kadima
Background
A working chronology.
- Early years
War and exile
A childhood and early life shaped by conflict and displacement, leaving a country and starting again.
- Rebuilding
Building a life and a career
Reconstructing a professional life from nothing, eventually becoming a fractional CFO and advisor.
- Loss
The death of his wife
Losing his wife three days after the birth of their second set of twins, his seventh and eighth children. The event that reframed everything.
- Today
Speaking and writing
Translating a life rebuilt more than once into keynotes and writing on resilience, grief, leadership, and maternal health.