Elaine Smith and Jared Matthew Genser were married July 5 at the Fairmont Hotel in Washington. Rabbi Greg Harris officiated.
Mrs. Genser, 45, is an adviser, developing relationships and partnerships with corporations, for the World Bank Group. She graduated from Universidade Presbiteriana Mackenzie in São Paulo, Brazil, received an M.B.A. from Universidade de São Paulo, and received a certificate in owners and presidents management from Harvard.
She is the daughter of Lucia Smith and Frederico E. Smith of São Paulo. The bride’s father retired as a business manager in São Paulo for Varig, a Brazilian airline. Her mother was a stay-at-home parent.
Mr. Genser, 47, is the managing director of Perseus Strategies, a law firm, human rights advocacy organization and government affairs concern, and is also an adjunct professor of law at Georgetown University Law Center, both in Washington. In 2001, he founded Freedom Now, an organization in Washington that works internationally for the release of political prisoners. He graduated from Cornell, received a master’s degree in public policy from Harvard and received a law degree from the University of Michigan.
He is the son of Lyne Taylor Genser and Dr. Sander G. Genser of Potomac, Md. The groom’s mother is a clinical social worker in private practice with offices in Bethesda, Md., and Alexandria, Va. His father, a psychiatrist, retired as a captain in the United States Public Health Service Commissioned Corps and worked at the National Institute on Drug Abuse in Rockville, Md. He is now the medical director for Outpatient Addiction and Mental Health Services of Montgomery County, Md., also in Rockville.
The bride’s previous marriage ended in divorce, as did the groom’s.
The couple met in 2013 at a conference of the World Economic Forum’s young leaders, in Myanmar, and spoke long enough to make an impression on one another. In 2017, a mutual friend from that same group, reintroduced them, after both had been divorced.
