Speaker Bios - November 3_ 2006

Speaker Bios All confirmed authors and speakers who have submitted a short bio to the Microcredit Summit Secretariat are listed here, in alphabetical order by last name. This document is updated as of November 3, 2006. Erik Aas joined GrameenPhone Ltd, Bangladesh, in December 2004 as CEO. He served as board member of GrameenPhone in the period 2001-2004. Mr Aas has ten years of experience with Telenor. Since 2001, he has held positions with Telenor‘s affiliates in Malaysia, Thailand and Bangladesh. Mr. Aas holds a Master of Science from NTNU in Trondheim, Norway in 1991, and a Master of Business Administration from IMD in Switzerland in 2001. In October 2006, GrameenPhone had more than 10 million customers; this includes 260.000 Village Phone Ladies. GrameenPhone covers more than 95% of Bangladesh‘ population with its network, and is the leading telecommunication operator of the country. GrameenPhone is owned by two shareholders; 38% by Grameen Telecom Corporation (Bangladesh), and 62% by Telenor (Norway). Fazle Hasan Abed is the founder and chairperson of BRAC, one of the largest nongovernmental organizations in the world with over 120,000 staff-members and an annual budget of over $300 million. BRAC‘s micro-finance program, with over 5 million borrowers, has cumulatively disbursed over $3 billion. Nearly a million children are currently enrolled in BRAC schools and BRAC‘s health program reaches over 100 million in Bangladesh. BRAC has recently taken its range of interventions to Afghanistan, Sri Lanka and several countries in Africa. Abed has been recognized through a number of national and international awards including the Ramon Magsaysay Award for Community Leadership (1980), UNESCO Noma Prize for Literacy (1985), UNICEF‘s Maurice Pate Award (1992), Olof Palme Prize (2001), Gates Award for Global Health (2004) and UNDP Mahbub-ul-Haq Award for Outstanding Contribution in Human Development (2004) as well as several honorary doctorates. Sadaffe Abid is the Chief Executive of Kashf Foundation, the leading microfinance organization in Pakistan. Kashf has been a pioneer in breaking myths in the Pakistani industry by providing quality and sustainable financial services to over 100,000 women from low income households. Ms Abid has been with the organization since its action research phase in 1997 in the capacity of Research analyst, Operations Manager and then Chief Operating Officer. She has been instrumental in leading the expansion of the organization from a two room office to a financially sustainable MFI with over 60 offices along with product development and business improvements. Ms. Abid's challenge is to scale Kashf's operations to new markets, continue to introduce innovative products and reach over 500,000 clients by 2009 with a strong focus on customer care and efficiency. Ms. Abid has studied economics and international relations from Mount Holyoke College, U.S.A. Prior to Kashf, she was involved in consultancy projects with the World Bank and ADB. Pauline Achola, Technical Advisor for MEDA, has over ten years of experience in project design, development and implementation in Africa, Central America and Asia. Her areas of specialty include monitoring and evaluation, research, gender, design of training curriculum and HIV/AIDS in Microfinance. Ms. Achola received an award from the SEEP Network for her contribution to member learning and dissemination in HIV/AIDS and Microenterprise Development. Ms. Achola holds a MSc. in International Development Planning, a Postgraduate Certificate in Regional Development Planning and a Bachelors degree in Rural Sociology. Fouad Abdelmoumni co-founded the Association Al Amana pour la Promotion des Microentreprises in 1996, and he currently serves as its Director. Al Amana is a microcredit association which has a portfolio of over 300,000 loans worth $110,000,000 and 1.200 employees (May 2006). He was a member of the UN‘s Advisors Group for the International Year of Microcredit 2005. From 2003-2005 he served as Chairman of the board of Sanabel, a network of MFIs in the Arabic countries, and also as a member of the CGAP MENA Advisory Group. Prior to his work with Al Amana, he was Director of MADI (Maghreb Développement Investissement), a social venture capital fund, a member of the SIDI network (France). He is a board member of TrustAfrica and Espace Associatif. Nelson Agyemang is currently the Africa Regional Organizer for the Microcredit Summit Campaign where he trains and organizes MFIs in Africa on Microfinance and Service Integration. Prior to this he served as the Founder and CEO (currently serves as Chairman of the Board) of the Youth Development Foundation. He has run projects sponsored by the UN, World Bank and other international agencies on youth, social and economic development for the past 2 decades. He also lectured for 2 years at the Christian Service University. Nelson holds an MSC in Health Planning/Management (KNUST), a Post-graduate diploma for Public Administration with GIMPA and a Professional Graduate Diploma in Professional Administration and Management with the International Professional Managers Association in the UK. Fakhruddin Ahmed is Managing Director (CEO) of Palli Karma-Sahayak Foundation (PKSF), an apex fund for microfinance, providing financial and capacity building assistance to over 200 microfinance institutions (MFI) of Bangladesh. These MFIs provide microfinance services to over 6.8 million poor borrowers (over 90% women). Mr. Ahmed served as Governor, Bangladesh Bank (central bank) for over three and half years and has thus the unique distinction of working in both macro and micro financial sector in top leadership positions. Mr. Ahmed also worked with the World Bank for over twenty years, retiring as Country Director. Mr. Ahmed holds a Ph. D. degree in Economics from Princeton University and an M. A. in Development Economics from Williams College. Sadrudin Akbarali, Senior Manager of Microfinance Programs at the Aga Khan Agency for Microfinance in Geneva, Switzerland since 2001, oversees the establishment, continuing operations and sustainability of microfinance programs in 14 countries in Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia, including the construction of local business development capacity in each of the countries. From 1976-2000, he served as CEO of Small Business Advisory & Information Centre and Partial Loan Guarantee Programme for a community-based support programme spanning 50 locations in the UK. From 1986-1996, Mr. Akbarali was CEO of a small/medium enterprise venture capital company in the UK, dealing with appraisals, investment proposals, cofinancing & co-investments, disinvestments, acquisitions, mergers, re-organisations and restructuring. From 1996-2000, he was Manager of an enterprise support facility in the mountainous regions of Tajikistan. He established operations and a network of 17 branches & facilitated graduation of the MFI to a National Microfinance Bank. Mr. Akbarali is a qualified Chartered Accountant, Taxation and Management Specialist. Professor Dr. Aziz Akgül became Professor of Management and Organizational Theory at Kırıkkale University in 1996 and Assistant Professor of Management and Organizational Theory at İstanbul University in 1990. MS and conducted postgarduate research at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterry, CA between 1987-1989. Earned PhD in Management from the Ankara University, Faculty of Political Science (1982-1986). Earned MBA from the Middle East Technical University, Faculty of Economics and Management (1980-1982). Senior Advisor to the Prime Minister of The Turkish Republic between 1996-June 1997. Senior Advisor to the Minister of Trade and Industry of the Turkish Republic between June 1997-November 2002. Deputy for Diyarbakır Turkish Parliament at Turkish Grand National Assabmley at present. He has also published 16 books and several articles on Management, Operations Research and the Defense Industry. Nasser Bakr Al-Khatani has worked with AGFUND in Saudi Arabia since 1995, when he began as Director of HRH President‘s Office in Riyadh. In 1998 he became President of AGFUND and is a member of the Boards of Trustees and Executive Committees of many NGOs across Tunisia, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. His dedication to CGAP‘s Initiative for Microfinance in the Middle East and North Africa and his continuous efforts for the preparation of an illiteracy eradication program in the member countries of the Islamic Development Bank have created much hope in these fields. He has been been assigned by the Regional Bureau for Arab States, UNDP to work towards Quality Assessment of Higher Education in the Arab Region, and heads a team of experts assigned to establish ―Bank For The Poor‖ in Arab countries. Mr. Al-Kahtani has presented numerous papers and research studies on topics such as early childhood development; open learning; civil society; fighting poverty through microcredit; and child abuse. Zahirul Alam, Executive Director of the Integrated Development Foundation (IDF) in Bangladesh, is an economist specialized in microfinance, employment and poverty related issues. He began his carrier in 1973 with Prof. Muhammad Yunus, as a member-secretary of the Rural Economics Program at the University of Chittagong. He worked with Prof. Yunus until he joined Bangladesh Academy for Rural Development (BARD) in March 1976 where he worked as an Action Research Fellow in a FAO/UNDP supported experimental project on poverty alleviation through microfinance. Mr. Alam joined ILO/Jobs and Skills Program for Africa based in Addis Ababa in March 1984 as a Specialist in Income Distribution and Basic Needs Related Issues. From 1989 to 1992 he worked as an Economist and Chief Technical Adviser on an ILO project surveying Youth Employment and Adolescents Fertility in Urban Ethiopia. Mr. Alam returned to Bangladesh in 1992 and established IDF with a commitment to work mainly for the poor people of remote, hilly, difficult and un-served areas of Bangladesh. Aniceta R. Alip is the Research Director of CARD (Center for Agriculture and Rural Development), a group of mutually reinforcing, poverty-focused microfinance institutions that provides credit, savings and micro-insurance services to the Filipino poor through solidarity groups. Mrs. Alip gained experience in the use of modern tools and methodologies in impact assessment and market research when she became involved in the customization of the AIMS tools for Philippine Grameen Bank Replicators. Through her efforts, the use of the SEEP/AIMS Exit and Client Satisfaction Surveys are now institutionalized at CARD. She was trained on MicroSave tools in Uganda in 2001, and since then has acted as resource person in 6 runs of the Market Research for Microfinance (MR4MF) Training of Trainers course in the Philippines and Vietnam. She managed CARD‘s ImpAct project which led to the development of a social performance management system that is helping her institution focus on its mission and improve practice. Her vision is for CARD field staff to become adept at gathering information from clients and translating what they hear into product concepts and improved services. Dr. Wolday Amha has served as the Director of the Association of Ethiopian Microfinance Institutions (AEMFI) since 1998. Prior to this, he worked as a consultant for a number of NGOs helping them to improve their credit and saving operations. Dr. Amha is the editor of the Microfinance Development Review and has edited and published various books and articles in reputable journals on food security, agricultural marketing, and microfinance. Dr. Amha is currently the President of the Ethiopian Economic Association (EEA) and is also currently serving as the President of the African Microfinance Network (AFMIN). Dr. David Obu Andah is currently the Executive Director of Ghana Microfinance Institutions Network and has been consulting for IFAD, SEEP, World Bank, ILO and many others. Before retiring about 7 years ago, he worked as the Director of the Bank of Ghana‘s Non-Bank Supervisory Department after previously serving a period as the Chief Manager of the Rural Finance Department monitoring the performance of rural banks. Before then, he was the Business Development Manager of Standard Chartered Bank Ghana, managing agricultural and project finances. He co-authored the World Bank report on Rural and Microfinance Regulation in Ghana with Biff Steel, which is a must-read document on microfinance in Ghana. Meagan Andrews, Senior Microfinance Consultant for MEDA, has substantial professional experience in rural credit methodology, operating procedures, project planning and implementation, capacity development, research and analysis. Her international consultancies have taken her to Haiti, Peru, Jamaica, Colombia, Ecuador, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, and Northern Ireland. Ms. Andrews has an MBA from McGill University and a BSc in Economics. She is fluent in Spanish and has intermediate French. Robert Annibale, Citigroup‘s Global Director of Microfinance, leads their commercial relationships with microfinance institutions, on a multi-business and multi-product basis, providing financing and product partnerships to institutions that serve the poor and the unbanked. He joined Citibank in 1982. After a first assignment in Greece, he held a number of senior treasury, risk and corporate positions in Citigroup in Athens, Bahrain, Kenya, London and New York. Bob completed his BA degrees in History and Political Science at Vassar College and his Masters Degree in African Studies (History) at the University of London. He serves on the Board of Advisors for the United Nations High Level Commission on Legal Empowerment of the Poor, and represents Citigroup on the Board of the Microfinance Information Exchange, on the Council of Microfinance Equity Funds and with the Microfinance Network. Dr. Jaya Arunachalam is President of Working Women‘s Forum in India, a social organization initiated in 1978 to develop the human resource potential of very poor women workers in the informal sector. A graduate in Economics and Geography, Ms. Arunachalam has a Diploma in Management from Washington, USA. She is the President of the National Union of Working Women and as is the President of the Indian Cooperative Network for Women. She was awarded the ‗Padmasri‘ in 1987 by the President of India for her distinguished services among the poorest women in urban and rural areas. In 2002, she was awarded ―Stree Shakthi Puraskar‖ by the state government for her unmatched and outstanding services to poor working women. In 2003, she was conferred the ―International Activist Award‖ by the Glietsman Foundation, USA, focusing on her contributions towards poverty eradication for over 25 years. As a mark of her services to all communities towards harmony she received the ―Rastria Ekta Award‖ from the National Awareness Forum (India). She is the recipient of the 2005 Award of Global Leadership for Economic Development by Vital Voices, Washington, USA. Jeffrey Ashe is the Manager of Community Finance at Oxfam America. He also teaches microfinance at Brandeis and Columbia Universities. Prior to coming to Oxfam, Mr. Ashe founded Working Capital and served as its Executive Director for eight years. Working Capital was the largest microenterprise program in the United States. Before starting Working Capital, Mr. Ashe was Director of the "PISCES Project," the first worldwide investigation of programs reaching the smallest economic activities of the poor. At the same time he was the Senior Associate Director at ACCION International. After he left ACCION, Mr. Ashe designed, assisted and evaluated microenterprise programs in thirty countries in Asia, Africa, Latin America and Eastern Europe. He has also published extensively in the micro-enterprise field. Seth Asimakos is the founding Manager of the Saint John Community Loan Fund (Loan Fund) a micro-credit organization that recruits investments to build its loan pool and then re-lends this money to individuals living on low-incomes. Seth is a Co-Director of the five year $1.75 million Social Economy Research project headed out of Mount Saint Vincent University in Halifax, and he served as the Atlantic Coordinator of the Canadian CED Network for the last two years. Besides his work in Canada, Seth has also worked in rural development projects in Colombia and Nicaragua. As a volunteer, he sits on the founding board of the Canadian Community Investment Network Cooperative; he is President of Options Outreach Employment; and, he sits on the Community Advisory Panel of the Co-operators Insurance Company. Seth has served as vicepresident and as the planning and credit committee chair for the Bayview Credit Union, the largest English language credit union in New Brunswick. Seth has a Masters degree in Planning. Goanpot Asvinvichit is President and CEO of the Government Savings Bank of Thailand, which has a mandate to implement socially oriented projects and financial programs focusing on grassroots sectors. In 2006, Mr. Asvinvichit joined the United Nations Advisors Group on Inclusive Financial Sectors, assisting the UNDP as it pursues the global agenda recommended by the 2005 UN Year of Microcredit. In addition to extensive experience in international business, he has since 1991 held many positions in the legislative and executive branches of the Royal Thai Government, including two terms as Senator, Cabinet Member and Deputy Minister of Commerce, Thai Trade Representative, Special Envoy of the Prime Minister, a Director of the Board of Investment (BOI) and a Director of the National Science and Technology Development Agency. Mr. Asvinvichit earned his Bachelor's Degree in Economics from Thammasat University in Thailand and a Master's Degree in Business Administration from the University of Southern California in the United States. Dr Jacques Attali is President of PlaNet Finance (www.planetfinance.org), an international nonprofit organisation based in France with a network of nearly 30 affiliates worldwide which provides support to the microfinance sector. PlaNet Finance‘s actions focus on the following three main areas: 1.) Technical assistance, consulting & advisory services; 2.) Assessing and rating Microfinance Institutions; 3.) Financing Microfinance Institutions. Dr. Attali is also CEO of A&A, an international consulting firm (www.aeta.net) specialised in new technologies based in Paris, Professor, writer, Honorary Member of the Council of State, and was Special Adviser to the President of the Republic from 1981 to 1991, and founder and first President of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development in London from 1991 to 1993. Dr. Attali has a doctorate in Economics and is a graduate of the Ecole Polytechnique, the Ecole des Mines, the Institut d'Etudes Politiques and the Ecole Nationale de l'Administration. He has taught Economic Theory at the Ecole Polytechnique, the Ecole des Ponts et Chaussées and the University of ParisDauphine, and has received honorary doctorates from several foreign universities. He has written forty books, translated into more than twenty languages, with over six million copies sold worldwide. Md. Abdul Awal is the Director of the Credit and Development Forum, a network of 1,500 MFIs in Bangladesh. An Honours Graduate in Agricultural-Economics from Bangladesh Agricultural University, he joined Sonali Bank, the largest commercial bank in the country, as a senior officer/Rural Credit Officer in 1980. Over a 23-year period with Sonali Bank he innovated two products: their Commercial Banks-MFI Linkage Program and Credit for Urbanwomen Micro Enterprise Development (CUMED). In 2003, he resigned from Sonali Bank and went to work with the Palli-Karma Sahayak Foundation (PKSF), an apex funding institution created by the Bangladeshi Government. Mr. Awal has participated in training courses on Microfinance/ Micro-enterprise Development at universities and training institutions in the UK, USA & Kenya and Microcredit Summits and Conferences around the world. Lennart Båge from Sweden was elected President of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) in February 2001. Mr. Båge joined IFAD with nearly 25 years of experience in international development and involvement in the United Nations system and multilateral finance institutions. Prior to IFAD, he served as Head of the Department for International Development Co-operation in Sweden's Ministry for Foreign Affairs. Mr. Båge has also served as Sweden's Deputy for the International Development Association (IDA), ViceChairman of the DAC/OECD, Sweden's Alternate Governor for the Asian, African and InterAmerican Development Banks and Vice-Chairman of the Board of Governors of the African Capacity Building Foundation (ACBF). Mr. Båge is the fourth president of IFAD. He is married with two children, and holds an MBA from the Stockholm School of Economics. Bernd Balkenhol is Director of the Social Finance Program of the International Labour Organization (ILO). SFP examines the impact of financial policies on employment, incomes and social cohesion, it analyses the accessibility of different types of financial institutions and promotes innovations in finance that work for the poor. Earlier Mr. Balkenhol served as advisor to central banks on policies and regulations in support of micro-finance institutions and SME financing. He holds a PhD from Freiburg University and a MA from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. He lectures regularly at the Geneva Institute of Development Studies and the University of Geneva. His publications cover issues ranging from informal finance, collateral and property rights, savings and credit cooperatives, small enterprise finance, remittances and related subjects (www.ilo.org/socialfinance). Jay Banjade has over 20 years of experience in micro and small enterprise development, sustainability strategies for development organizations, and institution building. He has worked in several programs in Asia, Caucasus, Latin America and Africa, and has considerable experience in cross-cultural relationships and practices. At Save the Children, Mr. Banjade works as Associate Director of the Economic Opportunities Office, which focuses on microfinance, business development services and youth employment. Prior to Save the Children, Mr. Banjade worked for GTZ (German Agency for Technical Assistance) as a Senior Advisor, and for NCBA as the Chief of Party of an enterprise development project in Nepal. He has published many books and articles on microenterprise development, and has developed manuals and training packages on board development for microfinance institutions and trains senior management and trustees of microfinance institutions on these packages. Currently, he serves as a Board Member of SEEP Network and Radio Dovaan, Washington DC. Dipal Chandra Barua is the Deputy Manager of Grameen Bank and Managing Director of Grameen Shakti in Bangladesh. He has extensive experience in the field of poverty alleviation, microcredit, rural development and people‘s participation as a result of his affiliation with the Grameen Bank. He started his work in the village of Jobra along with Professor Yunus and became one of the core builders of the Grameen Bank. Since then, he has continued as an active participant in Professor Yunus‘s works and now holds the number two position at Grameen. He obtained Bachelors and Masters degrees with honors in economics at the University of Chittagong, and has published many papers on renewable energies, poverty alleviation technologies, economic theories on poverty alleviation and monetary institutions. Dipal Chandra Barua has extensive international experience, having traveled and worked on numerous projects in 38 different countries, and has participated with UNAIDS on preparing important study reports to develop the microcredit policy for HIV/AIDS in South Asia. In addition he serves as the director of 15 Grameen sister organizations. Len Battifarano is Senior Vice President of American International Underwriters (AIU), AIG's global company. Len is also the Director of AIU's Strategic Alliance operation, responsible for partnerships worldwide. Of particular interest, Len is responsible for AIG's micro insurance strategy and its partnerships with micro finance companies. Len and his team have successfully launched new micro insurance programs in Brazil and India, as well as Central and South America. His team is currently developing new programs for launch in South East Asia and Central Europe and the CIS. Mr. Battifarano has over 25 years of experience in international insurance. He lived and worked abroad in Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Kuwait and continues to travel extensively, conducting business in over 75 countries. Mr. Battifarano received Masters Degrees from Columbia University's School of International Affairs and its Institute of African Studies and graduated from New York University with a Bachelors degree in Economics. Mr. Battifarano currently resides in New York City. Hosne Ara Begum, an Ashoka Fellow & PHF, is the Executive Director of Thengamara Mohila Sabuj Sangha (TMSS) in Bangladesh. She received her B.Sc. in 1972 and her M.Sc. in 1975 from Rajshahi University. She obtained a PhD in Business Administration from the Washington International University, USA. She has taught as a lecturer in botany at Nasratpur College and as an assistant professor at Kurigram Government Women College and Joypurhat Government Women College. Essma Ben Hamida is co-founder and co-director of ENDA Inter-Arabe in Tunisia. Launched in 1995, ENDA is the first and only best practice micro-credit program in the country, currently reaching 27 000 active clients, mainly women, in poor, urban areas with an $8 million outstanding portfolio and working out of 25 branches. ENDA has been financially self-sufficient since 2003. From 1990 to 2000, she also worked within ENDA Inter-Arabe on development and ecological issues. Essma is also a founding member and current Chairperson of the Microfinance Network of the Arab countries, Sanabel. She has worked as a consultant for various UN agencies and is a CGAP/Sanabel trainer. Bijaya Nath Bhattarai, Governor of the Nepal Rastra Bank (Central Bank of Nepal) since January 2005, joined the Central Bank of Nepal in 1972 as an Officer, serving as Executive Director in various Departments of the Bank before becoming Deputy Governor (2000-05) with responsibility to supervise, among others, the Bank‘s Microfinance Department. He has also served as Chairman of the Rural Self-Reliance Fund, BoD, Poverty Alleviation Fund and BoD of Agricultural Development Bank of Nepal. As Central Bank Governor, he is working to establish an autonomous National Rural Self-Reliance Fund and to create a second-tier institution for regulation and supervision of microfinance. Nigel Biggar has over 14 years experience working with microenterprise and microfinance in developing countries. He originally began working in this field as a microentrepreneur on a street youth project he established in Quito Ecuador in the early 1990s. He has worked extensively with MFIs in Latin America and Asia. He is currently the manager of social performance at Grameen Foundation and the principal for all the work with the Progress out of Poverty Index. He previously served as Grameen Foundation‘s Regional Director for the Americas, when he assisted start-up microcredit organizations in Latin America to build and expand their programs based on the Grameen methodology. He holds a Masters degree in Development Studies from the Institute of Development Studies at Sussex University. Peter Bladin started his career in the information technology field in 1987 when he came to the U.S. from Sweden to work at Microsoft Corporation. During his 10 year career at Microsoft, he worked on a variety of projects, both as an individual contributor as well as manager of teams of up to 400 people. Throughout his career he focused on international business challenges. He has a degree in Mathematics, with minors in programming and economics from the University of Uppsala, Sweden. He is active in various non-profits in Seattle with a focus on helping the poor, as well as technology. He currently is the chair of the board of Npower Seattle (www.npower.org), a nonprofit whose mission is to help other non-profits better use technology to achieve their missions. He is also a partner at Social Venture Partners in Seattle. Heading up the Grameen Technology Center is something of a dream job for Peter, as it allows him to combine his interests in appropriate use of technology with a poverty alleviation focus on a global level. His responsibility in the technology center is to drive the strategy, oversee all the projects, and establish appropriate partnerships. Armando Boquin, the Microcredit Summit Campaign‘s Regional Organizer for Latin America and the Caribbean since 2005, is an economist by profession, with a Master‘s in Business Administration and a specialization in Banking and Finance for Development. Before joining the Summit, he had a broad professional background, including teaching at the University-level, serving as a business consultant, and directing and managing various Central-American companies producing mass-consumption products. He has also worked with banks and savings and credit cooperatives, and has extensive experience with both written and audiovisual media. Dirk Brouwer is Founder and Managing Director of Sequoia, an independent international corporate finance advisory and private equity firm. Before founding Sequoia in 2002, Mr. Brouwer worked for more than 7 years at Merrill Lynch in London, where he was Managing Director and Head of Benelux Investment Banking, and prior to this he worked for more than seven years in mergers & acquisitions, leveraged buyouts and private equity at PaineWebber in London and New York. In his capacity of Managing Director of Sequoia, Mr. Brouwer has advised on various assignments, with a combined transaction value of close to USD 4 billion. Mr. Brouwer holds a Masters Degree in Economics from the Erasmus University of Rotterdam and a Masters in Business Administration (MBA) from Stanford University, California. William (Bill) Burrus is the President and CEO of ACCION USA, a private, non-profit subsidiary of ACCION International. Mr. Burrus has dedicated most of his professional career to international development, with a particular interest in Latin America. In the 1970s, he began working with ACCION International and in 1980 was named the Executive Director. Under his leadership, ACCION became internationally recognized for its work in the field of microenterprise development in Latin America. Since 1995 Mr. Burrus has devoted his energies to developing and expanding ACCION microenterprise programs in the United States. Current States where ACCION works include Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, Illinois, Georgia, Florida, Texas, New Mexico and southern California. He has an undergraduate degree in Sociology from Arizona State University and a Masters from Thunderbird Graduate School of International Management. Jonathan Campaigne, Chairman of PRIDE AFRICA, one of the largest microfinance networks in East Africa with operations in Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, Malawi and Kenya, each now independently managed. As the founder of PRIDE (Promotion of Rural Initiatives and Development Enterprises) in 1988, Mr. Campaigne has drawn on his extensive international experience, group solidarity microcredit principles and an entrepreneurial flair to build a highly disciplined credit system for the micro-entrepreneur in Africa. After receiving his BA from Williams College (1965), he was honored as a Todd Fellow at Columbia University. In 1967 Jonathan joined the Peace Corps and spent three years organizing rural agricultural programs in Burkina Faso, West Africa. He returned to Africa in 1987 and settled in Nairobi, Kenya. Jonathan's own ideas for development crystallized when he heard a speech by the head of Bangladesh's Grameen Bank, Mohammed Yunus, in Nairobi. Jonathan is an active member and Past President of the Rotary Club, Nairobi, serves on the Board of ABC bank, the NGO Council of the World Agriculture Forum, and is a Director of PRIDE Tanzania. Marie Chery is a Registered Nurse with over 15 years experience in clinical AIDS research as a Study Coordinator at the University of Miami. Three years ago, she returned to her native country to participate in community development in rural Haiti. She directed a Community Health program sponsored by the University of Miami and Project Medishare in Thomonde, a town of over 60,000 inhabitants. The program emphasizes the prevention of HIV/AIDS/TB, as well as Maternal-Child health. She also contributed to the creation of an HIV support group in the area. This year, Ms. Chery was the recipient of the Haitian American Nurses Association‘s (HANA) ―Humanitarian Award‖ for her work with AIDS patients in rural Haiti. At Fonkoze, Haiti‘s largest microfinance institution, she has designed and tested several microcredit products specially tailored to the specific needs of AIDS patients in resource-poor settings. Currently, she is the Assistant Director of Fonkoze‘s Research and Social Impact Monitoring Department, where she is overseeing the development of several new products designed to reach the very poorest clients. Susy Cheston is Senior Vice President for Policy for Opportunity International, advocating for greater access to microfinance and AIDS programs to help the poor. Susy volunteered with the ACCION International affiliate in Costa Rica in 1991, and then worked in El Salvador in 1992 and 1993 with the Women‘s Opportunity Fund of Opportunity International. As the first Executive Director of the Women‘s Opportunity Fund, Susy oversaw the development of the Trust Bank model, which combines best practices in providing financial services to the poor with holistic transformation, addressing business, family, community and spiritual development. Trust Banks now reach 800,000 clients in 20 countries, and the Trust Bank Manual is used widely around the world. Susy has written and presented widely on microfinance, and particularly on the linkage between women‘s empowerment and microfinance, in the U.S. and throughout the world. Shabbir Ahmed Chowdhury is currently Director of BRAC‘s Micro Finance Program, which has 5.1 million members (99% women) in all the 64 districts of Bangladesh. Since joining BRAC in 1976, he has served as Program Organizer (BRAC Development Program), Faculty Member and Trainer (Training Division), and Administrator (BRAC‘s Integrated Development Project in Sulla). Mr. Chowdhury has 29 years of experience in working for poverty alleviation and empowerment of the poor. He has attended and conducted a number of specialized and professional trainings, seminars, and workshops in Bangladesh, Philippines, Indonesia, India, Sri Lanka, Zimbabwe, Nepal, Pakistan, Mongolia, Mauritius, U.S.A, UK, Denmark, Netherlands, Canada, Australia and NAM member countries. He serves on the Executive Committee of several national and international organizations. Mr. Chowdhury holds a BA and an MA in Economics from Dhaka University and an MA in Development Studies from Institute of Social Studies (ISS), The Hague, The Netherlands. Md. Shafiqual Haque Choudhury is the founder and President of ASA, an MFI in Bangladesh which covers 4.5 million poor households and has 6.4 million savers, through a sustainable program of providing financial services. ASA is known globally as the most cost-effective (cost of money lent is only 3.3%) and quick growth microfinance organization. ASA‘s simple costeffective model has been directly replicated in the Philippines, Indonesia, Nigeria, Yemen and India, and in many other countries indirectly. Mr. Choudhury obtained his Masters Degree in Sociology from Dhaka University in 1969. Before founding ASA, he served as a trainer at Bangladesh Academy for Rural Development. In addition to his position at ASA, he currently is a Member of the Government Housing Revolving Fund; a Member of NGOs Foundation in Bangladesh; and a Member of the Board of Directors of Catalyst Microfinance Investors Company. He has earlier served as Team Leader of the International Technical Service Providers of the UNDP MicroStart Program for the Philippines and Nigeria; a member of the CGAP Policy Advisory Group; and a faculty member of the Microfinance Training Program in Boulder, USA and a visiting fellow at the Coady Institute, Saint Xavier University, Canada. Robert Christen worked for 6 years as Senior Advisor to the Consultative Group to Assist the Poor where he took the leading role in the area of placing microfinance into commercial banks, agricultural microfinance, regulation and supervision, and creating transparency in the marketplace. Mr. Christen has worked for 25 years in the field of microfinance, in over 40 countries, and with NGOs, cooperatives, banks, governments and development organizations and has written several leading publications in the area of financial performance and management of microfinance organizations, regulation and supervision, industry trends and the commercialization of the industry. Since leaving CGAP, Mr. Christen and Consuelo Munoz have formed the consulting firm Christen Munoz y Asociados that specializes in the use of microfinance as a development tool in environmental, rural and community development, social, health, and urban renewal programs. This firm specializes in the design of financial services that are connected to the supply of non-financial services, the provision of subsidy to very poor families, and improved natural resources management practices. The firm brings leading professional experience to the intersection of Natural resources management, poverty alleviation, and microfinance – with a special focus on the lowest income families residing in rural and hard to reach areas. Alex Counts is President and CEO of Grameen Foundation USA (GFUSA) a dynamic, nonprofit in Washington D.C. impacting the lives of an estimated seven million of the world‘s poor through 52 microfinance partners in 22 countries. Counts established GFUSA in 1997 with a special charge from mentor Dr. Muhammad Yunus, founder and managing director of Grameen Bank in Bangladesh. Over a career of nearly 20 years, Counts helped establish Grameen Bank‘s flagship Grameen Dialogue as a Fulbright scholar; later worked as regional project manager for CARE-Bangladesh; and served as the legislative director of RESULTS. Among Counts‘ publications is Give Us Credit: How Muhammad Yunus' Micro-Lending Revolution is Empowering Women from Bangladesh to Chicago. Mary Coyle, University Vice President and Director of the Coady International Institute at St. Francis Xavier University is a leader in the Canadian international development community. Mary started her development career in 1980 working for the Ministry of Commerce and Industry in Botswana on rural industrialization. She followed that posting with a position as Rural Development Advisor in South Sulawesi, Indonesia. Mary Coyle was Executive Director of Calmeadow (1986- 1996), a Canadian NGO working in Micro Finance in Canada and throughout the world. Her graduate studies were in rural planning and development at the University of Guelph. Mary‘s expertise is in the fields of leadership, management, microfinance, capacity building of civil society organizations, gender, and rural development. Mary sits on the boards of the International Development Research Centre, the Stephen Lewis Foundation, the North-South Institute, the Indian School of Microfinance for Women, St. Francis Xavier University, and the Canadian Judicial Council Chairperson‘s Advisory Group. Christopher Crane became President and CEO of Opportunity International, based in the U.S, in 2002. Opportunity has 850,000 borrowers in 28 countries and loaned $300 million in 2005. In 2005 he co-authored a research paper entitled Alleviating Global Poverty through Microfinance: Factors and Measures of Financial, Economic, and Social Performance and presented it at Harvard Business School‘s ―Enterprise Solutions to Poverty Conference‖. In 1992 he acquired COMPS InfoSystems, Inc. and was CEO until he sold the company in 2000. During his tenure, COMPS became the largest electronic database publisher of commercial real estate sales information in the U.S. COMPS acquired 13 other companies and went public in 1999. He earned an MBA from Harvard Business School in 1976. Nhan Phan Cu is currently Director of the International Co-operation Department at the Vietnam Bank for Social Policies (VBSP). Prior to this position he worked at the head office of the Vietnam Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (Agribank) as a finance and accounting specialist. He also worked as manager of the information, accounting and finance departments of the Agribank Financial Leasing Company. Mr Nhan Phan holds a B.Sc. from Ha Noi Banking University, a B.Sc. from the National Institute of Public Administration- Vietnam and an MBA from the Asian Institute of Technology. Sam Daley-Harris is Founder of RESULTS Educational Fund, a 501(c)(3) organization dedicated to mass educational strategies to generate the will to end world hunger. RESULTS Educational Fund organized the February 1997 Microcredit Summit held in Washington, D.C. The Summit was attended by more than 2,900 participants from 137 countries and launched a nine-year campaign to reach 100 million of the world's poorest families, especially the women of those families, with credit for self-employment and other financial and business services by the end of 2005. He is Director of the Microcredit Summit Campaign. Mr. Daley-Harris is also Founder of RESULTS, an international citizens' lobby dedicated to creating the political will to end hunger and poverty. Mr. Daley-Harris is author of Reclaiming Our Democracy: Healing the Break Between People and Government, and editor of Pathways Out of Poverty: Innovations in Microfinance for the Poorest Families. Geoff Davis, President and CEO of Unitus, has worked with microfinance programs worldwide for the last nine years, beginning with a program he founded in central Mexico. He was an early employee at Grameen Foundation USA, a global microfinance leader, and has spoken widely on microfinance, including speeches and lectures at the International Monetary Fund, on National Public Radio, and at Harvard, Stanford and Brigham Young Universities. He has also been a speaker on microfinance topics at conferences in Chile, Switzerland, Bangladesh and elsewhere. In addition, Geoff is an entrepreneur, having worked at numerous startups and formed several companies earlier in his career. Geoff holds a B.A. in international relations from Brigham Young University and a master's degree in development economics and public policy from Harvard University. Angel L. de Leon, Jr. is the Executive Director of Taytay sa Kauswagan, Inc. (TSKI), a member of the Opportunity International Network and the largest microfinance organization in the Philippines, having served more than 162,000 clients in 2005. Mr. de Leon co-developed a branch office replication methodology which can establish a new branch with borrowed funds and become financially viable within one year. This methodology has enabled TSKI and other Opportunity MFIs to grow rapidly within a very short time frame. Originally trained to enter the priesthood, Mr. de Leon earned his MBA while in seminary and ministers by bringing microfinance and transformational services to the poor. Chris De Noose, Chairman of the Management Committee of the World Savings Banks Institute and the European Savings Banks Group, holds Masters degrees in Economics and Finance, Consular Science, Commercial Engineering and Management from the Flemish University of Brussels. He began his professional career in a Belgian savings bank in 1974 as Adviser to the Chairman. From 1980 to 1994, Mr DE NOOSE was Chief Executive Officer of the Belgian Savings Banks Group. In 1994, Mr DE NOOSE took up the post of Chairman of the Management Committee of the European Savings Banks Group (ESBG) and the World Savings Banks Institute (WSBI) in Brussels, which he has held up to now. Since January 2002, he has been Chairman of the Management Committee of Euro-Sofac, a company providing international assistance and consultancy to SMEs, a joint subsidiary of the Belgian, French, German, Italian, and Spanish savings banks. Mr DE NOOSE is also a Member of the European Banking Industry Committee (EBIC), a Board Member of the European Committee for Banking Standards, Member of the European Payments Council, and Member of European Financial Reporting Advisory Group EFRAG (Supervisory Board and Budget Board). Sathianathan Devaraj has been involved in development activities focusing on women empowerment and poverty eradication for the last 30 years. He is the founder of The Activists for Social Alternatives and Grama Vidiyal, which is now one of the Leading Micro Finance Institutions in India. His fervor to fight for a social order with social justice and human dignity led him to set up ‗The Animators for Community Development‘ (ACD). He completed his Post Graduate Diploma course in Social Development offered by the Coady International Institute (CII), St. Francis Xavier University, Halifax, Canada. Devaraj also served as the Director of Cashpor Financial and Technical Services until 1998 and has been an International Consultant in the Advisory Board of IDEAS, USA in the past. John de Wit is the Founder and Managing Director of the Small Enterprise Foundation (SEF), a South African microfinance NGO committed to the alleviation of poverty. SEF currently serves 34,000 clients, having attained financial self-sufficiency during the third quarter of 2004. In the field of microcredit SEF has gained a world-wide reputation for its dedication to reaching the very poor, those who live in the bottom half below the national poverty line, and ensuring positive impact. SEF‘s poverty targeting tool, Participatory Wealth Ranking (PWR), was one of the first of two such tools adopted by the Microcredit Summit Campaign. SEF has been a recipient of the Grameen Foundation Pioneer Award and the CGAP Financial Transparency Awards. Mr de Wit has served as a member of the Policy Advisory Group of CGAP, and is currently a trustee of ChoiCe, a South African health sector NGO which focuses on home-based care for people living with HIV/AIDS and TB. María del Carmen Díaz Amador is the General Coordinator of the National Program for the Financing of Microenterprise at the Ministry of Economy in Mexico. With a Ph.D. in Sociology from El Colegio de México, Mary Carmen has dedicated the last 6 years to developing microfinance and microcredit programs in Mexico. She also has extensive academic experience as a Researcher, Program Manager and Lecturer on the topic of social sciences at the Institute of Social Sciences and Humanities of the Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla. Previously, she served as President of the Commission on Science and Technology, during the 57th Congress of the House of Representatives of the Mexican Republic. Gauthier Dieudonne, Director of Business Development, joined the staff of Fonkoze in Haiti in 2002 to head their Business Development Program. Prior to joining Fonkoze, he was Commercial Director at a Haitian-Italian company, specializing in construction materials, Italian tiles and furniture. He holds a BSS in Medical Laboratory Technology and Information System Management. Originally from a small town in Haiti, he spent 25 years between Chicago and New York City. Before leaving the United States in 1995, he was a supervisor at the Hematology Laboratory at Elmhurst General Hospital in Queens NY. He was recently chosen to head the BRAC replication program for the ultra poor in Haiti. Henri Dommel is the Rural Finance Senior Technical Advisor for the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD). He provides technical support to the five regional divisions, in the project development cycle, and is responsible for developing the policy/partnership and learning agendas in rural finance for IFAD. Mr. Dommel has 15 years of professional experience spanning both the private sector and international development. Prior to IFAD, he worked at the United National Capital Development Fund as well as UNDP. As a Programme Manager with UNCDF, Mr. Dommel supervised the USD 50 million microfinance portfolio invested in 20 countries and served as Team Leader for the 1998 UNCDF Portfolio Review with CGAP. Previously, he worked in international finance with Banque Paribas, both in Paris and New Delhi, India. Mr. Dommel holds a M.A. in International Affairs from the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Affairs at Johns Hopkins University. Kate Druschel, Regional Coordinator for East and Southeast Asia at Grameen Foundation, and Former Associate Director of the Enterprise Development Group at the University of Maryland‘s IRIS Center, has extensive knowledge of financial regulation in the context of microfinance and of microenterprise development best practice. She is an expert on the development of the Chinese microfinance system and is fluent in Mandarin Chinese. She brings project experience in institutional assessments, regulatory frameworks, and financial sector development. She currently directs the Microfinance Regulation and Supervision Resource Center for CGAP and has advised the People's Bank of China on regulatory reform options for microfinance. In addition, Ms. Druschel is exploring the regulatory obstacles to increased private sector investment in the microfinance industry. Ms. Druschel has conducted fieldwork in China, Georgia, Uganda, the Philippines, and India, and lived in China for three years. Christopher Dunford joined Freedom from Hunger in 1984. He holds a Ph.D. in Ecology from the University of Arizona and a Bachelor's degree in Biological Science from Cornell University. He has a wide range of development planning and management experience in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the United States through his work with the United Nations, USAID and Freedom from Hunger. Originally recruited to lead Freedom from Hunger‘s domestic programs, Dr. Dunford became Freedom from Hunger‘s Vice President for International Programs in 1987 and President in 1991. Dr. Dunford has been instrumental in the design and implementation of Freedom from Hunger's strategy for providing self-financing poverty lending to rural women while simultaneously providing education on health and nutrition issues. He sits on the boards of InterAction; our partner organizations, CRECER and FOCCAS; and Microcredit Enterprises, Inc. He received the Warner P. Woodworth Social Entrepreneur of the Year Award given by the Marriott School of Business at Brigham Young University in 2004. He has authored numerous papers, impact studies and two books. Sébastien Duquet is the managing director of PlaNet Finance Network. He is an expert in accounting methodologies and audit of emerging market banking institutions. He was successively consultant at the Banking Department of Andersen, Finance Department Manager at HSBC France and manager at Ernst & Young network. He has over the last 12 years conducted a lot of assignments in Emerging Markets countries especially in the banking sector and the funding of SMEs. He was till 2004 responsible for the activities of PlaNet in the MENA region and especially in Morocco. Sébastien has an International Finance Diploma from the EDHEC Business School and a Chartered Accountant Diploma from the French Ministry of Education. Ahmed El-Ashmawi, Executive Director of Sanabel - Microfinance Network of Arab Countries, manages a regional network that provides capacity building services, information exchange activities and advocacy for best practice microfinance to MFIs in 11 Arab Countries serving more than 1.2 million microentrepreneurs. He is a member of the Middle East & North Africa Consultative Group formed by CGAP to scale up microfinance in the MENA region. He has conducted numerous training needs assessments and designed many successful training courses for different beneficiaries, including top and middle managers and supervisors from private sector companies, business associations and ministries. He holds a Masters degree in Human Resource Management from a leading UK Business School. This is complemented by more than fourteen years of practical experience in training, HR, marketing and microfinance, six of which were spent establishing and managing two of the highest profile training centres in Egypt funded by the European Union. Dr. Kamel Esseghairi has been the Social Affairs Department Director at the African Union (AU) Commission since July 2004. He oversees health matters, poverty alleviation, and income generation for local development. As Executive Director of the Tunisian Association ―Women For Sustainable Development,‖ in 2003 he managed a budget of US$ 700,000 that provided microcredit for income-generating projects to 3,000 deprived families. As an African Medical Epidemiologist and Social Development Practitioner for over 20 years, he was actively involved in the Middle East/Africa Region Microcredit Summit Meeting of Councils, held in Jordan from October 10-13 2004, where he chaired a plenary session. Among others, he was instrumental in the scientific and logistic preparation and running of the AU Summit on Employment and Poverty Alleviation in Africa, the AU Summit where the African HIV/AIDS Strategic Plan 20052007 was adopted, and the 2nd Conference of AU Ministers of Health in Botswana. Dr Esseghairi holds a Doctorate of Medicine, an MPH in Epidemiology from Tulane UniversityUSA, a Master of Sciences in Social Statistics and Population Studies, and a Master of Philosophy in Social Sciences and Reproductive Health from Southampton University-UK. Chris Eyre is a managing director of Legacy Venture, a unique venture fund devoted to amplifying the size and effectiveness of philanthropy. He was a founding partner of Merrill Pickard Anderson & Eyre early in the venture capital industry‘s formation. Chris stepped back from originating venture investments for a season to spend more time as a father of a large family and engage in philanthropic and non-profit activities. In his church, he served for five years as the lay minister of a congregation. Legacy has allowed him to combine his business, volunteer, and philanthropic worlds into one. He is an inaugural member of The Philanthropic Workshop West (TPW), on the Board of the American Leadership Forum, a partner of SVP Bay Area, on the board of Benetech, and a member of several other organizations dedicated to advancing the field of philanthropy. Chris holds an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School and a B.S. from Utah State University. Ira Feldman co-facilitated the Wharton Green Microfinance Roundtable: Microfinance and the Environment. As a member of the Green Microfinance team, he brings both a legal and a technical background in environmental issues. He specializes in assisting government and industry with strategic environmental management and sustainability planning. He was a member of the Environmental Management Task Force of the President's Council on Sustainable Development (PCSD) and the Multi-State Working Group on EMS (MSWG). As Special Counsel in the Office of Compliance at EPA, Ira developed and directed the Environmental Leadership Program, EPA's first program on corporate environmental excellence, and chaired the revision of the Agency's policies on environmental auditing and self-disclosure. Ira continues to play a leadership role in the U.S. and internationally relating to ISO 14000, the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), and other environmental excellence, innovation, and sustainability initiatives. Jo-Anne Ferguson is the Senior Director for the Canadian Cooperatives Association‘s Development Unit. Jo-Anne has over twenty years of significant experience in credit union management, policy, operations and institution development with Credit Union Centrals, and with the Sri Lanka Credit Union System. She has directed the delivery of education training programs through a national network of regional co-operative councils in Canada. Jo-Anne also has conducted comprehensive program development, missions to provide technical assistance and monitoring services in the transitional economies of China and Mongolia, as well as India, Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines. Àngel Font Vidal has a BA in Chemistry from the University of Barcelona and an MBA from EADA Business School. Angel Font started his professional career path in environmental engineering, although he soon joined Intermón Oxfam where he spent 8 years coordinating projects in Latin America on communication and fundraising as well as serving as the Deputy General Director. Since 2000 he is the Director of Fundació Un Món of Caixa Catalunya, from where he promotes projects of labour insertion for underprivileged groups as well as the development of microfinance in Spain, Latin America and Africa. He is the Vice-president of the European Microfinance Network and member of the Co-operation Council for the Development of the Regional Government of Catalonia. He also collaborates in different business schools by teaching on subjects related to the management of non-profit organisations. Laura Foose is a partner of Alternative Credit Technologies, LLC. She has eleven years of experience in policy design and advocacy promoting private sector development and poverty alleviation in developing and transitional countries. Ms. Foose has significant experience formulating microfinance policies for the international donor community, in particular USAID and the multilateral development banks (MDBs). While at FINCA International, she helped to draft the Microenterprise for Self Reliance Act that now governs USAID's microenterprise program. She continues to work closely with donors and over 40 microenterprise practitioner organizations in her facilitation role of the Poverty Outreach Working Group with the SEEP Network. She also acts as Secretariat of the global Social Performance Task Force. Ms. Foose has also designed microfinance projects and conducted multiple evaluations of MFIs. She is a founder and steering committee member of Women Advancing Microfinance. Elizabeth Funk is the founder and CEO of the Dignity Fund (www.dignityfund.com), the Vice Chairman of Unitus (www.unitus.com), is on the Board of Deutsche Bank‘s Global Microfinance Consortium and Ujiivan. Ms. Funk Chairs the Social Enterprise Networks of Young President‘s Organization and is the Forum Moderator for the YPO Microfinance Forum. Ms. Funk is President and CEO of CML Global Capital, an international investment firm. Previously she founded and ran Yahoo!‘s online Shopping services and served as a Product Manager for Microsoft Word and Microsoft Office. Ms. Funk graduated from Stanford University and holds an MBA from Harvard Business School. She is married, has two children, and lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. Anne Gaboury is President and CEO of Développement international Desjardins (DID). Founded 35 years ago, DID provides support to financial institutions in numerous countries in Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean, Asia and Eastern and Central Europe. DID specializes in technical support and investment in the area of community finance, working in partnership with CIDA, the Government of Quebec, the World Bank and other multilateral organizations. Anne joined DID in 1995 after having worked for five years in development at the Confédération des caisses du Mouvement Desjardins. Before assuming her current position, she was in charge of the development and management of DID‘s instrumentation. She has contributed to the documentation of DID‘s operating methods and to the refining of the institutional positions of the organization, thus facilitating the sharing of knowledge with DID partners. She holds a Masters degree in psychology and a Master‘s in Business Administration (MBA), specializing in Finance. In addition to her responsibilities at DID, she is a board member of the Canadian Council on Africa (CCAfrica) and chairs the development committee of the International Cooperative and Mutual Insurance Federation (ICMIF). Gisele Gagnon-Thibeault has been with the Mouvement Desjardins since 1980, working mainly with banking technologies. She joined Developpement international Desjardins (DID) in 1999, to manage the Information Technologies Department. She completed several missions across Africa and Asia to identify the needs of microfinance institutions for banking software adapted to operations in rural and urban sites. In 2001, she became Project Manager in Ivory Coast and Guinea. In 2002, Mrs. Gagnon tested on the ground the technological solutions of DID in Senegal for a one year mandate with the PAMECAS MFI. She continued her activities on the ground, from November 2003 to December 2005, as Manager for the project named ―Low cost technologies to promote economic development of the poorest‖ in Bamako, Mali. This project gave her the opportunity to develop and establish various software programs complementary to SAF2000 with the Pocket PC portable technologies. Grzegorz Galusek, Executive Director of the Microfinance Centre (MFC) for Central and Eastern Europe and the Newly Independent States, is a microfinance specialist with significant field experience gained through working for Fundusz Mikro, an MFI based in Poland. As Director of the MFC he has designed regional and country specific programs which address the needs for financial and non-financial services among low-income people and microentrepreneurs. Additionally, Mr Galusek has initiated a regional microfinance policy program with a broad goal of fostering creation of a favorable legal and regulatory framework for access to financial services for low-income people in specific countries of C&EE and the NIS. Various technical assistance, research and legal programs under his supervision cover 26 countries of Central Asia, Caucasus, Balkans and Central/Eastern Europe. Prior to his work at the MFC and Fundusz Mikro, Mr Galusek coordinated activities of field programs in four C&EE countries for USAID funded legal reform project based in Poland. Stélio Gama Lyra, Junior is the Superintendent of Microfinance and Special Programs of Banco do Nordeste do Brasil, which is a multiple financial institution created in 1952 by Federal Law, and organized in the form of a government-controlled corporation with open capital. Before serving as Superintendent, he worked with Banco do Nordeste as the Senior Manager of their Microcredit Program (CREDIAMIGO), as the Senior Manager of their National Rural/Agricultural Microfinance Program (PRONAF), and as the Senior Manager of their Program of Sustainable Development of Tourism in the Northeast (PRODETUR). He was also a member of the interministerial committee for the establishment of the National Program of Productive Orientated Microcredit of the Federal Government of Brazil. Stélio Gama Lyra, Junior has a Masters in Evaluations of Public Policy from the Universidade Federal do Ceará (UFC) in Brazil, a Bachelors in Economics, and has participated as a conference speaker on microfinance and tourism in several national and international forums. Klaus Gerhaeusser has a Ph.D. in Economics and a Masters degree in Business Administration. He has worked for almost 10 years at the International Monetary Fund on macroeconomic and structural policy issues in the Middle East and the Western Hemisphere Departments. Since 1996, he has been working at the Asian Development Bank in various capacities including Programs Officer and Senior Economist, India; Director for Governance, Finance and Trade in South Asia; Deputy Director General of the Regional and Sustainable Development Department and most recently Deputy Director General of East Asia Department. Dr. Makonen Getu has 25 years of experience in development research, planning, implementation and evaluation with focus on microfinance. He currently serves as Director for Strategic Alliances and as Manager of the Orphans and Vulnerable Children Project funded by the USAID under PEPFAR. He is also Adjunct Faculty at Oxford Centre for Mission Studies. Formerly he worked as Lecturer in development economics, University of Stockholm; Program Officer, United Nations Development Program; Rural Development Adviser, Swedish International Development Agency; Deputy Country Director, World Vision International Zambia; Africa Regional Manager, World Vision Australia; Africa Deputy Regional Director, Opportunity International; International Program Director, Christian Transformation Resource Center and Lecturer in development studies, University of Stockholm. He has also published numerous books, pamphlets, articles and workshop papers on various topics related to development and microfinance, including the impact of microfinance on HIV/AIDS and human trafficking. Nathanael Goldberg is a project director with Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA), a nonprofit organization dedicated to creating, evaluating, and replicating innovative solutions to development problems. Nathanael manages IPA‘s development and implementation of evaluations of microfinance products and services. Previously he served as chief of staff of the Microcredit Summit Campaign. Nathanael has a degree in economics from Wesleyan University and a Master in Public Affairs in International Development from Princeton University‘s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. Micol Guarneri has worked with Microfinanza Srl since its establishment in 2002. In 2004 she attended specialisation courses on theoretical and technical innovations in microfinance, rural finance and finance for SMEs (the MFTP at Naropa University, Boulder – Colorado and the Executive Program Financial Institution for Enterprise Development at the Kennedy School of Governance, Harvard University - Cambridge/Boston). She has more than six years experience in research, rating and assessment services and technical assistance provided to Microfinance Institutions. She has carried out evaluations and ratings of numerous Microfinance Institutions in Central America, Africa, Asia and Caucasus, East Europe and the Balkans. She is currently Director of Microfinanza Rating Srl, in charge of the final supervision of the rating reports and of the development of new products, including a social performance evaluation tool. Before joining Microfinanza Srl, Mrs Guarneri worked with several Italian NGOs, providing technical assistance services to microfinance projects, mainly in Africa and Eastern Europe. Tor G. Gull has been the Managing Director of Oikocredit in the Netherlands since mid 2001. Tor is from Finland where he graduated from the Swedish School of Economics and Business Administration in 1978. He also holds an MBA from the Helsinki School of Economics/ University of South Carolina. Before joining Oikocredit, Tor worked as a Senior Vice President and Head of Export and Project Finance for one of the biggest commercial banks in Finland. During that time he was also for three years Chief Representative for the bank in South East Asia and China, based in Hong Kong. His experience also includes the Pulp and Paper Industry, as well as Development Aid projects in Tanzania and Kenya. Joan Hall has fifteen years of experience in microfinance. She received her Master of Science degree in Development Management in 1986 from The American University in Washington, D.C. She began her career with FINCA, starting the first microfinance institution in El Salvador, and since then has worked with CRS, Consortium Viet Nam, and the UN Relief and Works Agency in Palestine. She has been consulting in microfinance since 1998. In 2002 she joined with two like-minded colleagues to form Green Microfinance, LLC. Md. Enamul Haque is Executive Vice-President of Operations at ASA: one of the bestmanaged, largest, most self- reliant, innovative and cost-efficient MFIs in the world. ASA is currently providing microfinance services to 6.5 million members in Bangladesh. Mr. Haque began his career with PROSHIKA, one of the leading NGOs in Bangladesh, in 1979 and worked there until 1987 when he shifted to ASA. He is also former President of the Coordinating Council for Human Rights in Bangladesh (CCHRB) and ex-Chairperson of the Credit and Development Forum (CDF). Mr. Haque has been published widely, writing mainly on poverty, development and various domestic and international issues. He has worked as a microfinance consultant, both nationally and internationally, and has also attended numerous seminars and workshops as a key note presenter and panelist. He holds a MSS degree in Political Science from Chittagong University, as well as a diploma in Project Management and Administration from Denmark. Bill Harrington, Senior Microfinance Consultant for MEDA, has over twenty years of experience in microfinance, governance and small business development in the US and Latin America as well as years of socially responsible investment fund management. He has provided advice and training to MFIs on the requirements necessary to attract capital investments. He has substantial experience in governance issues including improvement of board oversight of performance, elimination of conflicts of interest, and transparency. Dr. Syed Hashemi, Senior Microfinance Specialist, joined CGAP in 1999. He concentrates on identifying pro-poor innovations and disseminating best practice lessons related to poverty outreach and impact. He developed the CGAP poverty audit for financial institutions and has worked extensively on assessing poverty levels of MFI clients. He is currently involved in developing social performance indicators for tracking changes in the social and economic levels of MFI clients. Dr. Hashemi also has regional responsibilities in developing access to financial services for the poor in South Asia. Before joining CGAP, Dr. Hashemi directed the Programs for Research on Poverty Alleviation at the Grameen Trust from 1994-99. He also taught development studies at Jahangirnagar University in Bangladesh for 12 years, where he conducted research on microfinance, NGOs, and gender subordination in rural Bangladesh. Dr. Hashemi holds a Ph.D. in economics from the University of California at Riverdale. A Bangladeshi national, he speaks English, Bangla, and conversational Hindi. Anne Hastings has been the Executive Director of Fonkoze – Haiti‘s largest microfinance institution – since May 1996. Under her leadership, the institution has grown from 2 volunteer employees to over 360 full-time employees. The institution now has 25 branches throughout rural Haiti, with over 80,000 clients, 28,000 of whom have microcredit loans. In July 2004, Fonkoze spun off its financial services component to form a commercial financial institution. Anne serves on the board of directors of that institution. She continues to manage the foundation, which is now devoted to eliminating illiteracy among its clients, reaching ever poorer and more rural clients with its microfinance services, and developing innovative new microfinance products. Anne is the recipient of the 2005 Pioneer in Microfinance Award of Grameen Foundation USA. Before coming to Haiti, Anne had fifteen years of experience in providing strategic management services to executives through her consulting company Scanlon and Hastings. Anne holds a PhD from the University of Virginia. John Hatch is the founder of FINCA, one of the world's leading microcredit institutions with programs in 23 countries and over one million low-income families assisted since its inception in 1984. John is also known as the father of "village banking", a group loan methodology now replicated by over 800 microcredit programs in 60 countries. John's economic development career spans 44 years, during which time he has served as a Peace Corps volunteer and staff member, a Fulbright scholar (PhD, Univ. of Wisconsin, 1973), an economist, and a consultant to small farmer development projects in some 50 countries. John currently directs FINCA's global mission support department, which features action research by summer interns armed with Palm Pilots interviewing some 3,000 clients per year to document their poverty levels, business profitability, and rising living standards. John is a co-founder and Executive Committee member of the Microcredit Summit Campaign. He has given microcredit workshops at universities at home and abroad, while also teaching microcredit at George Washington University and Johns Hopkins SAIS. Susan Henry has over 10 years of experience in the micro-finance arena, including program development, community development and outreach, member service, and revenue growth. She is currently the Community Economic Development Specialist at Alterna Savings, where she and has successfully managed the Community Micro Loan Program for over five years. Prior, Susan was a Business Loan Specialist at the Calmeadow Metrofund in Toronto. At Alterna Savings, Susan has helped over 373 micro entrepreneurs achieve their goals through lending, coaching, educational and networking events and more. Lauren Hendricks, Director of the Economic Development Unit for CARE USA, is responsible for strategic direction and technical leadership for over 100 active microfinance and enterprise development programs in 54 countries. She currently serves on the Board of Directors and Investment Committee for MicroVest, a capital management firm investing in microfinance institutions. Ms. Hendricks also represents CARE on the board of directors of several national MFIs and serves on the board of Directors of the SEEP Network. Prior to joining CARE, Ms. Hendricks was a program specialist at the IRIS Center at the University of Maryland, focusing on the development of low-cost tools to assess the poverty outreach of USAID funded microenterprise development programs in response to congressional legislation. She also served on the team designing and developing content for the CGAP Microfinance Regulation and Supervision Resource Center. She has over 10 years of experience evaluating, designing and promoting the development of microfinance programs worldwide. Ranjith Hettiarachchi has served as CEO of the Asian Confederation of Credit Unions (ACCU) in Thailand since 1993, dealing with the challenge of addressing the pressing needs and issues on growth and sustainability of its members in 26 countries. He has nearly 25 years of experience in credit union development in different capacities, ranging from Volunteer Trainer to General Manager of SANASA in Sri Lanka to his current position as CEO of ACCU. During his tenure, he has brought to the forefront the issue of the insufficient outreach of Credit Unions to the ‗have less‘ sectors of the community, particularly women and youth. Mr. Hettiarachchi earned a Degree in Economics and a Masters Degree in Development Management from Manchester University, UK. Ravindra Hewavitharana is the Director General of Sri Lanka‘s national poverty alleviation program "Samurdhi", which has 1038 Samurdhi Banks spread across the island where 2.1 million members are being enrolled. He formerly served as Director of the Rural Development Training and Research Institute in Colombo. He has a total of 15 years of service in remote districts of Sri Lanka as Divisional Administrator and 4 years at the national level. He has been engaged in empowering and mobilizing low income communities in rural areas through collective attempts in income generation activities, rural infrastructure development, and microcredit. Gaamaa Hishigsuren, PhD, a Mongolian national, has substantial experience in microenterprise development finance. She has taught, researched and written on various topics related to managing growth, institutional transformation of microfinance NGOs, rural finance, social performance management, impact evaluation, poverty assessment and institutional appraisal. She is a member of the SEEP Client Assessment Working Group and Poverty Outreach Working Group. Dr. Hishigsuren has consulted in evaluating the impact of microfinance institutions in India, Ghana and Mongolia using AIMS-SEEP impact tools. She is a Director of Research at IDEAS, a fellow at Microfinance Management Institute and an adjunct faculty at Southern New Hampshire University and National University of Mongolia. Dr. Ishrat Husain is Chairman of Kashf Foundation, Pakistan's leading NGO provider of microcredit. As Governor of Pakistan's Central bank from 1999-2005 he pioneered and developed the regulation and supervision of Microfinance institutions within the framework of orgnized of financial sector, He worked with Asian Development Bank in formulating the Microcredit Development program-a sectoral and multipronged approach and granted licenses for various tiers of Microfinance banks in the country.He worked for the World Bank between 1979-99 and as the Director of Poverty and Social Policy Department carried out an evaluation of Social Funds in 30 developing countries and guided the research study on Grameen Bank. Dr. Husain is HEC Distinguished National Professor and recipient of several national and international awards including the Best Central Bank Governor in Asia for 2005. Kamal Hyat has served as the Chief Executive of the Pakistan Poverty Alleviation Fund (PPAF) since 1998. The fund represents an innovative model of public/private partnership, with facilitation by the government, but management and decision making entirely in the hands of the management team who report directly to the Board of Directors. PPAF‘s principle resource base is provided by the World Bank. It has grown exponentially since its inception, and its outreach extends to almost all of Pakistan. In 1994, he was commissioned by the Government of Pakistan to travel to Bangladesh to study Grameen Bank and write a report on the feasibility of its replication in Pakistan. The report stated that, with minor adjustments, the Grameen Bank model could be replicated. Since then a number of civil society microfinance organizations have replicated the Grameen methodology in Pakistan. Dave Irvine-Halliday is the Founder of Light Up the World (LUTW), which has facilitated the introduction of safe, healthy, reliable, and affordable Solid State Lighting (White Light Emitting Diode) systems in over 14,000 homes in 26 countries) and is based in Canada. He received his BSc from Dundee and his MSc and PhD from Aberdeen in Scotland. As Founder of LUTW, he has been recognized by the Aberdeen University of Scotland with the Degree of Doctor Honoris Causa, by the Government of Canada with a Meritorious Service Medal, and by Time Canada Heroes among other distinctions. Mary-Ellen Iskenderian became President and CEO of Women's World Banking, a global network of over 50 microfinance institutions and banks that provide financial services to over 23 million low income women and men worldwide, in September 2006. Ms. Iskenderian, who has held numerous leadership positions at the International Finance Corporation (World Bank Group), brings to WWB over twenty years of experience in building financial systems globally. She will lead WWB‘s efforts in developing and delivering products and services that meet the needs of low-income women and their households through the WWB network of microfinance institutions and banks. She also sits on the boards of directors of the National Bank of Commerce in Tanzania and ShoreCap International, and has held corporate directorship positions with a number of organizations. Ms. Iskenderian holds an MBA degree from the Yale School of Organization and Management and a BS in International Economics from the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service. Elizabeth Israel is the co-founder and President of Green Microfinance, LLC (GMf), formed in 2002, whose mission is to promote environmentally sustainable microenterprise and microfinance. Elizabeth initiated and co-facilitated the Wharton-Green Microfinance Roundtable: Microfinance and the Environment held May 2006. For twenty-six years Elizabeth has worked in community-based economic development. For 7 years, Elizabeth lived in rural communities with her family while serving in the Commonwealth of Dominica and in Nepal under the United Methodist Church. She began her career with Trickle Up (TUP), forming one of the first TUP groups in 1979. After returning to the United States from Nepal, Elizabeth joined the newly-formed Working Capital team, which received the First Presidential Award in Microenterprise Development for Innovation from President Bill Clinton at the White House in 1997. Prior to forming Green Microfinance, she was Washington Director of Christian Children‘s Fund and Director of Eastern University International Economic Development Program. Emmanuelle Javoy joined Planet Rating in 2003 and is now Director in charge of new product development. Emmanuelle has already carried out more than twenty missions in Africa, the Middle East, Eastern Europe and Asia; has revised PR‘s analytical tools and is in charge of the training process for new analysts. Her technical expertise allows her to represent PR in international conferences such as Sanabel and the African Forum for Evaluation. Before joining PR, Emmanuelle was a consultant for the Boston Consulting Group where she developed her technical skills and learned training methodologies. Emmanuelle graduated in Public Management from the Ecole Supérieure de Commerce de Paris. Linda Jones, Technical Director of the Production Marketing Linkages Department at MEDA, has expertise in pro-poor market development, value chain analysis, and capacity building. She has recent management experience in Central and Southern Asia, including design and implementation of the award-winning ―From Behind the Veil‖ project in Pakistan. Linda has a range of consulting experience from women‘s economic empowerment in Afghanistan to market development in Uganda, and serves as Pro-Poor Market Development Program Coordinator for MDI at Southern New Hampshire University, the Chair of the BoD of SEEP Network, and contributor at a range of industry venues. Before joining MEDA, Linda completed a Ph.D. in Anthropology, managed a university research centre, and was a successful entrepreneur for over ten years. MKS Kalyanasundaram has since 2003 served as the Chief Executive of INAFI India, a country chapter affiliated to the global INAFI network with 17 members representing nearly a million clients with a savings portfolio of USD 25 million and loan portfolio of USD 110 million. Prior to his work with INAFI, he worked with DHAN Foundation for two years as a Senior Fellow in policy research and advocacy for the enabling model of microfinance programmes at the national level and also promoting SHG-bank linkage programmes. Before this, he had two decades of development banking experience in a leading commercial bank in India, and was intensively involved in field operations as well as strategic policy making, and programme design for agriculture, rural and microfinance in the bank. Also associated with designing project audit systems for agricultural, rural and microfinance projects and monitoring systems. He has also been involved in a national policy consultation process with Reserve Bank of India, National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development, Small Industries Development Bank of India for providing, enabling legal and regulatory framework for the microfinance sector. Dean Karlan is an Assistant Professor of Economics at Yale University. Prior, he was an Assistant Professor at Princeton University. Karlan is a fellow of the M.I.T. Poverty Action Lab and President of Innovations for Poverty Action. His research focuses on microfinance policy, specifically examining what works, what does not, and why. Studies cover interest rate policy, credit scoring, group versus individual liability, savings design, credit with education, marketing and psychology of decision-making, and impact. He has consulted for the World Bank and Asian Development Bank. Karlan received a Ph.D. in Economics from M.I.T., an M.B.A. and M.P.P. from the University of Chicago, and a B.A. from the University of Virginia. Fedy Kokoumeh is a graduate of the Institute of Banking Technology, (ITB, Institut Technique de Banque) where he earned an advanced degree in 1998. He had earned a prior degree in international auditing and control from CESAG in Senegal and a Master‘s degree in economics from the University of Benin in Lomé. After working for several years as a consultant for various specialized firms and regional training centers, Fedy Kokoumeh joined FUCEC-Togo in 1990 as an inspector. He progressed through the organization from head of operations, to head of the inspection service, then to director of administration and finance, to become Director General in 1999 of the apex organization, a position he holds at present. A member of the Board of the West African CIF financial innovation centre, the Centre d’innovation financière, Fedy Kokoumeh has also worked since 1998 as an advisor / consultant for CGAP, the Consultative Group to Assist the Poor. Didier Krumm is an expert in microfinance and information technology. He is currently working as Training and Technical Support Deputy Director for PlaNet Finance. He designed PlaNet University, an online microfinance training center and participated in different training programs with PlaNet Finance's local offices. He is currently based at PlaNet Finance Morocco. Sneh Lata Kumar has been posted as Joint Secretary to the Government of India & Executive Director of Rashtriya Mahila Kosh (National Credit Fund for Women) in the Ministry of Women & Child Development since February 2005. RMK is a pioneer organisation in institutionalizing an alternative credit delivery mechanism for women in India. Earlier Ms. Kumar has worked in the State of Madhya Pradesh and Union Government of India in various capacities, among others as District Magistrate & Collector, Divisional Commissioner, Inspector-General, Managing Director, and Secretary to the Government. Ms. Kumar holds a Masters in Economics from Punjab University, Chandigarh; has a Diploma in International Relations from IIAP (Institut International d‘Administration Publique) in France; and has taken a course in International Public Law at The Hague Academy of International Law, Netherlands. Titus K. Kurniadi is Chairman of Bina Masyarakat Mandiri (started in 1998), now a wholesale microfinance institution. He is also Deputy Secretary General of Gema PKM Indonesia (the Indonesian Movement for Microfinance Development). He has 40 years of experience in business and 7 years of teaching and is now retired. He is almost 70 years old and still active serving in microfinance and other social activities Iris Lanao-Flores is the Executive Director of FINCA Perú, a non profit organization whose mission is to empower disadvantaged women microentrepreneurs through credit with education and the promotion of savings. FINCA Peru‘s clients learn to make good decisions about worthy borrowers, exercise control over savings deposits, and practice values such as responsibility, discipline and fair-play. Their management of savings and loans represents a vehicle to developing the skills and attitudes enabling women to overcome their conditions of poverty and discover their untapped talents and sense of human dignity. Ms Lanao-Flores believes that practitioners can benefit from academic research and actively collaborates towards these efforts. In addition, she participates in national and international networks to address issues related to the Village Banking methodology, as well as the linkages between microfinance and women empowerment. Ms Lanao Flores holds an MA in Latin American Development from Stanford University, an MSc in Operational Research from the London School of Economics and a BSc in Economics, from the National University of Engineering in Lima, Perú. Professor H. I. Latifee is the Managing Director of Grameen Trust, which has provided financial and technical support to 138 Grameen replication programs in 37 countries. He also serves on the Boards of several Grameen sister companies and Nirdhan Uthan Bank of Nepal. Previously he taught economics at Chittagong University. With three decade's experience with Grameen Bank, Grameen Trust, Grameen partners and other microfinance practitioners worldwide, he is considered an expert in the field of microfinance. In 2001 he won Business Week's Star of Asia Award for his leadership in microcredit and poverty alleviation. Nanci Lee joined the Coady Institute in 2002 where she coordinates the area of CommunityBased Microfinance as both an educator and practitioner. Nanci has worked in microfinance for 10 years with particular interests in capacity building, leadership, market research and livelihood issues such as women‘s empowerment, social capital and participatory governance. She has worked overseas in Colombia, Bolivia, Angola, Mozambique and India as educator, participatory field researcher, policy analyst and technical advisor. Prior work experiences include Calmeadow, CARE Mozambique and consulting contracts with UNDP (Policy Bureau - Sustainable Livelihoods), the MIX and ACCION International. Nanci has an MSc (Rural Planning and Development) from Guelph University. Richard Leftley, Vice President of Planning & Operations and President of Micro Insurance Agency, joined Opportunity International in January 2002 as insurance product development manager having previously worked as a reinsurance broker for Benfield Greig with responsibility for the African account. Richard pioneered the introduction of insurance products within the Opportunity Network. At the end of September 2005 a range of insurance products were available to 2,600,000 Opportunity clients and family members in Africa, Asia and Latin America. In 2004 Richard became Vice President for Planning & Operations and leads a team of specialist consultants providing technical assistance to Opportunity partners in 29 countries in all areas of lending, savings, insurance, money transfer and client impact monitoring. During 2005, Opportunity International launched the Micro Insurance Agency to provide a larger number of clients with access to insurance products. As President, Richard has established the organization and is setting its strategic direction. Elizabeth Littlefield is a Director of the World Bank and the CEO of CGAP. CGAP is a multidonor organization dedicated to building sustainable financial systems for the poor. CGAP was created to set standards, provide strategic advice to policy-makers, donors and practitioners, develop technical tools and services, and act as resource center for the microfinance industry. Ms Littlefield comes to CGAP from the investment bank JP Morgan, where she was the Managing Director in charge of JP Morgan‘s Emerging Markets Capital Markets. As such, she was responsible for Central, Eastern and Southern Europe, Central Asia, Middle East and Africa until leaving to join CGAP. Eugene Ludwig is the Founder and CEO of the Promontory Group, which provides products and services to help financial services companies better serve their customers, including low- and moderate-income Americans. Promontory's CDARS service helps minority-owned banks and CDFIs raise low-cost funds for loans in their communities. Earlier, Mr. Ludwig served as U.S. Comptroller of the Currency, where he spearheaded efforts, as the point person for the President, to reform the Community Reinvestment Act. The revised CRA was adopted by all the federal banking regulators and resulted in an increase in low- and moderate-income lending that is hundreds of times greater than it was - now exceeding one trillion dollars. Mr. Ludwig also directed the OCC to vigorously pursue lending discrimination cases for the first time in American history, resulting in tens of millions of dollars in fines during his tenure. He also was Chairman of the Neighborhood Housing Services. Graham Macmillan, Director, is responsible for the day-to-day management of Scojo Foundation, a leading social enterprise focused on broadening global access to affordable reading glasses. Scojo Foundation is currently operating in four countries worldwide. Mr. Macmillan has had previous experience managing international development programs most recently with Helen Keller International as Director of Business Development for the ChildSight program. Mr. Macmillan received his Bachelor of Arts in International Studies and History from Colby College and his Master of Science in Management of International Public Service Organizations from New York University's Robert F. Wagner School for Public Service. Jan Maes is an independent consultant in microenterprise program evaluation and impact assessment. Earlier, from 2000 to 2005, he was with the Trickle Up Program in New York, where he served first as Program Officer for Asia and later as Program Evaluation Officer. He designed and conducted several impact assessments at Trickle Up‘s partner agencies in India and Cambodia. As a member of the Poverty Outreach Working Group of the SEEP Network, Mr. Maes has researched innovative microfinance and microenterprise development approaches to reach very poor people. He holds a M.S. in Agricultural Economics from Catholic University of Leuven (Belgium) and a M.A. in International Management and Finance from the University of Denver. Asad Mahmood, Director of the Community Development Finance Group at Deutsche Bank, is responsible for a loan and investment portfolio of more than $425 million, which seeks both a financial and social return. He is also responsible for Deutsche Bank‘s microfinance efforts globally and is the General Manager of Deutsche Bank Social Investment Funds, which has more than 50 relationships in 30 countries. Mr. Mahmood was the central force in creating a pioneering $80 million commercial microfinance fund which has raised most of its money from 13 large institutional investors in the world. He is positioning Deutsche Bank to be an investment bank for social capital and is looking to be a catalytic leader and innovator in the growth of financeable social ventures by bringing together differently motivated capital from development agencies, foundations and socially motivated commercial investors. Mr. Mahmood sits on the Board of The MIX, the Editorial Board of The Microbanking Bulletin, as well as being on the Advisory Board of The Rockdale Foundation / Gray Ghost Fund. He will also be co-chair of the soon to be launched ASA Foundation, USA which would raise money to replicate ASA‘s practices of being the most efficiently run microfinance institution in the world. Parveen Mahmud is Deputy Managing Director of Palli Karma-Sayahak Foundation (PKSF), an apex financing organization for microfinance in Bangladesh. She is a chartered accountant. She has been actively associated with financial management, operational issues, and policy formulation related to sustainable poverty alleviation through microcredit. Her special area of interest has been uniform standard of financial reporting and governance for NGO-MFIs, and bridging the gap between Microenterprise and SME Development. She is a member of the National Advisory Panel for SME Development of Bangladesh. She is also a member of the Board of Trustees of the Acid Survivor‘s Foundation, MIDAS, UCEP, SERWTCI. Shadreck Mapfumo is Opportunity International Network‘s Senior Insurance Manager. His role involves the development and management of insurance services at Opportunity International‘s partners in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Since February 2005, Shadreck has also been working with the World Bank‘s Commodity Risk Management Group in piloting weather index insurance. He successfully launched the first ever weather insurance pilot in Africa where 892 Malawian farmers managed to get agricultural loans packaged with weather insurance. His training and experience is mainly insurance, reinsurance and actuarial. He holds a Masters in Actuarial studies from the Australian National University and is an Associate of the Institute of Actuaries of Australia. He is also an Associate in Reinsurance and Associate of the Chartered Insurance Institute. His first degree in Insurance and Risk management (Honours) is from the National University of Science and Technology in Zimbabwe. Reynaldo Marconi Ojeda, Bolivian economist and lawyer, has served as Manager for the Association of Financial Institutions for Rural Development (FINRURAL) from 1995 to the present. Until December 2005, he was Chairman of the Board of INFOCRED, a public limited company that provides risk-central services to the Bolivian microfinance sector. He has further served as President of the Latin American/Caribbean Forum for Rural Finance (FORO LAC FR), a network of microfinance networks and institutions in the LAC region centered around rural financial services, from 2002 until the present. He has also been the Regional Coordinator for Latin America of the Imp-Act program, supported by the Ford Foundation and the British Universities of Bath, Sussex and Sheffield, working in the field of impact evaluations. He has written numerous books and documents on microfinance, regulation, rural finance, impact evaluation and social performance. The Honourable Alexa McDonough has served as a Member of Parliament for Halifax, Canada from 1997 to the present. She led Nova Scotia‘s New Democrats from 1981-1994 and led Canada‘s New Democrats from 1995-2003. Alexa‘s has worked as a social worker, a social policy researcher, a professor and a reporter before becoming the leader of the Nova Scotia NDP in 1980, Canada‘s first woman elected to lead a major party in a provincial legislature. Alexa‘s activism started at age fourteen, initiating through her church youth group, an outreach and day camp program to children and families of African Canadian families who were struggling with racial barriers and exclusion in her own province of Nova Scotia. Alexa McDonough is a proud mother and grandmother of two sons and five grandchildren. Katharine McKee joined the Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP) at the World Bank in September 2006 as Senior Advisor for Policy, Outreach and Aid Effectiveness. In 1998 Kate was appointed Director of the Microenterprise Development office at USAID, an office providing technical leadership and support to USAID overseas programs. From 1986-98 Kate was a senior manager with Self Help, the largest nonprofit Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI) in the US. From 1978-81, she started up enterprise development, finance and agricultural livelihoods programs in Ford Foundation‘s West Africa office in Lagos. From 198186 she coordinated Ford‘s overseas women's programs and grant making focused on improving rural livelihoods, employment, and income generation, and initiated a program focused on rural enterprise development, credit, and employment in the US. Kate received a Masters in Public and International Affairs from the Woodrow Wilson School of Princeton University. Rocío Mejía-Flores, Director of the Fund for Social and Economic Development (FONDESO) in Mexico City, has been working with microcredit since 2001. FONDESO has given credits for over 150,000 microloans to solidarity groups and microentrepeneurs (70% women) with a success rate of 90%. These loans are used for commerce, manufacturing, handicrafts and also agricultural products, and some of their microentrepreneurs have been awarded by the UN-Banamex Foundation. Before joining FONDESO, Rocío had a broad professional career within both private sector finance and in the academic and NGO sectors, with a specialization in international economics, poverty alleviation strategies for Mexico, and macroeconomic analysis. She has written several publications on microfinance and related development issues, and has participated in conferences throughout Latin America, North America and Europe. José Manuel Mena Valencia is the Chief Executive Officer of BancoEstado, the only bank in Chile owned by the State. He holds a Master‘s Degree in industrial engineering from the University of Chile, with concentrations in economic- and civil engineering. He is the Director and President of bank-affiliated companies. He teaches at both the University of Chile and Gabriela Mistral University. Roxana Mercado Rodas is the General Manager of CRECER (Crédito con Educación Rural) in Bolivia. She has worked with rural development and environmental issues for more than 15 years, and has been involved in microfinance for the past 8 years. Her program and project management skills have been developed in the NGO and international cooperation fields. She has served as Program Officer with both the UNDP and World Bank. During seven years of independent consultancies, she had Swiss Cooperation, GTZ, Swisscontact and various diplomatic delegations as clients for projects in Bolivia and throughout Latin America. Her main expertise is in strategic planning, monitoring, evaluations, and the organization of multidisciplinary teams. She is a pedagogue by education, and holds Masters Degrees in both Development Planning and in Natural Resources Management. She has also completed a diploma course in microfinance. Calvin Miller, Senior Officer with the UN Food and Agriculture Organization‘s Rural Finance Division since 2004, is actively engaged in rural and agricultural finance, microfinance, value chain finance and investment. He has over twenty-five years of worldwide experience in economic development, in the design, implementation and evaluation of financial services programs and institutions, production and marketing, and institutional development. He has extensive experience in agricultural value chain development for both national and international markets. His experience spans from significant on-the-ground fieldwork as an agricultural economist, to organizational and program management as the Country Manager of MEDA in Bolivia, and includes many consultancies for organizations such as CIDA, the Inter-American Development Bank, Deloitte-Touche, World Bank, World Relief and World Vision. As Director of CARE‘s Economic Development Unit, Mr. Miller provided leadership and technical support for over 200 CARE micro and small enterprise, and agriculture and natural resource projects in over 40 countries. He also founded and developed, MicroVest, a for-profit $23 million global microfinance fund using private investment capital. He holds a B.S. and an M.S. in Agricultural Economics. Stephen Mirero has served as Executive Director of INAFI Africa since 2002. INAFI Africa is a continental network of MFIs that to date has over 51 members spread in 24 African countries, collectively servicing nearly 4 million clients. Prior to INAFI, he was a co-founder of K-Rep, starting as Chief Technical Credit Advisor in 1984 and rising to Deputy Managing Director (1993) and to K-Rep Group Executive Head from 1999 to 2002. Before then, he had a 10 year accomplished banking career with two major commercial banks in Kenya. He has been extensively involved in all areas of microfinance institutional development, including consultancy assignments in over 15 countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America, US and Eastern Europe, and has served on several Boards of MFIs in strategic positions. Jonathan Morduch is Professor of Public Policy and Economics at New York University. His current focuses are on microfinance, global poverty and international development. He is the coauthor of The Economics of Microfinance, described by Thomas Easton of The Economist as: ―The single best book on the economics of banking and finance, period, and certainly the most encompassing book I have read on microfinance.‖ The book is used in courses in the U.S., Europe, and Asia; Spanish, Chinese, and Japanese translations are planned. The volume focuses on microfinance innovations, impacts, and funding—with an eye to understanding accomplishments and ongoing debates. Morduch is currently chair of the United Nations Steering Committee on Poverty Statistics, advises Pro Mujer, and is a member of the SafeSave cooperative based in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Lamiya Morshed is Director of Development of Grameen Trust (GT), an NGO founded in 1989 by Professor Muhammad Yunus. GT has provided financial and technical support to 137 microcredit programs reaching 2.8 million poor families in 37 countries. In her 12 years with GT, her responsibilities have included appraisal and selection of projects for funding, training, monitoring, evaluation, and project administration. Lamiya has also been closely involved in the design and preparation of GT's directly implemented projects in Kosovo, Turkey and more recently Costa Rica and Guatemala. Lamiya is primarily responsible for compiling the Grameen Dialogue newsletter. She also works as an aide to Professor Yunus and recently revised and updated his autobiography in Spanish ‗El Banquero de los Pobres‖. Abdus Samad Mullick, a top-level civil servant and eminent professional, is the Director General of the Bangladesh Rural Development Board (BRDB). He graduated from the University of Dhaka in 1969 and later went on to obtain his Masters degree in 1973 from the same university. On completion of his academic carrier, Mr. Mullick entered in Bangladesh civil service in 1973 as a Deputy Magistrate and served in different top positions of the Republic. As a senior level Joint Secretary, Mr. Mullick is currently assigned by the Government to work as the Director General of Bangladesh Rural Development Board (BRDB), a leading and highly esteemed Government agency mandated to promote rural development and anti-poverty efforts mainly through micro-finance operation. Irene Mutalima, the CEO of CETZAM, Opportunity International‘s microfinance institution in Zambia, has been involved in banking since 1975. Her notable banking achievements include the establishment of two branches of a local bank, and numerous branch management positions and academic certificates. She earned her Masters in Theology and Development from Leeds University in 2000 and also earned a Microfinance Associate in 2002. Irene joined Opportunity International in early 2002 serving as the Africa Regional Resource Manager, coordinating the work of African partners. She served as a trustee of Opportunity International UK, and also on the board of Opportunity‘s Sinapi Aba Savings and Loan in Ghana. Irene is the founding Chairperson and current CEO of CETZAM. She is current Vice-Chair of the Association of Microfinance Institutions in Zambia. Kande Narender is Chief Executive of Kalanjiam Foundation, a subsidiary of Dhan Foundation created for upscaling the Kalanjiam Community Banking Programme. This programme is one of the largest microfinance programmes in Asia promoting and sustaining self-help groups and their federations, demonstrating the ‗enabling model‘ of microfinance focusing on linking the poor and banks. As of March 2006, the programme reached 316,958 poor women through 20,213 groups and 61 autonomous federations spread over 6,294 villages across seven states in India. Mr. Narender has over sixteen years of development experience in microfinance, among others having initiated one of the first federations of SHGs for urban poor in India. He has been involved in direct field action, strategic support and guidance, capacity building and policy advocacy for the promotion of microfinance in India and internationally for more than a decade. He is coordinating the ‗Art of Upscaling Microfinance‘ course offered by Tata Dhan Academy for senior microfinance and development practitioners across the world. Leila Nimatallah manages RESULTS‘ Global Economic Opportunity campaign, and as Senior Global Legislative Associate, she also heads up RESULTS‘ efforts to impact the annual appropriations process. This year, Leila will have been with RESULTS for ten years. Prior to working with RESULTS, she served as Judiciary Committee Counsel for U.S. Representative, Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) and as personal staff for Representative Marty Meehan (D-MA). Leila earned a law degree from Villanova University in 1993 and is a member of the Pennsylvania, Maryland and District of Colombia Bar Associations. Tim Nourse began his career with Catholic Relief Services more than a decade ago, working mostly in developing countries to build the capacity of local microfinance institutions. His work soon took him to more conflict affected countries, including Bosnia, Croatia, the West Bank and Gaza, Sierra Leone, Sudan, Sri Lanka and Liberia. Since 2002, Tim has led American Refugee Committee's Microenterprise Development programs that provide microfinance and market development services to refugees, internally displaced persons, and other conflict-affected entrepreneurs in East and West Africa. With ARC, he has pioneered approaches to providing cross-border microfinance services, utilizing for-profit structures to advance microfinance in conflict environments, introduced market led private sector led programs as part of reconstruction efforts, and developing support programs for vulnerable clients to help them qualify for microfinance loans. He has published papers on Microfinance and BDS in Conflict with USAID, UNCDF, the Journal of Humanitarian Practice and the Forced Migration Review. Maria Nowak has co-founded two resource centers: the Microfinance Center for Central and Eastern Europe and the NIS (1996) and the European Microfinance Network (2003), of which she is still President. A graduate of the Institut des Etudes Politiques, Paris (1956) and postgraduate of the London School of Economics (1959), she has pursued a career in the development field, working for the Agence Française de Développement. As Director of Policies and Research, she transferred the Grameen Bank approach from Bangladesh to West Africa in the 1980s. Seconded to the World Bank in Washington, in 1991, she started the first micro-lending programmes in Central Europe while simultaneously initiating a similar programme in France in the framework of the Association pour le Droit à l'Initiative Economique which she founded and of which she is President on a voluntary basis. Simeon Numbem is in charge of Microfinance, Microenterprise development and Environmental issues in the Department of Research and Corporate Banking of Afriland First Bank in Cameroon. He undertakes action research and promotes MC2 (the rural microbank) microfinance in Cameroon, Niger, Uganda, DRC and Equatorial Guinea. In the last five years he and his team developed models that integrate rural activities such as agriculture, community forest management, rural water supplies and rural health with appropriate types of financing. In 2004, he participated at the Global Anti-Poverty Summit in Thomonde, Haiti. From 2002 to 2004, he worked as CEO for the President of Afriland First Bank; and between 1999 and 2002 as the National Coordinator for the Cameroon Association of Microfinance Institutions (ACIM). He is a soil agronomist who worked for more than 10 years with the Institute of Agronomic Research and Development before joining Afriland First Bank. He holds a PhD from Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. Chief (Mrs.) Bisi Ogunleye received her primary and secondary education in Nigeria, before moving to the USA where she obtained a Masters degree in Public and International Affairs from Pittsburgh University in 1977. She founded COWAN (Country Women's Association of Nigeria) in 1982, and still serves as their National Coordinator. She has worked as a lecturer in Nigeria for 25 years, as well as serving as Coordinator of the African Resource Fellowship at Carnegie Institute and Library in Pittsburgh, USA. She has received state, national and international awards including the Ondo State 25th Anniversary Merit Award; National Award – Order of the Office of the Federal Republic of Nigeria OFR; and the African Leadership Award for a Sustainable End of Hunger. Andriy Olenchyk is a Commissioner – Director of Credit Institutions Supervision Department of the State Commission for Regulation of Financial Services Markets in Ukraine, Associate Professor at the Department of Open Market and Corporate Governance of the Kyiv National Economic University. He oversees and manages the department focused on regulation and supervision of credit unions, cooperative credit associations, pawn-shops, other financial institutions. For 4 years (1996-2000) he served as a Vice-president of National Association of the Credit Unions of Ukraine (NACUU), Director of its training center. He was in the board of directors of NACUU (2001-2003). In June 2001 he was invited as a Consultant on non-banking financial sector to the World Bank. In 2002 he was an Advisor to the Minister of Finance of Ukraine. María Otero has served as President & CEO of ACCION International since 2000. ACCION is a global microfinance organization that pioneered microlending in Latin America beginning in 1973. ACCION provides technical assistance, equity, debt and governance to 30 microfinance institutions in 22 countries in Latin America, Africa, Asia and in the United States. Ms. Otero first joined ACCION in 1986 as director of its lending program in Honduras. She is a leading voice in establishing commercial, sustainable microfinance as the industry standard. Ms. Otero chairs the board of ACCION Investments, a US$20 million investment company for microfinance. She also serves on the boards of directors of three regulated microfinance institutions in Latin America: Mibanco in Peru, BancoSol in Bolivia and Compartamos in Mexico. Ms. Otero serves on several other boards, including that of the Calvert Foundation, the United States Institute of Peace, and BRAC Holding of Bangladesh, the largest NGO in the world. She is the coordinator of the Council of Microfinance Equity Funds, which convenes 18 equity investment funds dedicated to microfinance. She is an adjunct professor at the John Hopkins School for Advanced International Studies (SAIS) and a widely published author. In 2005, Ms. Otero was profiled as one of 20 of the most influential women in the United States in Newsweek Magazine‘s special report, ―How Women Lead.‖ Pancho Otero is one of the best know specialists in micro credit and micro finance, his expertise comes from hands on experience in micro credit operations the world over. In 1990 in his native Bolivia, Otero created BancoSol, the first commercial MFI any where, BancoSol quickly became a world wide model for sustainable micro credit. Otero was the Banco‘s first CEO and ran the Bank for five years during which time it became the most profitable regulated financial institution in the country. Already in the previous decade, Otero had implemented and managed PRODEM, an MFI known for pioneering a zero-arrears mode, today one of the largest MFIs in the country. Since 1996 Otero has been Director of IPM, a micro credit management and advisory firm based in Santa Cruz, Bolivia, dedicated to supporting MFIs with particularly challenging operational issues. Alpha Ouédraogo, has been the Director of the Center for Financial Innovation (CFI), a recently-created technical institution based in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, since 1999. The purpose of the CFI is to provide technical and financial support to six West African credit union networks in the development of new financial products that are both adapted to clients‘ needs and profitable. Mr. Ouédraogo spent the early part of his professional career working for the Ministry of Rural Development (1980-1987). He served for 10 years as the National Coordinator of the Programme in support of the Réseau des Caisses Populaires de Burkina Faso (RCPB) and Director General of the RCPB from 1987–1997. He has a Masters in Economics from the University of Reims and a post-graduate degree in Agricultural Development from the University of Paris I. Cresente “Cris” Paez, Sr., having served both as Congressman at the House of Representatives where he represented the COOP-NATCCO (National Confederation of Cooperatives) Party List, as Assistant Secretary at the Department of Agrarian Reform, and holding other high management positions, mainly in the cooperative sector, is now President and Chief Executive Officer of NATCCO and Concurrent Manager of the NATCCO Central Fund (a Central Finance facility for cooperatives). Parallel to that, he is involved in many private voluntary organizations: Vice Chairman of CODE-NGO, the largest civil society organization in the Philippines, Chairman of the Kasangyangan Microfinance Foundation and President of the COOP-NATCCO Party List. Early this year, he was appointed Commissioner of the National Anti-Poverty Commission (NAPC) representing the cooperative movement by President Gloria-Macapagal Arroyo. Likewise, he is a Board Member of the United Coconut Planters Bank - a Commercial Bank. In the last fifteen years, he has also worked on many projects as a consultant. He graduated with honors with the degree of Bachelor of Science in Agriculture, with post-graduate studies in management. He now specializes in project administration, agriculture, agro-industry, cooperatives, investment banking as well as finance and credit, among others. Lynne Patterson spent the first part of her career in the United States promoting educational programs for low income families and children, as a teacher and administrator in the New York City and Port Washington Long Island public school systems. In 1990, she moved with her family to Bolivia where she joined forces with Carmen Velasco to develop training programs for women receiving donated food in business development, child development, health and family planning, which eventually led to the founding of Pro Mujer, a microfinance and women‘s development network that combines financial services with the training programs women need to build sustainable lives and futures. Lynne has degrees in Government (B.A. Principia College), Education (M.A., Teachers College, Columbia University) American History (M.A., New York University) and Educational Administration (Ed.D., New York University). Dr. Alex Pollock has a Ph.D. in social science and has worked in Palestine for the past 25 years in human rights, economic development and microfinance. For the past 17 years he has specialised in developing the microfinance department of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), which is now the largest microfinance institution operating in Palestine. UNRWA is uniquely the only multinational microfinance institution in the region, providing microfinance services in Palestine, Jordan and Syria. In addition to his work with UNRWA, Dr. Pollock serves on the Board of Directors of Sanabel: the Microfinance Network of the Arab Countries and the National Microfinance Bank in Jordan. Jean Pouit, Executive Director of MyTransfer, has since 1987 specialized in the computerization of networks in 25 African, Asian and Eastern European countries. He has written microfinance software programs (loan, savings, accounting, time deposits, multilingual) used in over 10 countries. MyTransfer SA (www.mytransfer.net), founded in 2001 for international money transfers grouping via the Internet to MFIs, recently incorporated an additional US non-profit MyTransfer Inc. to launch an innovative, free online service to settle orders and is reserved for Microfinance customers (www.mytransfer.org). This non-profit branch was sponsored by the Open Society Institute and the IFC. MyTransfer is now known as the leading IT advisory practice for selecting microfinance software with the longest and broadest experience as the sole reviewer of all 40 solutions registered on the Microfinance Gateway. He was a member of the management team at the MIX (www.mixmarket.org) in Washington DC until september 2006 when he joined as Director of both the Swiss foundation RAFAD and the International Guarantee Fund www.fig-igf.org in Geneva. Dr Paul Pronyk is an infectious disease and public health physician and is the Director of the Rural AIDS & Development Action Research Programme (RADAR) – a joint initiative of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and the Wits School of Public Health. RADAR is based in South Africa‘s rural Limpopo Province and conducts intervention research on the social determinants and clinical consequences of HIV/AIDS and gender violence, centering upon the delivery of HIV care. Since 2000, Dr Pronyk has also lead the Intervention with Microfinance for AIDS & Gender Equity (IMAGE Study) – a randomized trial exploring the intersection between microfinance, HIV and domestic violence. In partnership with the Small Enterprise Foundation, the study integrates a participatory curriculum of gender and HIV into a poverty-focused microfinance programme, and examines changes in levels of violence, sexual behaviour and HIV infection rates among loan recipients, the young people in their households and the wider community. Dr Pronyk has published widely in the fields of tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS, health policy and health systems. Natarajan Radha founded LEAD in 1987, and still serves as its Executive Director. LEAD‘s development work includes rural hygiene, safe drinking water, sustainable agriculture, organic farming, water shed, livelihood options, etc. They primarily work with poor rural women, marginal farmers, differently-abled, dalits, poor non-dalits and working children. Savings and credit management groups were developed to enable the women to save for their future and to access credit to meet their economic needs. Ms. Radha has successfully formalized the micro credit operations of self-help groups into a viable legal structure and registered Sangamam Women‘s Multipurpose Co-operative Thrift and Credit Society which is functioning efficiently now with 30000 shareholders. Ms. Radha holds a Master‘s in Food and Nutrition major from Women‘s Christian College, Chennai. Annamalai Ramanathan is Chief General Manager of the Microcredit Innovations Department at the National Bank for Agriculture & Rural Development (NABARD) in India. In this capacity, he works with policy and strategy for operationalising various microfinance programmes in the country through the formal banking system as well as through MFIs. Before joining NABARD, he had varied experience in project appraisal, monitoring, institutional building of rural financial institutions, and training including ODI. He has travelled extensively internationally, and participated in trainings and seminars as a resource person. He is also a member of the MicroFinance India Advisory Group. Mr. Ramanathan holds an MBA from the PSG College of Technology (University of Madras) in Tamil Nadu, India. He has also participated in a Trainers Training in Development Banking at the Institute of Development Policy & Management at the University of Manchester in the UK. Padmaja Reddy is a graduate in Business Administration. She started Spandana as a small lending program for scrap collectors in 1997. She holds the position of MD and CEO. She started her professional career with ASSIST, a rural development NGO, as Deputy Director. Her name is synonymous with Spandana in the micro finance sector. In 8 years of operations, Spandana has become the largest MFI of India, reaching out to 800,000 clients, about 1.4% of India‘s poor Households. It is the most efficient MFI in South Asia, with the lowest yield and highest profitability, the most productive staff and has deployed a simple yet efficient MIS, hailed as ―best MIS in micro finance.‖ Larry Reed is Chief Executive Officer of Opportunity International Network, a global coalition of 42 microfinance organizations in over 25 countries. Beginning his service with OpportunityUS in 1984, Larry has held a variety of senior positions within the organization. In 1991, he founded Opportunity's Africa Regional Office in Zimbabwe, and served as Africa Regional Director until 1996. Upon returning to the US, he became Vice President of Opportunity-US for global operations. Opportunity internationalized its structure in 1998, and Larry was asked to lead the new Opportunity International Network. From 1999 to 2002, Larry served as chair of the Small Education Enterprise Promotion (SEEP) Network, a research and advocacy group of microfinance industry practitioners. He has also published several articles on microfinance and served as a contributor to "The New World of Microfinance" (Rhyne, Otero, et. Al.,1996), ―Serving with the Poor in Africa‖ (Yamamori, Myers, Bediako and Reed) and ―Globalization and the Kingdom of God‖ (Goudzwaard, 2001). Larry is a graduate of Wheaton College and the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. Myka Reinsch, Director of Microfinance and Health Protection, leads Freedom from Hunger‘s worldwide initiative, funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, to support microfinance institutions in offering innovative health-related services that improve the health and financial stability of both clients and the institutions themselves. In her previous role as Senior Technical Advisor, Microfinance, Ms. Reinsch provided technical assistance to microfinance institutions in West Africa and the Philippines. She has consulted to CGAP, Chemonics International, Action for Enterprise, and Associates in Rural Development. Ms. Reinsch holds an MBA in Business Economics and Nonprofit Management from Columbia University, and a Linguistics degree from Vassar College. Rakesh Rewari is the Deputy Managing Director of Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI). Since 1979, he has worked with leading financial institutions and development banks in India covering a wide range of activities relating to Micro Credit, SME financing, Venture Capital for SME and Entrepreneurship. At SIDBI, he also oversees the functioning of SIDBI Foundation for Micro Credit (SFMC). SFMC, in collaboration with Government of India, DFID and IFAD is associated with the development of micro finance sector in India during the last 7-8 years. It has developed over 80 micro finance institutions in the country and its present portfolio is US$ 77.8 million. Mr. Rewari holds a B.Tech(Mech) from IIT (Delhi) and a MBA from Delhi University. Elisabeth Rhyne is ACCION International‘s Senior Vice President for International Operations, Policy, and Research. Ms. Rhyne oversees ACCION‘s publications, and directs ACCION's research efforts to develop new financial products and assess poverty. She is also leading ACCION‘s work in India. Ms. Rhyne has published numerous articles and books including The Commercialization of Microfinance: Balancing Business and Development (co-editor), Mainstreaming Microfinance: How Lending to the Poor Began, Grew and Came of Age in Bolivia (author), and The New World of Microenterprise Finance (co-editor), all published by Kumarian Press. Ms. Rhyne was Director of the Office of Microenterprise Development at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) from 1994 to 1998, where she developed and managed USAID's microenterprise initiative. Jonathan Rothschild is a senior economist in the Policy Branch of the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) where he is responsible, among other things, for the agency's policies and programming guidelines for microfinance. During his 18 year career in CIDA, he has obtained extensive programming experience in Africa and the Americas, including five years of work in Tanzania, Ethiopia and Sudan. Prior to joining CIDA, he worked for the International Red Cross on relief operations in Chad and the Southern African region. He holds graduate degrees in political philosophy and economics. Isabel Rueda Fernandez is currently the Education and Training Manager for CRECER in Bolivia, with 12 years of experience in education linked to microfinance. She is responsible for the design, monitoring and evaluation of CRECER‘s educational component, in addition to her recognized practice in impact studies. A psychologist and social communicator by profession, she holds a Master‘s degree and is specialized in psycho-pedagogy, adult education, and the production of educational materials. She began her career at CRECER as the Manager of Human Resources, with a participative leadership style. Before joining CRECER, she worked as a journalist and editor on programs and reports with an investigative and social approach. She also serves as an international consultant on educational programs linked to microfinance. Beatrice Sabana is the Director of Equity Bank in Kenya and Vice-Chairperson of the Microenterprise Support Programme Trust, an EU/GOK initiative which seeks to provide financial and non-financial support to the MSME sector. Ms. Sabana is former CEO of the Association of Microfinance Institutions. She holds an MBA from Leeds University, and is currently completing her Doctoral Studies at the University of Nairobi. In the public sector, she worked with the Kenyan Ministry of Commerce and Industry where she served as a Trade Development Officer, and she has taught business management, marketing, entrepreneurship and small business management in several public universities. In the private sector, Ms. Sabana has worked with the Standard Chartered Bank. She has also worked for AFCAP, a CGAP funded international microfinance capacity building NGO that had operations in 11 African countries. She has a long experience of consulting and training for various blue chip companies in Kenya as well as other countries in Africa. Ms. Sabana was the Chair for the National Committee- 2005 UN International Year of Microcredit. Abdoul Anziz Said Attoumane is the Executive Director of the Africa Microfinance Network (AFMIN), a membership organization of 21 microfinance country level networks representing 780 microfinance institutions. He has extensive experience in building responsive and sustainable financial services to the poor. As Executive Director of AFMIN he has over the last three years contributed to influence the microfinance agenda in Africa and globally to better address the financial needs of the poor and the vulnerable. He holds an MBA from the INSEEC Management School of Bordeaux, France. Bob Sample has been involved with the microcredit field for 19 years. He learned about microcredit through RESULTS, a grassroots advocacy organization that has played a central role in the development of the field. Bob attended the RESULTS-led Microcredit Summit in 1997 and returned to found two microcredit companies in Colorado, operating one of them for three years. Bob is also a co-founder of the Colorado Alliance for Microenterprise Initiatives, a statewide trade association. Bob is also co-founder of two English language schools for foreign students and refugees, a telecommunications consulting firm, and a professional business seminar company. He recently taught a graduate-level class on Microfinance at the University of Denver. He has an MA in Linguistics (specialization in Arabic) from Columbia University and an MPA in Urban Affairs from the University of Colorado at Boulder. Daouda Sawadogo, General Director of the Réseau des Caisses Populaires du Burkina Faso (RCPB) in Burkina Faso, holds a degree from the Institut Technique de Banques (ITB) and a Masters of Economic Sciences (specializing in business management) from the University of Ouagadougou and has worked with the RCPB for over fifteen years. From 1990 to 2001 he served as the director of the Union Régionale des Caisses Populaires du Plateau Central, which allowed him to contribute to the development and expansion of the most important regional network union before becoming the General Director of RCPB in January 2002. Since June 2004, Mr. Sawadogo has chaired both the international and the African boards of directors of the International Network of Alternative Financial Institutions (INAFI). He also serves as a member of the board of directors of the Centre d‘Innovations Financières (CIF) of West Africa. William Schoch, Vice President and Director of Emerging Markets for Visa International, is responsible for Visa‘s initiatives to expand delivery of electronic financial services to the unbanked using Visa‘s global processing capabilities and network of financial institutions, merchants, and ATMs. Bill works with microfinance institutions, Visa‘s regional offices, and technology partners in enabling these solutions. Prior to this assignment, Bill was the Global Product Manager for Visa‘s debit products and was responsible for the continued enhancement of Visa's global debit strategy. Bill was the founder of the Visa International Global Debit Forum, which showcases new opportunities and best practices in debit program management. Prior to Visa, Bill spent eight years with Citibank in the Global Cash Management division, where he was responsible for developing, marketing and implementing various solutions for Citibank‘s corporate clients. Rupert Scofield, FINCA International‘s Executive Director, is an agricultural economist with 30 years‘ experience working in Latin America, Africa, and Eurasia. Under his leadership, FINCA‘s network of 21 affiliates has achieved a loan portfolio of over $100 million, and currently serves more than 400,000 entrepreneurs with all programs moving toward self-sufficiency. Mr. Scofield helped found FINCA in 1984, served as the CEO of Rural Development Services, and as El Salvador program director for the AFL-CIO‘s Labor Program. He earned two Master of Arts degrees from the University of Wisconsin and a Bachelor of Arts degree from Brown University. Basuki Setiabudi is a Senior Staff member of P4K III Project/Rural Income Generation Project (RIGP) at the Indonesian Ministry of Agriculture. Previously, Mr Setiabudi has worked as an Agricultural Extension and Information Specialist, and worked with Nationwide Communication Support for Agriculture Extension Services. Mr Setiabudi has written articles for newspapers, newsletters, brochures, and booklets, and scripts for radio and television broadcasting on the topics of rural poverty, participatory development, microfinance, livelihoods and empowerment of the rural poor. He has also composed ten thematic songs on rural poor empowerment, calling for helping them. Mr Setiabudi had a Bachelors Degree in Animal Husbandry from the Bogor Agriculture University. Vipin Sharma has worked as Program Director for Microfinance with CARE India since 2000. CARE India‘s microfinance program is the largest microfinance umbrella initiative in India, representing 35 MFIs in four states supporting over ½ million clients with mainstream bank linkages of about USD 20 million. Vipin holds a diverse and extensive experience of almost 25 years in the areas of policy formulation, coordination, networking with national/international partner agencies and building strategic linkages, and he has worked at various levels within the government as well as in the development sector. He is a member of the UNIDO supported Think Tank on cluster development, on the Governing Board of Sa-Dhan the national network of MFIs in India and is a part of the Regional leadership of CARE in Asia. In his role at CARE, Vipin is leading on the Making Markets Work for the Poor strategy. As a part of this, he has linked several strategic tie-ups with corporate sector partners like ICICI and Unilever, and also with the University of Michigan for research on how to make bottom of the pyramid strategies work for the poor. Shankar Man Shrestha has been Chief Executive Officer of the Rural Microfinance Development Centre Ltd. (RMDC), a wholesale finance agency for microfinance institutions in Nepal, since August 1999. From 1991 to 1999, he was Executive Director of the Centre for Selfhelp Development (CSD), a national microfinance NGO of which he is also a founding member. Before that he worked at the Agricultural Development Bank of Nepal for 25 years in various capacities. He holds an MA in Economics from Tribhuvan University, Nepal. He has also completed a Special Study in Agricultural Economics from Texas A&M University, USA. Mr. Shrestha has participated in numerous trainings, workshops, seminars and conferences organized by agencies such as ADB, Rabobank, APRACA, APDC, USAID, JICA, Microcredit Summit, Grameen Bank, and Grameen Trust on issues related to rural development, agriculture banking, microfinance, small farmer credit, etc. Mr. Shrestha has been writing on microfinance issues for many years and has been published widely at home and abroad. Anton Simanowitz is Director of the Imp-Act Consortium, based at the University of Sussex‘s Institute of Development Studies in the UK. Imp-Act supports and promotes the management of social performance in microfinance, providing practical lessons for practice and for public policy. Mr Simanowitz has worked with a range of organisations internationally, providing technical support and training in the field of social performance management, client monitoring systems, impact assessment, as well as poverty assessment. He has published extensively in practitioner and academic publications and is an advisor to a number of projects including the USAID poverty assessment tools project, the CGAP/FORD social indicators project, the SEEP social performance working group, and the IMAGE project combining microfinance with participatory health education to tackle HIV/AIDS. Mr Simanowitz is also on the faculty for both the Boulder and New Hampshire microfinance training programmes. Prior to his move to ImpAct in 2000, Mr. Simanowitz headed the development department of SEF, a leading microfinance organisation in South Africa. Dick Simon is co-founder of the YPO Peace Action Network (PAN) and Chair of the WPO Presidents Action Network. PAN is a network of global business leaders committed to making a difference in areas of conflict and need. Dick first did microlending in South America in the 1975 through a handicraft exporting company he established. He is CEO of RSI, Inc. a real estate development company, and received his MBA from Harvard Business School and BA from Cornell University. Sanjay Sinha is Managing Director of Micro-Credit Ratings International Limited (M-CRIL) – a company established to undertake professional assessments (ratings) of microfinance institutions (MFIs) and provide other services to promote the flow of investments into microfinance. He has 28 years‘ development consulting experience in South and Southeast Asia. He has specialized in sub-sector analysis of activities of relevance to the livelihoods of poor people, microenterprise promotion and BDS, in addition to microfinance. Sanjay Sinha has an M.Phil. in Economics from Oxford University, U.K. In 1983, he co-founded EDA Rural Systems, which is now one of the premier development consulting companies in Asia. The idea of M-CRIL emerged out of EDA‘s experience with MFIs and from undertaking policy studies in the field of microfinance. Gabriel Solórzano, President of FINDESA in Nicaragua, is a Mechanical Engineer graduated from Texas A&M University, MBA with Summa Cum Laude at INCAE and has studied at Harvard University JFK School in Banking for Micro Enterprises. He has been an Investment Committee member in Deutsche Bank Global Commercial Microfinance Consortium, and a Board Member of the MIX. He has experience as President or Senior Manager at Budget Rent a Car of El Salvador and Nicaragua, Holiday Inn Select, Procter & Gamble and the Florida Department of Transportation. He is Ex-President of Civic Group Ethics and Transparency, a chapter of Transparency International, Ex-President of INDE, Vice-President of Supreme Private Enterprise Council COSEP, Member of the Board of INCAE, INATEC, and Segurossa, among others. Finally, he is President of Home of Hope, an NGO that provides free shelter and food to children with cancer. Shaheen Tejani has worked in the financial industry, in venture capital and startup businesses for 10 years. She has just joined Vancity as Program Manager focusing on the Peer Lending program to help entrepreneurs start business. She has experience with how to startup, manage and grow businesses and has built over 25 companies. An experienced entrepreneur and mentor, Shaheen can help business members who want to create new ventures. Shaheen can help them with evaluating new business ideas, business planning and financing at the early stages. Her focus is to encourage new entrepreneurs to startup using the Peer Lending program and to support them in growing successful new businesses. Matthew Titus has served as Executive Director of Sa-Dhan, the association of community development finance institutions in India, since 1998. He works with existing community development financial institutions in identifying areas of work that will contribute to the development of the sector. This includes organising training programs, identifying and building industry standards, and bringing together policy initiatives. Mr. Titus has served as a Member of the Board of the Microfinance Development and Equity Fund, National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development, Mumbai, 2005; Member of the Informal Group on Microfinance, Reserve Bank of India, 2003; Member of the Empowered Committee on Microfinance, Banking Division, Govt. of India, 2002; Member of the National Task-Force on Microfinance Policy, established in NABARD, 1998. Mr. Titus holds a BA from St. John‘s College at Agra University, and a Master‘s in South Asian History from the Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. J. S. Tomar is the CEO and Managing Director of two of Cashpor India‘s companies. Cashpor is one of the top ten MFIs in India, and is working in two Indian provinces with huge concentrations of families below the poverty line. To date, Cashpor has reached 135,000 poor families, and has the mission of reaching one million families by March 2010. Mr. Tomar was a pioneer in replicating the Grameen Model of rural banking in India in 1995. Before joining Cashpor, Mr. Tomar worked with a leading Indian commercial bank for almost three decades and retired as a General Manager. During his banking tenure, he had a short stint with the Reserve Bank of India (Central Bank) as Officer-on-Special Duty, where he established and headed RBI‘s Microcredit Department. On the basis of his report, RBI for the first time asked Indian commercial banks to mainstream microfinance. Aminata Toure is Officer in Charge of the UNFPA‘s Gender, Culture and Human Rights branch. From October 2003 until April 2005, Mrs. Toure worked at UNFPA/HQ as a Senior Advisor in their Technical Support Division. From 2001 to 2003, she worked at the regional office of UNIFEM in Dakar as coordinator of a sub-regional Programme on Gender and HIV/AIDS. From 1995 to 2000, Mrs. Toure worked as Technical Advisor for UNFPA in Burkina Faso, in Cote d‘Ivoire as Regional Advisor at the UNFPA Regional Training Program on IEC and Advocacy targeting 22 French speaking countries. She holds a Master in Economics and post-Master Degrees in Management from Aix Marseille and Dijon Universities in France. Mamadou Toure has been the General Director of the PAMECAS network (Union des Mutuelles pour le Partenariat et la Mobilisation de l‘Epargne) since September of 1999 based in Senegal. He was a founding member and president of the Association professionnelle des institutions mutualistes ou coopératives d‘épargne et de credit (APIMEC). He has also served as an occasional professor at the National School of Applied Economics (Ecole Nationale d‘Economie Appliquée – ENEA) in Dakar. Before this he worked in various capacities for the Centre d‘innovations financières (CIF-SA). In addition, he has annually attended various workshops and seminars on microfinance around the world. Doan Anh Tuan is the Asia Area Economic Opportunities Specialist at Save the Children/US. He has over 10 years of field experience in microfinance and small enterprise development, including post-crisis situations in South and South East Asia. Prior to this post, he was the Director of Economic Opportunities, Save the Children/US in Vietnam where he was the founder of the only national microfinance bulletin. His most recent publications include Vietnam’s New Law on Microfinance: On the Way to an Enabling Environment, Microfinance Handbook, Microfinance Regulation and Supervision: Handle with Care, Financial Education and Microfinance. He has designed MIS, performance-based incentive schemes and low-cost operations for MFIs and developed numerous training materials for MFIs on business planning, financial projections, financial analysis for board members, etc. He holds a MBA from Henley Management College in the UK. Jacqueline Urquizo, Director of Marketing & Product Development at ACCION, is responsible for building the capacity of financial partners and technical assistance personnel in marketing. She has worked with ACCION partners to develop market diagnosis, consumer behavior analysis, image management, retention loyalty and customer service strategies, as well as establish organizational structures of marketing functions based on the maturity of particular MFIs. Mrs. Urquizo brings a strong background in marketing and management for the financial services industry in Peru. On behalf of large institutions such as the International Bank of Peru and Orion Bank, she spearheaded the enhancement of a variety of retail banking products and built marketing strategies grounded in a scientific approach. Her experience includes both microsavings and microcredit and she holds an MBA from the Escuela de Negocios para Graduados (ESAN) and a degree in business administration from the Saint Mary Catholic University in Peru. Javier Vaca Espín is the Executive Director of the Red Financiera Rural (Rural Finance Network) in Ecuador, in addition to being on the Board of Directors of the Latin American/Caribbean Forum for Rural Finance (FORO LAC FR). An economist by profession with a Masters degree in ―Microenterprise finance, management and design" from the University of Reading (UK), he has 10 years of work experience from different types of MFIs: NGOs and Savings and Credit Cooperatives. He has completed various concentration courses in banking and microfinance, and his microfinance specializations are in market studies, monitoring, benchmarking, financial analysis, capacity-building and technical assistance to MFIs, credit risks and advocacy. Thierry van Bastelaer is a political economist and expert in social capital, collective action, and microenterprise. He is Director of Economic Opportunities at Save the Children/US, where he works on strategy development for the organization's microenterprise programs. He was previously Director of the Enterprise Development Group at the University of Maryland's IRIS Center, where he developed and managed a number of projects in the area of enterprise growth, including the development of user-friendly poverty assessment tools, an applied research program to identify the role of micro-enterprises in growth and poverty alleviation, toolkits for legal and regulatory reform for microfinance, and enterprise development programs in Nepal and Bangladesh. Carmen Velasco is the co-founder of Pro Mujer, the co-Executive Director of Pro Mujer International, and has been the Executive Director of Pro Mujer Bolivia from 1991 until the present. In this capacity, she has developed Pro Mujer‘s credit component, adjusting the village banking programs to the needs and realities of the clients. She has also implemented Pro Mujer‘s credit with education program in eight regions of Bolivia, reaching more than 80,000 women by December 2005. Carmen has collaborated in the replication of Pro Mujer branches in other Latin American countries, both with their financial and development services. She has further collaborated on the production of various capacity-building manuals in both financial and non-financial areas for PRO MUJER. Arnaud Ventura is the Executive Vice President of PlaNet Finance and the Chief Executive Officer of MicroCred. He co-founded PlaNet Finance in 1998 and has since developed the organization as its Managing Director until December, 2005. Arnaud has been directly involved in the design and negotiation of large Consulting & Technical Assistance projects of Microfinance Technical Assistance, Bank Downscaling, Government Consulting (Regulation & Strategy), getting involved directly in their implementation. Arnaud also participated in the emergence and subsequent development of Planet Rating, the leading rating agency player in microfinance. Finally, he has fostered the development of the financing activity of PlaNet Finance not only in terms of debt but also in terms of Equity Investment, with the creation of MicroCred SA that he founded. Arnaud Ventura has developed a strong knowledge of best practices in Microfinance & Small Business lending. He also developed a strong expertise in Microfinance fund management. Before founding PlaNet Finance, he was successively Consultant in the IT Industry in Asia for Internet Thailand, Founder & Director of NGO-NET and IT Advisor for BNP-Paribas. The Honourable Josée Verner, was first elected as a Member of Parliament in January 2006, and was appointed as the Minister of International Co-operation and Minister for La Francophonie and Official Languages in Prime Minister Harper‘s cabinet on February 6th, 2006. In June of 2004, she was named spokesperson for the Economic Development Agency of Canada for the Québec Region in Mr. Harper‘s shadow cabinet. Ms. Verner has spent close to 20 years in the communications and public service fields. She has worked for former Québec Premier Robert Bourassa and for the deputy speaker of Québec‘s National Assembly, and worked closely with the Ministry of Health. Ms. Verner is deeply involved in her community, and has spent a significant amount of time fundraising for the Children‘s Make A Wish Foundation. Percy Villazana is Executive Director of the Latin American/Caribbean Forum for Rural Finance (FORO LAC FR) and the Coordinator of the Program for Finance and Research for Rural Development (FINDER). Until Dec. 2003, he served as Director of the Peruvian national microfinance network, COPEME, which represents 62 institutions which provide financial and business development services. Holding a Masters in Economics specializing in finance, he has participated in various international microfinance courses and trainings (Andrews University, Naropa University, Dhan Academy of India, etc) and has spoken at various international international seminars on microfinance and rural financial systems. He is also currently teaching at the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú. Gera Voorrips is Programme Manager for ING Microfinance Support since the start in 2004 and is responsible for the non-commercial activities that ING provides for Microfinance. Prior to setting up ING Microfinance Support, she worked for ING Advisory Services, the consultancy unit of ING that works for formal banks and insurers in emerging markets. She coordinated projects in Eastern Europe and some Asian countries. She joined the ING Economics Department in 1995 as a senior economist, focusing on the strategic and practical implications of the introduction of the Euro. She started her career in 1990 as an economist for the Dutch central bank in the International Policy department. Gera Voorrips has a Masters degree in Theoretical and Development Economics from Erasmus University in Rotterdam. Furthermore, she is a member of the Credit Committee for the NOVIB and the ASN-NOVIB Funds and worked for years as a volunteer for the Fair Trade shop in Leiden. Jayshree Vyas, Managing Director of Shree Mahila Sewa Sahakari Bank (SEWA) in India, has nineteen years of experience running a formal bank of poor self-employed women, with a total of more than 250,000 depositors and working capital of around 1000 million Rupees. During her tenure, active steps have been taken to introduce and operate an Integrated Social Security Scheme for women working in the informal sector, a scheme introduced for the first time in the country. She has also devised and implemented various technical and housing finance schemes for poor self-employed women, and over 100,000 women have taken advantage of this scheme so far. She has introduced, organised and continued to manage savings-group for poor women in more than 2000 villages in nine districts of Gujarat, helping more than 75,000 women start saving for the first time in their lives. She has prepared modules and manuals for providing training for running effective saving- and credit programs for various national voluntary organisations involved in similar activities. She is currently developing an appropriate pension scheme for members of Sewa Bank. Reynold O. Walter Padilla is the President and Founder of the Central-American Microfinance Network (REDCAMIF), an organization comprised of five microfinance networks and close to 100 affiliated MFIs. He is also the Founder and former President of the Guatemalan Microfinance Network (REDIMIF); a member of the Guatemalan Ministry of Economy‘s National Advisory Committee for Micro-, Small and Medium Enterprise; a member of the Executive Committee of the Latin American/Caribbean Forum for Rural Finance (FORO LAC FR); a member of the Assessment Committee of the Central American Program for Supporting Rural Financial Services (SERFIRURAL); and Executive Director of the FAFIDESS Foundation in Guatemala. In addition to his degree in civil engineering from the Universidad de San Carlos in Guatemala, and his postgraduate studies in higher education, he has taken microfinance specialization courses at the INCAE institute in Nicaragua and at COLCAMI in Mexico. Clare Wavamunno, Transformation Manager with AIKAN Consultancy in Uganda, has over 22 years of wide ranging development finance experience, among others with supervision of nonbank financial institutions and microfinance project management with emphasis on policy, regulation, transformation of financial and non-financial institutions, and developing industry standards for microfinance in Uganda. She holds a postgraduate part MA in Investment Appraisal and Management from Harvard University and is a Chartered Secretary majoring in Administration and Finance from the London School of Accountancy. She has the Professional Micro-Finance Training from the Economics Institute of the University of Colorado, Boulder, USA and a BA in Economics and Rural Economy from Makerere University. She has served as a guest lecturer in a number of Universities in Africa and has been a world-wide panelist for microfinance in Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Ivory Coast, Malawi, Jordan and USA. Clare is presently working with Aikan Consultancy in the areas of change management, and microfinance. Shakila Wijewardena has since 2002 served as CEO & Managing Director of Sarvodaya Economic Enterprise Development Services (SEEDS) Ltd, one of the largest and best performing microfinance and business development organizations in Sri Lanka. SEEDS presently has 915 staff located in head office and 28 district offices & sub offices covering the entire country. SEEDS provides services to more than half a million clients with highly effective financial and non financial products. Mr. Wijewardena formerly served as Deputy Managing Director – SEEDS (Gte) Ltd (2001 – 2002), as head of administration of the company. Main responsibilities included human resources management, upgrade and manage systems and procedures in head office and district offices in order to maximize efficiency for microfinance, business development and capacity building operations. He has also worked as Director, Sarvodaya Legal services (Pvt) Ltd and Director, Sarvodaya Vishva Lekha (Pvt) Ltd. Mr. Wijewardena has participated extensively in training programs and workshops throughout Asia, as well as in the US, Australia and the Dominican Republic. Karl Wiley runs Marketing & Product Management for MicroPlace, a start-up that will provide an online marketplace to connect ordinary retail investors with microfinance entities that need capital. Before MicroPlace, Wiley spent 4+ years in senior marketing roles at eBay, most recently as Sr. Director of eBay‘s $5.7 billion technology and media categories. Prior to eBay, Wiley was VP of International Operations for online marketplace Alibris, and a Manager with Deloitte & Touche‘s Emerging Markets practice, implementing privatization and enterprise restructuring projects in the former USSR. He holds a BA from Duke University, an MA in international affairs from George Washington University, and an MBA from Harvard Business School. Warner Woodworth is a social entrepreneur and professor at the Marriott School, Brigham Young University, and is a consultant to major corporations, governments and trade unions. He has published ten books and more than 160 articles, many on microcredit and NGOs. Over the last decade he has been a founder and/or director of 15 NGOs that in 2004 alone raised in excess of $8 million and gave out some 200,000 microloans to empower the poor and build self-reliance in 21 countries. He holds an M.A. and Ph.D. in organizational behavior from the University of Michigan. Kathy Wright S.L. is a board member of Fonkoze Financial Services, a financial institution whose mission is to serve the rural poor in Haiti with microcredit and a variety of financial products. She is active with the Investment Committee of her religious community, the Sisters of Loretto, which makes a variety of alternative investments, most often loans, to new and nontraditional organizations dedicated to the common good. Loretto was one of the first investors in Fonkoze and continues to be very supportive. As a Certified Public Accountant, Kathy believes that solid financial practices are key to keeping an organization mission-driven. Du Xiaoshan, is a Research Fellow, Professor, and the Deputy Director of the Rural Development Institute (RDI) at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) in China. He received a BA in Commerce Economics from the People University of China and conducted his postgraduate studies in the Science of Law at CASS. He is the Founder, Chairman of the Board of Directors, and original Executive Director of Funding the Poor Cooperative (FPC), a 13-year old microcredit pilot project spanning five counties in China. Du Xiaoshan is also the Deputy Director of the Poverty Research Center at CASS and the Director of the Standing Committee of China Association/Network for Microfinance (CAM). Lawrence J. Yanovitch has 20 years of operations management and public policy experience in microfinance. He currently serves as Senior Program Officer in the Financial Services for the Poor division of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. He previously served as Director of Policy & Technical Assistance at FINCA International. Mr. Yanovitch has managed and supported the development of microfinance institutions in 34 countries. He holds a B.A. in Business Administration from the University of Washington and a DEUG in International Studies from Université de Paris, la Sorbonne. He speaks five languages. Rabeya Yasmin has been working with BRAC in Bangladesh since 1995. She currently serves as Program Coordinator of an integrated Poverty Reduction Program for the poorest of the poor called ―Challenging the Frontiers of Poverty Reduction: Targeting the Ultra Poor; Targeting Social Constraints‖ (CFPR) with a budget of US$ 75 million for five years. 1,725,000 ultra poor families are being reached over the five year period between 2002 and 2006. Rabeya holds expertise in the design and implementation of comprehensive livelihoods development programs for the destitute, social protection for the poorest, food aid and development, human resource development, project monitoring and evaluation, and fund management. Professor Muhammad Yunus, Founder and Managing Director of Grameen Bank in Bangladesh, is internationally recognized for his work in poverty alleviation and the empowerment of poor women. Grameen Bank, admired and replicated around the world, is a microcredit institution dedicated to providing small amounts of capital to the poor, without collateral, for self-employment. The bank has proved beyond any doubt that the poor are very much creditworthy. From its origins as an action-research project in 1976, Grameen Bank has grown to provide collateral-free loans to 6.4 million borrowers in Bangladesh, 96% of who are women. Grameen Bank today lends 750 million dollars a year to the poorest, including beggars, while maintaining a repayment rate of 99%. Professor Yunus' autobiography, "Banker to the Poor: Micro-lending and the Battle against Poverty," has been translated to 17 languages. He has received many awards, both national & international honorary doctorate degrees, and also serves as a member of various committees and advisory boards within the country and abroad. Roshaneh Zafar, founded Kashf Foundation – the first specialized microfinance organization in Pakistan – in 1996, and currently serves as its President. Prior to this she worked in the World Bank‘s Water and Sanitation Department in Islamabad. Ms. Zafar was one of the first Ashoka Fellows in Pakistan and was recently selected as a Social Entrepreneur by the Schwab Foundation. Ms Zafar has also been awarded the Tamghai Imtiaz, one of the nation‘s highest civilian awards, by the President of Pakistan for her work in the field of development and women‘s empowerment. She is also a founding member of the Pakistan Microfinance Network, a member on the Board of several NGOs, and a member of the UN Advisory Group on Inclusive Financial Services. Ms. Zafar is a graduate of the Wharton Business School University of Pennsylvania in Finance and Economics. She also holds a Masters in International and Development Economics from Yale University. Manfred Zeller is a senior professor for Rural Development Theory and Policy at the University of Hohenheim, Germany. From 1999 until October 2005, he held a professorship in Socioeconomics of Rural Development at the University of Göttingen, Germany. His research in Asia, Africa, and Latin America focuses on the assessment of the impact of food, agriculture, and rural development policies (including micro-finance) and on the design and validation of operational methods to measure absolute and relative poverty. As a research fellow of the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), he led IFPRI‘s multi-country program on rural financial policies and food security from 1993 to 1999. Manfred received his doctoral degree in Agricultural Economics from the University of Bonn, Germany. Jonathan Zinman, Assistant Professor of Economics at Dartmouth College, obtained his PhD (economics) from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2002 and his B.A. from Harvard (government) in 1993. In between he worked as a strategic analyst and loan officer for the Massachusetts Community Development Finance Corporation. His research interests focus on consumer and entrepreneurial choice with respect to financial decisions. His substantive interests focus on testing economic theories of how firms and consumers interact in markets, and on testing the merits of incorporating specific features of psychology into economic models. His methodological interests focus on developing randomized-control field experiments that test economic theories in real firms and markets, and on refining survey methodologies to account for the impact of frames and cues on responses. His applied interests focus on working with microfinance practitioners to develop marketing and risk assessment strategies that expand access to financial services, and on testing whether such initiatives are effective at fighting poverty and promoting growth.