[4] Bellamy was a managing director at Bear Stearns from 1990 to 1993, a Principal at Morgan Stanley from 1986 to 1990, and an associate in the New York law firm of Cravath, Swaine & Moore from 1968 to 1971.

In 1968, she was to be one of the subjects of Jean-Luc Godard's film One A.M. (later released as One P.M. by D. A. Pennebaker) where she described her philosophy of using business to accomplish social change.

Her speech was then satirized by Rip Torn wearing a US Civil War uniform in front of a Brooklyn middle school class.

While her opponents spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in their campaigns, Bellamy carried on with just $90,000 in funds, and, despite her initially low public profile, managed to finish a strong second in the Democratic primary with 25 percent of the vote, behind the incumbent Paul O'Dwyer, who got 30 percent, and ahead of City Councilman Carter Burden, Assemblyman Leonard Stavisky and developer Abe Hirschfeld.

[9] As of 2014 Carol Bellamy is the Chair of the Governing Board of the Global Community Engagement and Resilience Fund which is the first global effort to support local, community-level initiatives aimed at strengthening resilience against violent extremist agendas, for example through job creation and empowering women and youth.

As a public-private partnership operating in the fields of security and development, the fund works with governments, civil society, and the private sector in beneficiary countries to support national strategies to address the local drivers of violent extremism.

Bellamy was appointed to the position of executive director of UNICEF in 1995 by Boutros Boutros-Ghali, then the Secretary-General of the United Nations.

"For eight years the FLA has been strengthening its capacity to work with companies, factories, civil society organizations and others to end sweatshop labor and protect workers' rights.

[citation needed] In April 2009, Bellamy was appointed as chair of the International Baccalaureate (IB) board of governors.