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Presenter Bios
Chairman, Banking with the Poor (BWTP)
Hatton National Bank, Ltd.
Chandula is current Chairman of BWTP, attached to Hatton National Bank Ltd., which is the largest private commercial bank in Sri Lanka. He graduated with a Bachelor of Commerce (Special) Degree from the University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka, and currently functions as the Deputy General Manager – Personal Banking & Network Management.In his capacity as a Deputy General Manager, Chandula oversees a wide sphere in the key areas in the bank, including micro financing and agricultural banking, personal related credit facilities, marketing, network management, credit cards, leasing, and pawning. He has also obtained professional exposure overseas in the field of Credit Analysis, Marketing, Business and Leadership Skills, and Finance and Banking in South East Asia.
Jaime Aristotle B. ALIP
Founder and Managing Director, CARD MRI
Dr. Jaime Aristotle (Aris) B. Alip is the Founder and Managing Director of CARD MRI, a group of mutually reinforcing institutions composed of the CARD NGO, CARD Bank, CARD Microinsurance, and CARD MRI Development Institute. Under his leadership, CARD MRI was awarded the 2005 People Power People Recognition Award by former President Corazon C. Aquino, the 2003 Global Excellence for Microfinance by the Grameen Foundation, and the 2000 Flame of Excellence Award given by USAID and Microfinance Coalition for Standards of the Philippines.
Aris obtained his doctorate degree in Organizational Development from the Southeast Asia Interdisciplinary Development Institute in 2002. In 2007 he completed the Owner President Management (OPM) Program at Harvard Business School, receiving the Excellence Award on Strategy. Aris attended the Executive Program in Global Management at the Weatherhead School of Management, Case Western Reserve University.
Aris has extensive international experience in the field of microfinance and rural development in Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, China, Myanmar, Bhutan, and East Timor, serving in various capacities as advisor, expert and/or consultant. He is currently President of RIMANSI, a regionally based association promoting microinsurance among MFI players in Asia. Aris was recently awarded as Special Fellow of the Graduate School of International Social Development of the Nihon Fukushi University, Japan. He also received the 2006 Social Entrepreneur of the Year from Ernest and Young. Aris sits as an adviser to several prestigious organizations and has served in various key positions in the Philippine Government.
Mukul G. ASHER
Professor, Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy
National University of Singapore
Mukul G. Asher is a professor at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore. He specializes in social security and pension reforms in Asia, public finances in developing countries, and India’s external economic relations.
Mukul has published extensively in international journals, and has authored or edited more than ten books. He is on the editorial advisory board of the International Social Security Review, Journal of Financial Regulation and Compliance, IIMB Management Review, and is Consulting Editor for the online journal eSocialSciences. He has been a consultant to multilateral organizations such as the World Bank on tax reforms and pension issues in several countries. He has addressed many academic, professional and business gatherings around the world.
Managing Director, PADME
René Azokli is Managing Director of PADME, a highly successful microfinance institution in Benin (West Africa). He has been with PADME since 1993 when he joined as a loan officer.René has extensive consulting experience with local and international organizations on projects to develop microfinance in Africa He has been Chairman of the Board of the ALAFIA Consortium, a network of microfinance practitioners in Benin, of the African Microfinance Network, and of the International Guarantee Found. He is member of the Board of Women’s World Banking, PAMIGA and RAFAD Foundation.
Christina BARRINEAU
Managing Director, Financial Access Initiative
New York University
Christina Barrineau is the new Managing Director of the Financial Access Initiative at New York University. Prior to this she led the United Nations International Year of Microcredit where she brought global attention to the importance of microfinance and engaged hundreds of thousands of people, from princesses to bankers to microentrepreneurs, in building inclusive financial sectors.
Christina has worked for Women’s World Banking (WWB) where she established and managed the Global Network for Banking Innovation in Microfinance. Before joining WWB, she spent ten years as an independent international advisor in finance and development. In this role, she launched more than 20 businesses and non-profit institutions in the fields of microfinance, the environment, the arts, and social change. Among other accolades, she has worked with Dr. Jeffery Sachs on issues specific to eradicating poverty in Africa and was a champion of the Malaria No More campaign. Under the leadership of Dr. Stanley Fischer, she worked to ensure the Bretton Woods Institutions collect data on access to finance. She pioneered new thinking on pension plans for the poor and asset building models for informal sector workers and established the Global Microentrepreneurship Awards Program, now owned by Citigroup, in more than 30 countries. She is an Advisor to UNEPFI African Commercial Microfinance Initiative and the Citigroup Microfinance Fund. Christina is a well known public speaker on microfinance, holds an MBA from the University of British Columbia and is a Canadian national
Jim BENNETT
Senior Research Fellow, Institute for Public Policy Research (ippr)
Jim Bennett is a Senior Research Fellow and currently leads the Centre for Asset Based Welfare at the Institute for Public Policy Research (ippr). He is also a member of the UK Government’s Cities and Regional Policy Development Panel. Before joining ippr, he was head of policy at Shelter, the UK’s largest housing and homelessness charity. His research interests include housing, assets, urban policy, communities, social exclusion and welfare reform.
His publications include the following: Would You Live Here? Making the Growth Areas Communities of Choice (2006), ippr; Single Person Households and Social Policy: Looking Forwards (2006), Joseph Rowntree Foundation/ippr; Gateway People (2006), ippr; From New Towns to Growth Areas: Learning from the Past (2005), ippr; Singles Barred: the Homes Bill and the Rights of Non-priority Homeless People (2001), Shelter; and Modernising Private Renting (2000), Shelter.
Jeroo BILLIMORIA
Executive Director, Aflatoun: Child Savings International
Jeroo Billimoria has conceived and set up two highly successful social ventures and is now spearheading her third. The first, Childline India, now operates in 74 of India’s largest cities and has responded to over 10 million calls from vulnerable children. The second, Child Helpline International, expanded her Indian model and became a global network of telephone help lines for children. It is operational in over 150 countries. Jeroo is now undertaking her third social venture, Aflatoun: Child Savings International that provides children with financial education while teaching them about their responsibilities and rights as citizens.
Jeroo holds a Bachelor of Commerce degree from Bombay University, a Masters in Social Work from the University Tata Institute of Social Sciences, and a Masters in Non-Profit Management from the New School for Social Research in New York.
Aflatoun: Child Savings International started its operations in 2005, first targeting rural areas of economically development countries. Its mission is to socially and financially empower children to enable them to break the cycle of poverty, initially through instituting a savings program together with schools in these areas. Currently in a pilot stage in 10 countries in South America, Africa and Asia, it already has reached 100,000 children and is projected to further grow in 2007 to reach more countries.
Carolyn BLACKLOCK
Head of Financial Inclusion & Community, ANZ Banking Group
Carolyn Blacklock is the ANZ Banking Group’s Head of Financial Inclusion & Community in the Pacific and is currently Project Director for the Mobile Phone Banking Project in ANZ’s International Partnerships business in Asia. Carolyn’s work is not simply corporate social responsibility – though community goodwill is certainly a result of the initiative. Carolyn’s premise is that customers that are able to contribute to the sustainability of ANZ will be valued and being valued is what the financially excluded want most of all.
From a rural background, Carolyn grew up on a remote cattle station in far north Queensland. She went on to work in corporate and retail banking senior management until 2004 when an opportunity arose to bank the un-banked in Fiji. Carolyn believes strongly in community-driven financial inclusion and ensuring that banking the un-banked activities are sustainable. Radically lowering the cost of serving un-banked people is her current focus in the drive to redefine who is bankable. Accelerating access to safe, reliable, valued and affordable banking services in the commercial banking environment is continually challenging, but Carolyn believes this will happen within the foreseeable future. In the past, Carolyn has formed a unique partnership with the United Nations Development Programme and delivered much needed financial literacy training to the villages in the Pacific Islands. Financial Literacy remains an integral part of Carolyn’s and the wider ANZ Bank’s approach to financial inclusion in developed and developing countries. Carolyn has spoken widely, including to the World Bank in July 2006, the United Nations Unleashing Entrepreneurship conference, and the Scottish Executive in Glasgow.
Ray BOSHARA
Vice President and Director, Asset Building Program
New America Foundation
Ray Boshara is Vice President and Director of the Asset Building Program at the New America Foundation. The program aims to significantly expand savings and the ownership of assets in the U.S. and around the world. Prior to joining New America, Ray served in the U.S. Congress for Representative Tony P. Hall and on the House Select Committee on Hunger. He has also worked for the United Nations in Rome, and for CFED, the Aspen Institute, and Ernst & Young. Ray has testified in both the House and Senate, and has advised the Bush and Clinton Administrations, as well as leaders in Europe and elsewhere, on asset-building policies. He has written for The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Atlantic Monthly, Esquire, and the Brookings Institution, and has appeared several times on C-SPAN and radio programs across the U.S.
A graduate of the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, Yale Divinity School, and Ohio State University, Ray is the recipient of several leadership awards-including a Littauer Fellowship at Harvard and CFED's Asset Building Innovation Award. He was selected by Esquire magazine as one of America's Best and Brightest.
Robert Peck CHRISTEN
Director, Financial Services for the Poor
Global Development Program
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
Robert Peck Christen manages the foundation’s Financial Services for the Poor initiative and brings with him over 25 years of experience in over 40 countries advising institutions and governments on the best ways to extend high quality financial services to low income clients. He has extensive expertise developing microfinance in commercial banks, creating performance standards and tools for financial management and in the regulation and supervision of microfinance institutions. Robert has been a leading spokesman for the importance of incorporating the concept of sustainability in microfinance and the mainstreaming of financial services for the poor into regulated financial systems. He has published extensively in these areas.
Prior to joining the Foundation Robert served as Senior Advisor to the Consultative Group to Assist the Poorest (CGAP) in the World Bank. He founded and continues to serve as President of the Boulder Institute of Microfinance. And, he founded the MicroBanking Bulletin which is dedicated to financial performance of several hundred leading microfinance institutions and continues to serve as the Chair of the Editorial Committee.
Robert received his Bachelor’s degree in Political Science and Economics from Beloit College and later obtained a certificate of Graduate Studies in Regional Planning from Syracuse University. He also holds a Master’s degree in Agricultural Economics and Development Finance from Ohio State University. Robert was the recipient of the 2005 Distinguished Alumni Award, The Ohio State University CFAES Alumni Society in recognition of his work in the field of financial services for the poor.
Alex COUNTS
President and CEO, Grameen Foundation
Alex Counts is the President and CEO of Grameen Foundation, a dynamic, non-profit, Washington DC-based organization that has grown to a global network of 52 microfinance partners in 22 countries. A 1988 Cornell University graduate, with a degree in economics, Counts’ commitment to poverty eradication deepened as a Fulbright scholar witnessing dire poverty as well as innovative solutions in Bangladesh. He then trained to be a catalyst for change under Dr. Muhammad Yunus, the founder and managing director of the Grameen Bank.
Today, under Counts’ leadership, Grameen Foundation impacts an estimated eleven million lives in Asia, Africa, the Americas, and the Arab World. Grameen Foundation’s annual budget has grown in each year of its existence, from $100,000 in 1997 to over $11 million in 2005, and its breakthrough impact has been chronicled in the Economist and elsewhere.
Counts has propelled Grameen Foundation’s philosophy and approach through numerous articles on poverty and microcredit for the poor and has authored a book entitled Give Us Credit: How Muhammad Yunus' Microlending Revolution is Empowering Women from Bangladesh to Chicago, which was published by Random House in 1996. He has been published in the Washington Post, the International Herald Tribune, the Miami Herald, the Christian Science Monitor, and elsewhere.
Christopher CRANE
President and CEO, Opportunity International
Chris Crane is president and chief executive officer of Opportunity International, one of the largest microfinance organizations in the world, operating in 28 countries. Opportunity has more commercial banks serving the poorest of the poor than any other institution. Since joining Opportunity in 2002, Opportunity's revenues have grown at a 30 percent annual rate, and the number of poor entrepreneurs served has grown by 31 percent annually. Opportunity currently has 1 million active loans to microfinance entrepreneurs and covers over 3 million lives with microinsurance.
Chris previously served as president and chief executive officer of COMPS InfoSystems, Inc. in San Diego, Calif. He acquired COMPS in 1992 and sold it in 2000. During his eight year tenure, COMPS grew from a small, print-based publishing firm covering commercial real estate sale information in four western states into an electronic database publisher with 420 employees and coverage of 50 of the top real estate markets nationwide. In 1998, COMPS was one of only two companies to receive the "Best Practices Award - Unleashing the Power of Technology" sponsored by the San Diego Business Journal, and in 1999, Chris was named "Entrepreneur of the Year" in San Diego by Ernst & Young and USAToday Newspaper.
From 1988-1992, Chris served as group president and board member of Nitches, Inc., a clothing company in San Diego with $150 million in annual sales and operations in 17 developing countries. Prior to that, Chris was vice president of corporate development of Oster Communications, Inc., an information publishing company operating in 16 countries, and was a partner of Graystone Capital, a venture capital firm in Denver, Colo.
From 1988-1992, Chris served as group president and board member of Nitches, Inc., a clothing company in San Diego with $150 million in annual sales and operations in 17 developing countries. Prior to that, Chris was vice president of corporate development of Oster Communications, Inc., an information publishing company operating in 16 countries, and was a partner of Graystone Capital, a venture capital firm in Denver, Colo.
Tom EASTON
Asia Business Editor, The Economist
Thomas Easton has been the Asia Business Editor of The Economist Magazine based in Hong Kong since late August, 2006. Previously, he was The Economist's New York Bureau Chief and its chief financial writer.
In 2006, he was named financial reporter of the year in London and was a Loeb Award finalist for his extended report on the "Hidden Wealth of the Poor", an article on microfinance drawn from extensive interviews in the slums of Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Before joining The Economist, he was a senior editor at Forbes Magazine, and the New York and Tokyo Bureau Chief of the Baltimore Sun. He is a graduate of Brown University, Columbia Business and Yale Law School.
Robert E. FRIEDMAN
Chair of the Board and General Counsel, CFED
Robert (Bob) Friedman continues to help lead CFED (formerly known as Corporation for Enterprise Development), a US non-profit organization devoted to expanding economic opportunity which he founded, as Chair of the Board and General Counsel. His current focus is on the Savings for Education, Entrepreneurship and Downpayment (SEED) Policy and Practice Initiative, a multifaceted effort to create an inclusive system of children's saving accounts in the US. He continues to contribute to numerous efforts to develop the individual development account and asset-building movements spawned by the American Dream Policy Demonstration, as well as advising on new strategies to bring excluded communities into the economic mainstream as entrepreneurs, savers, investors and skilled employees. Over the decades of his involvement in economic development innovation, Bob and CFED have helped lead the US development of innovative economic development strategies including microenterprise, flexible business networks, individual development accounts, and economic health.
Based in San Francisco, California USA, Bob also serves on the Boards of CFED's CDFI subsidiary, the National Fund for Enterprise Development, D2D Fund, EARN, the Rosenberg Foundation, the Friedman Family Foundation, and the Koshland Committee of the San Francisco Foundation. He is a graduate of Harvard College and Yale Law School. He is author of The Safety Net as Ladder: Transfer Payments and Economic Development and a contributor to numerous CFED and outside publications.
Chang-Keun HAN
Research Associate, Center for Social Development
Washington University in St. Louis
Chang-Keun Han is a PhD candidate and research associate at the Center for Social Development, George Warren Brown School of Social Work at Washington University in St. Louis, USA. His main research areas are implementation and evaluation of asset-based policy, in particular, for low-income households. In addition, he is interested in testing asset effects on individual, family, and community. He is currently involved in a variety of research on saving in individual development accounts (IDAs) using American Dream Demonstration (ADD) experimental data. Two specific papers are developed: how unemployment influences saving in IDAs and to what degree saving in IDAs is related to asset accumulation.
He has been working on research of 529 college savings plans and IDAs. Two research reports on 529 college saving plans were published at the Center for Social Development. He has also worked on a variety of topics in IDAs and the papers are under review. First, he examined how competing theories explain saving in IDAs. A key finding is that institutional features matter significantly for saving in IDAs. Second, saving patterns were analyzed using latent growth curve modeling. Third, he examined how participants view IDA programs and how the attitudes are associated with saving in IDAs. Fourth, in a coauthored paper, he found that participants in IDAs are more likely to own homes than the control group. Regarding asset effects, using nationally representative data (American Changing Lives), he found that older adults with more assets are likely to have better self-esteem.
Mary Ellen ISKENDERIAN
President and Chief Executive Officer, Women’s World Banking
Mary Ellen Iskenderian became President and CEO of Women's World Banking in September 2006, making her the organization's first new president in 16 years. Mary Ellen brings to WWB over 20 years of experience in building financial systems globally as a director at the International Finance Corporation of the World Bank Group. She is poised to develop and launch WWB's new strategy that will focus on continued leadership in capital markets development, renewed strategic focus on gender and women's leadership initiatives, and the creation of an expansion strategy for WWB's global network of microfinance institutions and commercial banks.
Mary Ellen has held numerous leadership positions in various regions and sectors at the IFC, including Director of Partnership Development, Director of Global Financial Markets Portfolio and Director of the South Asia Regional Department. She currently sits on the advisory boards of the Dignity Fund and Kiva. Prior to joining WWB, she was a director on numerous corporate boards, including ShoreCap International, an important equity and loan fund for microfinance.
Mary Ellen received an MBA from the Yale School of Organization and Management and a BS in International Economics from the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service.
Roy A. JACOBOWITZ
Senior Vice President, Program Development
ACCION International
Roy Jacobowitz is responsible for the development of many of ACCION’s strategic program initiatives and partnerships. He is particularly involved in ACCION’s work in adapting new technologies to increase the efficiency, effectiveness, and reach of microfinance institutions. In that capacity, he represented ACCION as the Chair of the Microdevelopment Finance Team, a consortium convened by Hewlett Packard to develop open source remote transaction strategies for MFIs utilizing POS devices. He also chaired the Rockdale Foundation’s Advisory Committee for Microfinance in the Middle East and North Africa. Roy has developed ACCION partnerships with Citigroup, AIG, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and the International Finance Corporation of The World Bank, among others. He created the ACCION Microenterprise Venture Fund in 1999, one of the first funds to direct both philanthropic and investment dollars to new initiatives, followed by the Helping Millions Help Themselves Campaign to underpin ACCION’s worldwide expansion.
Roy joined ACCION in 1994 as part of the development team and joined the senior management team in 1998. He has 25 years of experience as a non-profit executive, including work with organizations in Boston and San Francisco serving at-risk youth. Outside the office, he enjoys sailing Massachusetts Bay with his family. Roy holds a BA in Russian & Eastern European Studies from Yale University.
Dean KARLAN
Assistant Professor of Economics, Yale University
President, Innovations for Poverty Action
Dean Karlan is an Assistant Professor of Economics at Yale University. Dean is also President of Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA) and a research fellow of the MIT Jameel Poverty Action Lab. He is co-director of the Financial Access Initiative, a consortium of New York University, Harvard University, Yale University, and IPA created with funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
Dean’s research focuses on microeconomic issues of poverty, specifically employing experimental methodologies to examine what works, what does not, and why. He focuses on microfinance program design internationally, and voting and charitable giving decisions domestically. In microfinance, he has studied interest rate policy, credit evaluation and scoring policies, entrepreneurship training, group versus individual liability, savings product design, credit with education, and impact from increased access to credit. His work on savings typically uses insights from psychology and behavioral economics to design and test specialized products. He has consulted for the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, FINCA International, and the Guatemalan government. Dean received a PhD in Economics from MIT, an MBA and an MPP from the University of Chicago, and a BA in International Affairs from the University of Virginia.
Elaine KEMPSON
Professor and Director, Personal Finance Research Centre
University of Bristol
Elaine Kempson is Professor of Personal Finance and Social Policy Research, and Director of the Personal Finance Research Centre (PFRC) at the University of Bristol in the UK. She is an internationally known and respected authority on consumer financial issues, and has over 20 years experience in conducting research into various personal financial services and household money management. In recent years, this has included a large body of work on the nature and causes of financial exclusion, access to affordable credit for people on low incomes, and the promotion of financial capability.
Elaine and PFRC have undertaken several recent research studies on aspects of saving and asset based welfare, including the following: baseline research for the evaluation of the Child Trust Fund in the UK, for HM Revenue and Customs; an evaluation of the UK Saving Gateway pilot scheme, funded by HM Treasury; and research into the links between savings and life events.
The work of the centre has been influential in shaping policy, and several members of staff act as technical and policy advisors to government departments. In addition to her work at PFRC, Elaine is also currently a member of the UK Treasury Financial Inclusion Taskforce, the Social Security Advisory Committee, the Banking Code Standards Board, and a member of the Department of Trade and Industry Over-indebtedness Advisory Group.
Anil KUMAR S.G.
Head of Emerging MFIs Team, ICICI Bank
Anil Kumar S.G. is Head of Emerging MFIs Team in ICICI Bank. This team looks at incubating and supporting newer MFI partners with a focus on addressing the geographical asymmetry existing in the MFI sector in India by identifying and supporting MFIs in areas that are not traditional hotbeds of microfinance, such as North India. The team also works on new channels and models in microfinancing that have commercial scalability.
Anil is also involved in an initiative of creating an integrated support system for MFIs under IFMR Trust (www.ifmr.ac.in) wherein all building blocks like equity, debt, training, manpower, technology, and operating model are provided to an MFI in an integrated manner. Therefore, at the end of a certain period of engagement, a nascent MFI transforms into a mid-sized institution.
A career banker with over 15 years of experience in various areas of banking, including agricultural lending and retail banking, Anil worked for five years in a PSU Bank before joining ICICI Bank in 1996. He has had several assignments with ICICI Bank, such as marketing, branch operations and the role of Branch Manager before beginning his present role. Anil is an alumnus of the Asian Institute of Management, Manila, where he completed his Masters in Management.
LIEW Heng San
CEO, Central Provident Fund Board
Liew Heng San was appointed the Chief Executive Officer of Central Provident Fund Board in September 2005. The mission of the Central Provident Fund Board is to enable Singaporeans to save for a secure retirement. In the last 50 years, it has evolved from a simple old age savings plan into a comprehensive social security system providing for not only the retirement needs, but also the housing and healthcare needs of Singaporeans.
Liew graduated from Cambridge University with a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) on an Overseas Merit Scholarship and subsequently obtained a Masters degree in Public Administration from Harvard University.
Liew joined the Administrative Service in 1979. He held several appointments, first in the National Trades Union Congress and subsequently with the Public Service Commission before being appointed Director (Industry) in the Ministry of Trade and Industry in June 1990, and Principal Private Secretary to Deputy Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong in April 1991. He was appointed Deputy Secretary of the then Ministry of Communications in March 1995 prior to becoming Chief Executive Officer of the Land Transport Authority from September 1995 to July 1998. He headed the Economic Development Board as Managing Director from 1988 to 2000. He served as the Chairman of Singapore Land Authority from 2001 to 2006 and as Deputy Chairman of the Intellectual Property Office of Singapore from 2001 to 2007. He also held directorships in several other organisations. Prior to his appointment at Central Provident Fund Board in September 2005, he was the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Law.
LIU Thai-Ker
Director, RSP Architects Planners & Engineers (Pte) Ltd., Singapore
Liu Thai-Ker is an architect-planner. Since 1992, he has been Director of RSP Architects Planners & Engineers Pte Ltd., a consultant firm of 900 people, with 10 branches and projects in 18 countries.
Liu is also the Adjunct Professor at the School of Design and Environment and the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore. He is a member of several governmental bodies in Singapore, and is the planning advisor to over 20 cities in China.
As architect-planner and Chief Executive Officer of the Housing & Development Board, 1969-1989, he oversaw the completion of over half a million dwelling units. As Chief Executive Officer and Chief Planner of Urban Redevelopment Authority, 1989-1992, he spearheaded the major revision of the Singapore Concept Plan and key direction for heritage conservation. Additionally, he served as the Chairman of the National Arts Council from 1996 to 2005 and Singapore Tyler Print Institute since 2000.
Liu obtained his Bachelor of Architecture with First Class Honours and University Medal from the University of N.S.W. and Master in City Planning with Parson’s Memorial Medal from Yale University. He also attended Stanford Insead Advanced Management Program in Paris. In 1995, he was conferred Doctor of Science honoris causa by the University of New South Wales.
Among his awards are the Public Administration Medal (Gold) 1976, the Meritorious Service Medal 1985, Singapore Institute of Architects Gold Medal and the Medal of the City of Paris, France, in 2001. In 1993, he was bestowed the 2nd Asean Achievement Award for Outstanding Contributions to Architecture.
Vernon LOKE
Research Associate, Center for Social Development
Washington University in St. Louis
Vernon Loke is a research associate at the Center for Social Development at Washington University in St Louis. He is also currently pursuing his PhD in social work at the George Warren Brown School of Social Work, Washington University. His current research interests include social development, social policies, and the effects of asset-based welfare policies, especially with regard to children’s life-chances.
Vernon has been working on asset-building programs and policies for children, and has released a working paper comparing Children Savings Account policies around the world. He is currently part of the research team for SEED (Saving for Education, Entrepreneurship and Downpayment), a national policy, practice and research initiative designed to test the efficacy of and inform policy for a national system of asset-building accounts for children and youth in the United States. In Singapore, Vernon has served in various capacities on a broad range of community, grassroots, and professional organizations, and was a founding council member of the PAP Policy Forum.
Vijay MAHAJAN
Chairman, BASIX
Vijay Mahajan studied engineering at Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi; management at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, and public policy at the Woodrow Wilson School, Princeton University. After working in the corporate sector for five years, in 1983, Vijay founded an NGO, PRADAN, (www.pradan.net), which works with 100,000 rural poor households.
In 1996, Vijay founded BASIX, (www.basixindia.com), a group of companies including a local area bank, which has supported the livelihoods of over a million rural poor households, of which a third have been supported directly with micro-credit worth $225 million, in addition to savings and insurance services, agricultural/business development services, and institutional development services. The other two thirds are supported through over 100 NGO or community based MFIs, to which BASIX provides assistance in funding, training, MIS, and operations.
Vijay serves on the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority, the Micro Finance Development and Equity Fund, and the national Committee on Financial Inclusion. He is the Principal Advisor to the Government of Rajasthan on Livelihoods. He also serves on Boards of several NGOs, and is member of the Executive Committee of CGAP (www.cgap.org), a global consortium on microfinance. Vijay was selected an “Outstanding Social Entrepreneur” by the Schwab Foundation, the World Economic Forum (WEF), Davos in 2002. He has been a keynote speaker to the OECD Foreign Aid Ministers in Paris in 2004; at the Geneva Private Equity Conference on Microfinance, 2005; and at the Goldman Sachs global forum on microfinance, 2006.
Mohamad MALIKI Osman
Parliamentary Secretary
Ministry of National Development & Member of Parliament for Sembawang GRC
Singapore
Dr. Mohamad Maliki Osman graduated with his Bachelor and Master’s degrees from the National University of Singapore (NUS). He obtained his doctorate in Social Work from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1998 and became an Assistant Professor at the NUS Department of Social Work and Psychology that year. Maliki was elected a Member of Parliament for the Sembawang Group Representation Constituency (GRC) in 2001. He was re-elected for a second term in May 2006. Maliki is currently the Parliamentary Secretary for the Ministry of National Development (MND). He served as Parliamentary Secretary for the Ministry of Community Development Youth and Sports (MCYS) from August 2004 to June 2006 and the Ministry of Health (MOH) from August 2004 to October 2005.
Maliki serves as Chairman of the Community Improvement Projects Committee and the People’s Association Community Development Fund Management Committee. He co-chairs the Committee on Aging Issues. He is also the Deputy Chairman of the National Youth Council and the Inter-Ministry Committee on Youth Crime. Maliki currently serves as a member of the People’s Association Board of Management and Yayasan Mendaki’s Board of Directors. At the community level, Maliki is Advisor to the Centre for Promoting Alternative to Violence (PAVe) and ADAM Association.
Kate McKEE
Senior Advisor, Policy, Outreach and Aid Effectiveness
CGAP
Walter Russell MEAD
Henry A. Kissinger Senior Fellow for US Foreign Policy
Council on Foreign Relations
Walter Russell Mead, the Henry A. Kissinger Senior Fellow for US Foreign Policy at the Council on Foreign Relations, is one of the country’s leading students of American foreign policy. His most recent book, Power, Terror, Peace and War (Knopf), was hailed as “elegant and most timely” by Zbigniew Brzezinski; Henry Kissinger called it, “A splendid work…informed, perceptive and valuable.” His previous book, Special Providence: American Foreign Policy and How It Changed the World was widely acclaimed as an important study that will change the way Americans and others think about American foreign policy and received several honors and prizes. Walter’s books have been translated into Arabic, French, German, Italian, Dutch, Chinese, and Russian (forthcoming).
In August 2007, Knopf will publish Walter’s next book, a major study exploring the rise of Anglophone global primacy, titled God and Gold: Britain, America and the Making of the Modern World.
Walter’s chief intellectual interests include the rise and development of a liberal, capitalist world order based on the economic, social and military power of the United States and its closest allies. Additionally, he has directed a study group on religion and foreign policy with the Pew Foundation on Religion and Public Life. Walter is an honors graduate of Groton and Yale. He is a founding board member of the New America Foundation and serves on the editorial board of The American Interest. Walter also contributes articles, book reviews, and op-eds to leading newspapers and magazines.
Leslie MEEK
Senior Program Officer, Community Development
Citi Foundation
Leslie Meek is the Senior Program Officer for Community Development at the Citi Foundation. She is responsible for developing the strategic focus of and managing the global community development grant portfolio totaling over $35 million annually. Major programmatic areas include, among others, affordable housing and community infrastructure, microenterprise development, workforce development, financial literacy, and environmental sustainability.
Prior to joining Citi, Leslie spent three years at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York in the Office of Regional and Community Affairs helping to promote bank, local government, and non-profit community development collaborations in low- and moderate-income communities. Leslie also has an extensive background in international development and humanitarian aid, working for CARE, Catholic Relief Services, and Peace Corps. She has a joint Masters degree (Business Administration/International Affairs) from Columbia University and a BS in Business from Georgetown University.
Israel MORENO-BARCELÓ
General Manager, Patrimonio Hoy
CEMEX
Israel Moreno-Barceló is the General Manager in charge of Patrimonio Hoy, an initiative of CEMEX designed to improve the quality of life for low-income families through housing. Patrimonio Hoy offers an accessible savings and credit system with technical advisory services which allows families to increase the quality and reduce the cost and time necessary in building their homes.
Israel was part of the original team that designed Patrimonio Hoy by living directly among low-income communities in Mexico for a year. He has been in this position for the last eight years. Before, he was in charge of Logistical Projects, Organizational Effectiveness, and Human Resources functions within CEMEX Mexico. Israel holds a Bachelor’s Degree from Tecnologico de Chihuahua and a Master’s Degree in Organizational Development from Universidad de Monterrey. He lives in Guadalajara, Mexico, with his wife and 3 daughters.
Inez MURRAY
Senior Manager, Strategy and Customer Insight
Women’s World Banking
Inez Murray leads the Strategy and Customer Insight Team of Women’s World Banking, a network of microfinance institutions operating in four continents. In this capacity, she has overall responsibility for WWB’s technical assistance in four areas—corporate strategy, customer insight, marketing strategy, and strategies to serve the women’s market. She is also responsible for setting the research agenda for WWB. Prior to her current position, Inez led the development of market research division of WWB, and before that, she led the strategy development division, helping microfinance institutions define or re-define their market position and gain long-term competitive advantage.
Before joining WWB in 1996, Inez worked as a Senior Consultant in the strategy practice of Booz, Allen, Hamilton, a leading global consulting firm in New York and as a Business Analyst for Management Horizons, a management consulting company based in London. She has also worked on short-term consultancies for various NGOs, including SEEP, Trickle Up, and Puntos de Encuentro in Managua. Inez holds a Master's degree in International Affairs from Columbia University where she specialized in economic and political development and a Bachelor's degree in Economics and Business Studies from Trinity College, Dublin. She is a native of Ireland and has a working knowledge of Spanish.
Publications include Gender and Microfinance: Intrahousehold Resource Allocation and the Capacity of Poor Women to Grow their Businesses in Morocco (2005) and Gender and Microfinance: Intrahousehold Resource Allocation and the Capacity of Poor Women to Grow their Businesses in the Dominican Republic (2006), both published by Women’s World Banking.
Yunju NAM
Assistant Professor, George Warren Brown School of Social Work Washington University in St. Louis
Dr. Yunju Nam is an Assistant Professor at the George Warren Brown School of Social Work, Washington University in Saint Louis. She is also affiliate of the Center for Social Development (CSD) at Washington University. She holds a PhD in Social Work and Political Science from the University of Michigan, an MSW from the University of Pennsylvania, an MA in Political Science from the University of Michigan, and a BA in Literature from Seoul National University, Korea.
Yunju’s scholarly interests center around poverty and welfare policy. She is particularly interested in asset-building approach as an anti-poverty strategy. She has examined the impact of asset eligibility rules in welfare programs on low-income households’ asset accumulation and program participation and the roles of assets on children’s educational achievement and economic mobility. She is currently working with Korean researchers in a project funded by the Korea Ministry of Health and Welfare, “Children’s Development Accounts: Plans for Korean Social Policy.” Yunju has also participated in the Poor Finances project funded by the Department of Health and Human Services. For Poor Finances, she reviewed existing research on assets among low-households and suggested future research in collaboration with other CSD faculty members and the Urban Institute researchers. She also studies the effects of welfare reform on elderly immigrants in the United States. Her work has been published in various scholarly journals, including Social Service Review and Child Abuse and Neglect.
NGIAM Tee Liang
Associate Professor, Department of Social Work
National University of Singapore
Associate Professor Ngiam, Tee Liang, BBM, PBM, is the Head of the Department of Social Work, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, National University of Singapore. He holds a PhD in Social Welfare from the University of California, Berkeley, a MSc (Econs) in Social Planning from the University College of Swansea (Wales) and a B.Soc.Sci (Hons) in Social Work and Sociology from the former University of Singapore.
He has researched and written on various social, policy and planning issues, including the Singapore welfare system, family, ageing, and youth and disability concerns. He was the past President of the Asian and Pacific Association for Social Work Education (APASWE) from 1997 – 2001. He was also the former Vice-President (1999 – 2001) and Member of the Board of Directors (1996 – 1997) of the Asian Academic Association of Social Services (AAASS), headquartered in Japan. He is a co-opted Executive Committee member of the Singapore Association of Social Workers.
He is a former Nominated Member of Parliament in Singapore and has extensive involvement over thirty years in various capacities on a number of national and international councils and committees of both governmental and non-governmental organizations. Some of the organizations he is presently associated with in Singapore include the Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports; Ministry of Home Affairs; Ministry of Defence; Singapore Workforce Development Agency; South West Community Development Council; National Council of Social Service; KK Women’s and Children’s Hospital; NTUC Childcare Co-operative Society; and Ngee Ann Polytechnic.
Melvin L. OLIVER
Dean, Division of Social Sciences, and Professor of Sociology
University of California, Santa Barbara
Dr. Melvin L. Oliver is Dean, Division of Social Sciences, and Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Santa Barbara, with over 25 years experience in higher education and philanthropy. Previously, Melvin was Vice President of the Asset Building and Community Development (Assets) Program at the Ford Foundation, helping to build assets among poor and disadvantaged individuals and communities, and a UCLA faculty member for eighteen years. As a UCLA faculty member, Melvin was named California Professor of the Year by the Carnegie Endowment and received a Distinguished Teaching award from the UCLA Alumni Association.
An expert on racial and urban inequality and poverty, Melvin is the co-author of Black Wealth/White Wealth: A New Perspective on Racial Inequality, which received the Distinguished Scholarly Publication Award, the C. Wright Mills Award, and the award for outstanding book on human rights from the Gustavus Myers Center. He earned his BA at William Penn College and his MA and PhD at Washington University in St. Louis, all in sociology. He serves on the Boards of the Urban Institute, DBASSE (National Research Council), and the National Poverty Center (University of Michigan).
Luis PORTILLA POULIOT
Seguros Banamex
Grupo Financiero Banamex - Citi
Luis Portilla studied in the Iberoamericana University and graduated with a Bachelor’s in Business Administration, specializing in investments, finance, and pension funds markets. He has worked for Banamex – Citi since 1991, developing his career in investments as well as in consumer banking areas, focusing on alternate investments for high network clients.
In 1998, Luis was invited to joint in the Pensiones Banamex Business (single payment annuity); he was in charge of the Commercial Area, implementing the whole operational and commercial model and approach. In 2004, Luis was also designated responsible for the Credit Insurance Business, where he has led the opening of distribution channels, including Banamex Consumer products, as well as Compartamos (micro-insurance products), and Crédito Familiar (insurance products for Non Banks - Citi Financial Mexican company).
Alok PRASAD
Business Manager, Microfinance Group
Citi India
Alok Prasad is the Head of Strategy & Business Development for Citi India’s Global Consumer Group and Business Manager-Microfinance Group, Citi India. He is also on the Board of Directors of CitiFinancial India and Citicorp Maruti Finance Limited India.
Alok is a senior banker with over 25 years of banking experience across varied institutions in the Government and the Private sector. He began his career in the Reserve Bank in 1978. For the next decade, he served with distinction in different departments of the Reserve Bank. In 1989, he was seconded to the National Housing Bank as a part of its start-up team. He was closely associated with the development of this institution and the framing of policies for the housing finance sector. Thereafter, in 1996, he moved to the private sector as the CEO of ITC Home Finance Limited.
Alok joined Citi in 2000 and was instrumental in building the home equity business in India, which emerged over time as the most successful mortgage business for Citi in the Asia-Pacific region.
Jorge RUBIO-NAVA
Director, Institutional Relationships
Citi Microfinance Group
Jorge Rubio-Nava is Director of Institutional Relationship at Citigroup’s Microfinance Group in the UK. In this role, Jorge manages relationships with MFIs, networks, and investors, and engages Citigroup businesses across products and geographies. Jorge develops multi-product relationships with MFIs and delivers Citigroup products and services to low-income populations in partnership with MFIs (such as micro-insurance, savings, and remittances).
Prior to assuming his current role, Jorge worked with Banamex Mexico in a variety of positions, including Relationship Manager and Financial Analyst. As Relationship Manager, Jorge provided credit analysis and approval for all commercial banks that were part of Citigroup’s target market, managed trade portfolios and correspondent banks and cash management, and maintained integral relationships with development banks (including asset creation, investment banking solutions, capital markets, loan syndications, and cash management). As a Financial Analyst, Jorge was involved in managing all the different sources of inter banking credit and service lines used by the Treasury, and assisted in managing a US$500 million portfolio of approximately 15 clients.
Roslyn RUSSELL
Senior Research Fellow, School of Economics, Finance and Marketing
RMIT University, Melbourne
Roslyn Russell is a Senior Research Fellow in the School of Economics, Finance and Marketing at RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia. Roslyn completed her education at Griffith University in Queensland and has held a number of academic positions in Queensland and Victoria. Roslyn has worked at RMIT University since 2002.
During her academic career, Roslyn has undertaken a large range of research projects for business, government, and community organisations. Roslyn has been successful in national grant schemes and supervises a number of postgraduate students.
Over the last few years, Roslyn has been evaluating Australia’s first matched savings program, Saver Plus. Other microfinance research that Roslyn has undertaken include: evaluating a nationally delivered financial education program - MoneyMinded, measuring financial capabilities of small business owners and the financial literacy needs of people recovering from domestic violence. Roslyn plays an active role in promoting asset-building research and encouraging initiatives aimed at increasing levels of financial inclusion across all sectors in Australia.
Stuart RUTHERFORD
Founder, SafeSave Bangladesh
Stuart Rutherford is an independent researcher, practitioner, teacher and writer who looks at how poor people manage their money. At present he is developing and testing products in the MFI he founded, SafeSave Bangladesh, and co-authoring a book about ‘financial diaries’ (a research technique).
Stuart, who is British and trained as an architect, started looking at money management by the poor in the early 1970s when research into the aftermath of the Managua earthquake first took him to urban slums. Since then he has worked in the slums and villages of Latin America, Africa, and Asia. He is a Senior Visiting Fellow at the Institute for Development Policy and Management, University of Manchester, UK, and has taught there and at other microfinance courses including those at Boulder and New Hampshire. His most recent research was a review of Grameen II, Grameen Bank’s recent revisions to its products. His best known book is The Poor and Their Money.
Rupert SCOFIELD
Founder and Executive Director, FINCA
Rupert Scofield has a BA from Brown University and an MA in agricultural economics and public administration from the University of Wisconsin. After being CEO of Rural Development Services, a consulting company, and country program director of the AFL-CIO’s Labor Program in El Salvador, he helped found FINCA in 1984 and has been its Executive Director for the past 17 years. During that time, FINCA has become a leading international microfinance organization that provides financial services to the world's lowest-income entrepreneurs, helping them to create jobs, build assets, and improve their standard of living. Currently, FINCA operates with a distinctive, integrated business model that accepts donations and investment dollars, an approach that leverages available capital and promotes greater transparency, sustainability, and higher standards of business practices. This has allowed FINCA to achieve balanced financial and social performance unmatched in its industry while opening the path to socio-economic development for the lowest-income citizens of the world. Based in Washington, DC, with local operations on four continents, serving more than 500,000 clients, FINCA's outreach is among the broadest and most comprehensive of today's microfinance networks.
On May 2 in New York, FINCA unveiled the Village Banking Campaign, an initiative to mobilize the people and resources needed to bring financial services to one million of the world’s lowest-income families. As part of the Campaign’s kick-off, FINCA announced it would bring its considerable microfinance expertise and resources to Jordan and the broader Middle East. International insurance giant AIG (American International Group, Inc.) pledged its support to expand micro-insurance products through a $1.5 million grant.
Jennefer SEBSTAD
Senior Advisor, Global Financial Education Program
Jennefer Sebstad is a development specialist with 25 years of experience in Africa and Asia working on programs to expand income, employment and asset building opportunities for low-income people. She has worked as a researcher, evaluator, program designer, and donor in the areas of microfinance, enterprise development and livelihood programming. Currently, she serves as a senior advisor for the Global Financial Education Program (GFEP) implemented by Microfinance Opportunities and Freedom from Hunger. In this role, she is team leader for the development of a financial education curriculum for adolescents and young adults in developing countries and oversees the program’s outcome assessment work. She is co-author of two GFEP working papers and several financial education content notes and implementation guidance papers. She is a founding member of the GFEP steering committee.
Jennefer also works as a Consulting Associate for the Population Council on adolescent livelihood programs and as the Qualitative Research Director for an impact assessment of microfinance innovations funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (for Microfinance Opportunities). Previously, she worked as a program officer for Ford Foundation and a project officer for USAID. She is a co-author of Microfinance, Risk Management, and Poverty and has written articles and reports on the impact of microfinance and enterprise development programs and the demand for microinsurance. Now based in Boston, Jennefer spent 17 years living and working in Ethiopia, Kenya, and India. She has an MA in Urban Planning from the University of California, Los Angeles and a BA in South and Southeast Asian Studies from the University of Michigan.
Gida NAKAZIBWE-SEKANDI
Executive Director, Capricorn Investment Holdings Limited (CIH) 
Gida Nakazibwe-Sekandi, APR, is a trained lawyer, accredited public relations practitioner, marketing professional, and serves as Executive Director of CIH, a Namibian regional banking and financial services group with interests in retail and corporate banking, insurance, asset management, and microlending. Gida plays a central role in the strategic repositioning of CIH, in terms of its regional expansion program as well as its participation in the emerging markets in the region. In addition to her responsibility for Group Corporate Marketing, she is a non-executive director of Bank Windhoek Limited, one of four commercial banks in Namibia.
In 2004, she was instrumental in influencing Bank Windhoek board and management to commission research that would later guide decisions related to providing financial products and services to rural and urban low-income households in Namibia. As an executive for marketing and communication of the bank, she influenced and coordinated Bank Windhoek’s participation in the first Finscope Research Project in Namibia. In May 2005 she co-presented the Bank Windhoek case study, with Finmark Trust at the World Bank Symposium on “Access to Financial Services Building Inclusive Financial Systems” held in Washington, DC.
Gida serves on the steering committee of the Namibia Financial Services Charter Forum, established by the Namibian government to develop a transformational charter for the financial services sector that will grow the size of the sector, make it more inclusive and improve levels of access for all.
Tharman SHANMUGARATNAM
Minister for Education and Second Minister for Finance, Singapore
Tharman Shanmugaratnam is currently Minister for Education and Second Minister for Finance in Singapore. He is Co-Chairman of the Singapore-Liaoning Economic and Trade Council (SLETC), which was established to advance stronger links between Singapore and Liaoning Province, China. Additionally, he is Deputy Chairman of the National Research Foundation (NRF), and Chairman of the Ong Teng Cheong Institute of Labour Studies.
Shanmugaratnam was the chief executive of the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), Singapore’s central bank and financial regulator, before he entered politics and contested in the General Elections of October 2001. He continues to serve on the board of the MAS, and the board of the Government of Singapore Investment Corporation (GIC).
Shanmugaratnam obtained undergraduate and Master’s degrees in Economics from the London School of Economics and Cambridge University. He later obtained a Master’s degree in Public Administration at Harvard University, where he received the Littauer Fellow award. He is married to Jane Yumiko Ittogi, a lawyer, with four children of school-going age.
Michael SHERRADEN
Director, Center for Social Development
Benjamin E. Youngdahl Professor of Social Development
Washington University in St. Louis
Dr. Michael Sherraden is Benjamin E. Youngdahl Professor of Social Development and founding director of the Center for Social Development (CSD), George Warren Brown School of Social Work, Washington University in St. Louis. As an overarching theme, Michael's work focuses on development rather than maintenance. He is particularly interested in ways in which social policy does not detract from, but rather contributes to, economic growth of households and communities. His work is characterized by innovative approaches to long-standing policy challenges, frequently drawing on insights from US history and experiences of other nations. The emphasis is on careful theoretical specification and testing of innovations in large-scale, multi-method studies, and using research evidence to inform public policy and the private sector. His current research project is a test of Children’s Savings Accounts in the United States.
Michael articulated the concept of asset-based development. His book Assets and the Poor: A New American Welfare Policy (1991), proposes universal and progressive saving beginning at birth. A research monograph with Mark Schreiner entitled Can the Poor Save? (2007) studies matched savings in the form of Individual Development Accounts (IDAs). CSD’s research on IDAs has influenced policy discussions and community projects in several countries. In the United Kingdom, Michael advised the Prime Minister’s Office and Chancellor of the Exchequer in creating a Child Trust Fund.
Michael was educated at Harvard (AB, 1970) and the University of Michigan (MSW, 1976; PhD, 1979). He has been a Visiting Professor at universities in Mexico, Singapore, Israel, and the US. He is a recipient of a Fulbright Research Fellowship (1992-93) and many other awards.
Miguel A. SOTO-CLASS
Executive Director, Center for the New Economy
As the founder and Executive Director of the Center for the New Economy (CNE), Puerto Rico’s first think-tank, Miguel Soto-Class has been involved in the promotion of savings, assets, and financial inclusion in Puerto Rico since 1999. CNE, a Ford Foundation grantee, is an independent, not-for-profit, research and policy development organization dedicated to promoting innovative economic development strategies. CNE was responsible for the first IDA programs in Puerto Rico and has been active in expanding financial services to underserved populations. Currently, CNE is working on two initiatives to understand and promote asset building: the first Puerto Rican Survey of Consumer Finances and structuring the first city-wide effort in the world for universal children’s savings accounts.
Mike was a co-editor of The Economy of Puerto Rico: Restoring Growth published by the Brookings Institution in 2006. He has experience in the private and public sectors and has worked at law firms and banks in the US mainland and Puerto Rico. Mike drafted a gubernatorial campaign platform and was Chief of Staff in the Senate of Puerto Rico.
Currently, Mike sits on the Board of Directors of the Baldwin School, the University of PR Press and the Advisory Council of the Conservation Trust of Puerto Rico. He has a BA from Yale University and a Juris Doctor from Vanderbilt University.
Fred M. SSEWAMALA
Assistant Professor, Columbia University School of Social Work
Senior Research Fellow, New America Foundation
Fred Ssewamala is an Assistant Professor at Columbia University School of Social Work; a Senior Research Fellow with New America Foundation; and a Faculty Associate with the Center for Social Development.
Ssewamala has several years of practice in the International Social Development field, including serving at the Red Cross (Uganda), where he served in several programmatic positions related to designing programs for poverty alleviation and community development, emphasizing asset-development initiatives. He also worked in various managerial and supervisory positions at Justine Petersen Housing and Reinvestment Corporation, a Missouri (USA) not-for-profit corporation that assists low- to moderate-income individuals and families become homeowners, access financial institutions, start their own micro-businesses, and accumulate assets. His current research on Africa—funded by a consortium of organizations, including the National Institute of Health—is focused on asset-ownership development and creating life options for Orphaned and Vulnerable Children (OVC) in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). He has authored and co-authored several international-focused publications related to social and economic development; and asset policy research. Ssewamala holds a PhD and Master’s degree in Social Work, specializing in social and economic development policy from Washington University in St. Louis.
As a Fellow at the New America Foundation, Ssewamala researches and writes on strategies for promoting asset ownership policies and programs in SSA. Specifically, he focuses on exploring the possibility of using an asset-based development policy model (e.g., children’s savings accounts) in funding post-primary education and training for OVC in SSA; and connecting low-income families to financial institutions. His work can be accessed at: http://www.ssewamala.com/ or http://www.columbia.edu/cu/ssw/faculty/profiles/ssewamala.html.
Kathleen STACK
Vice President, Freedom from Hunger
Kathleen Stack, Vice President, Freedom from Hunger, provides strategic leadership and coordination for the development of growth strategies for Freedom from Hunger. In this role, Kathleen develops new programs and partnerships to strengthen and expand the delivery of integrated financial, educational, and health protection services to the poor. She is also a member of the Steering Committee for the Global Financial Education Project, a program of Microfinance Opportunities and Freedom from Hunger, funded by Citigroup Foundation. The program aims to provide the poor with knowledge and skills to manage, protect, and build their assets.
Kathleen has thirty years of experience in international development, with particular emphases in program design, strategic business planning, microfinance, and design of business and financial education for the poor. She is one of the co-creators of Freedom from Hunger’s approach which integrates microfinance services and lifeskills education. Kathleen has authored or co-authored a number of practical manuals, guidelines, and articles on Credit with Education, integration of microfinance with credit unions, and business and financial education. She was a founding member of the Small Enterprise Education and Promotion (SEEP) Network and served on its Board of Directors from 1994–1998. She has been an instructor at the University of Southern New Hampshire’s Microenterprise Development Institute, where she taught organizational growth and transformation, and microenterprise training. Kathleen holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Clark University and a Master of International Administration from the School for International Training. She speaks fluent French.
Jennifer TESCHER
Director, The Center for Financial Services Innovation
Jennifer Tescher is the Director of the Center for Financial Services Innovation (CFSI), launched in 2004 to bring together diverse members of the financial services industry to develop, test, and implement new ways of building long-term, profitable relationships with underbanked consumers. The Center is a non-profit affiliate of ShoreBank Corporation, the nation’s leading community development bank holding company. Jennifer has been part of the ShoreBank family since 1996 in a variety of capacities, focused primarily on the development and implementation of new financial products and services.
Jennifer has guided CFSI since its inception, and has already achieved notable success in raising the profile of unbanked access and asset-building as an objective for the industry. She has become a nationally known expert on this topic, with a monthly column in American Banker, frequent interviews and articles in the financial services press, and major speaking engagements at a broad spectrum of industry events.
Jennifer is President of the Board of Directors of the Center for Economic Progress and serves as a member of the Board of Directors for Credit Builders of America. She is actively engaged in discussions around asset building at both the state and federal levels and is a member of Bank of America’s National Community Advisory Council. A recipient of the Crain’s Chicago Business “40 Under 40” Award for 2006, Jennifer received undergraduate and graduate degrees in journalism from Northwestern University and a public policy degree from the University of Chicago.
Thierry VAN BASTELAER
Associate Vice President, Save the Children
Dr. Thierry van Bastelaer is Associate Vice President of Save the Children and the Director of the organization’s Economic Opportunities Office. He is responsible for the strategic direction of the Office, as well as the design and implementation of field programs that improve the income potential and asset growth of poor households. He supervises a network of fifteen financial services providers across the developing world. He and his team are constantly on the lookout for innovative and technology-friendly financial products that increase the resilience of households and brighten prospects for children.
Prior to joining Save the Children, Thierry was the Director of the Enterprise Development Group at the IRIS Center at the University of Maryland, where he provided technical assistance and research targeted at the development of micro, small and medium enterprises in developing and transition economies. He managed a large value chain project in Bangladesh, and worked with USAID to develop user-friendly yet highly accurate poverty measurement tools. Thierry established IRIS as one of the most visible research centers on the role of social capital in financial services, development and poverty alleviation, and he has written and published on the role of social networks and attitudes in facilitating the poor’s access to financial services. Thierry holds a doctorate in Economics from the University of Maryland.
S. VASOO
Associate Professorial Fellow, Department of Social Work and Psychology
National University of Singapore
Dr. S. Vasoo, is an Associate Professorial Fellow in the Department of Social Work and Psychology, National University of Singapore. He was a Member Parliament of Parliament from 1984 to 2001, and he served as the Member of Parliament for Tanjong Pagar GRC before his retirement from politics.
Vasoo was Chairman of Government Parliamentary Committee for Community Development. He now serves as a member and advisor to various committees of community organizations including the Singapore Central Community Development Council.
He obtained his Doctorate and Master of Social Work from the University of Hong Kong and holds a Diploma in Social Studies from the University of Singapore. He has authored a number of monographs on social issues and has published various such articles both internationally and locally. He was awarded the Honorary Life Member of the Singapore Association of Social Workers for his outstanding contributions to social work in Singapore. He was appointed Justice of Peace, Singapore, in 2005.
Neisa VÁSQUEZ SANDOVAL
Research and Development Senior Manager, Pro Mujer
Neisa Vásquez is currently the Research and Development Senior Manager at Pro Mujer in Bolivia. In this position, her primary responsibility is to contribute to the growth of Pro Mujer through the design of new products (financial and non-financial), research impact and client satisfaction, and opening new markets. Neisa began her professional experience in microfinance when she started at Pro Mujer in 2000. Before assuming her current position, Neisa was the Administrator of a Focal Centre where she learned about the field and built relationships directly with Pro Mujer clients, she was in charge of the Regional Office in El Alto and guided operations in the largest region of Pro Mujer, she held the position of National Coordinator of Financial Services and monitored the results of the loan program, and she was responsible for the loan and health programs of Pro Mujer as the Operation and Services Manager.
Neisa holds a BS in Business Administration and has completed post-graduate courses in finance management, microfinance, and tax and tributary law. She has participated in exchanges of knowledge and experiences among microfinance institutions, such as Banco Solidario from Ecuador, COMPARTAMOS from Mexico, and FONCOSE from Haiti, as well as within the net work of Pro Mujer (Peru, Nicaragua, and Mexico). Finally, Neisa has supported Pro Mujer International and was part of the leadership team in charge of starting operations of Pro Mujer in Argentina.
J.D. VON PISCHKE
Frontier Finance International
J.D. Von Pischke is chairman of Frontier Finance International, the Washington office of two German firms: ProCredit Holding and IPC, a consulting firm. These companies promote micro and small businesses through 19 banks in Southeast Europe, Latin America and Africa, employing 12,000 staff members. ProCredit Holding’s assets exceed EUR 3.1 billion, with 750,000 micro and small business loans outstanding. The Holding is owned by public sector promotional investors including IFC, KfW, FMO and BIO, and private investors such as the DOEN Foundation and IPC. Others include the Gates Foundation, the Omidyar-Tufts Microfinance Fund, and TIAA-CREF.
J.D. was a World Bank staff member for 20 years, specializing in rural and industrial finance and financial policy. He was also secretary of the Bank-Fund Staff Federal Credit Union for nine years. At KPMG he directed USAID’s Financial Sector Development Project. His early experience included positions at Chase Manhattan Bank in New York, London, and Monrovia. As a US Peace Corps volunteer in Ethiopia he lectured at Haile Sellassie I University. J.D. has an MBA from Columbia University and a PhD from Glasgow University. His dissertation probed farm credit in Kenya.
He wrote Finance at the Frontier, published by the World Bank in 1991. He has co-authored or edited nine books, and has published numerous articles on development finance and related subjects. Since 2002 he has edited an annual series on financial sector development issues sponsored by KfW and others that is published in English by Springer.
Jayshree VYAS
Managing Director, Shree Mahila SEWA Sahakari Bank
Jayshree Vyas, a professionally qualified chartered accountant, has been working as the Managing Director of Shree Mahila Sewa Sahakari Bank, Ahmedabad, since 1986. The bank has more than 200,000 women clients. During her tenure, she has taken active steps to introduce and operate an Integrated Social Security Scheme for women working in the informal sector. This scheme was introduced for the first time in the country, and in a short period of three years, it covered more than 150,000 women. She has also devised and implemented various technical and housing finance schemes, which have been accessed by over 20,000 poor women. She has introduced, organized and managed savings groups of poor women in more than 5,000 villages in nine districts of Gujarat. This scheme has helped more than 150,000 women start saving for the first time in their lives, and availed credit facilities for coming out of the vicious circle of poverty. In addition, she has prepared modules and manuals for providing training for running effective saving and credit programs for various national voluntary organizations involved in similar activities.
Some of her key appointments include being a Trustee in Indian School of Micro finance for women (Ahmedabad), Board Member of Women’s World Banking (New York), Member of the Task Force on Housing Finance for the Poor, and Board Member of National Housing Bank (New Delhi).
Catherine WEIR
Managing Director
Head of ASEAN, Markets & Banking
Citi Country Officer, Singapore
Catherine Weir is Managing Director and Head of ASEAN, Markets & Banking (CMB). She is also Citi Country Officer (CCO) for Singapore, and a member of the Citi Management Committee. As CMB Head for ASEAN (Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam), Catherine is responsible for Citi’s corporate banking, corporate finance, investment banking, global transaction services, equities, fixed income and treasury activities in the region. As CCO, she chairs the Country Coordinating Committee involving heads of other Citi businesses in Singapore, including the Global Consumer Group and Global Wealth Management. In addition, she is Chairman of Citibank Singapore Limited, a locally incorporated bank in Singapore.
Prior to her current appointment, Catherine was the Head of Citi’s Markets & Banking business in Greater China - Mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan – as well as CCO of China (PRC). From 2003 through 2004, Catherine was the Citi Country Officer for Hong Kong. At the same time, she was the regional executive covering Emerging Markets Local Finance (EMLF) in Asia. From 1999 to 2003, Catherine was the Citi Country Officer and Head of the Corporate Bank in the Philippines. In 1997, Catherine was appointed Regional Head of Citi’s Asia Pacific Structured Finance team, responsible for project and structured trade finance, asset-based finance and securitization across Asia Pacific.
Catherine began her career in international banking at Citi in 1988 when she joined the Capital Markets Group in London. In 1994, she was appointed Head of European Loan Syndication where she worked extensively in the Euro Markets in Sovereign/Corporate and Structured Finance, and the debt underwriting business.
Craig WILSON
Executive Director, Foundation for Development Cooperation
Craig Wilson is Executive Director of the Foundation for Development Cooperation in Australia. He is an economist with extensive policy and business experience in the Asia-Pacific region. He has worked with numerous international organisations including the World Bank, IFC, UNDP, USAID and others. During the 1990s, he served as a diplomat in the Australian Foreign Service.
Craig is co-author of two books which focus on opportunities for private sector involvement in poverty reduction. One (with Professor George Lodge of Harvard) is entitled A Corporate Solution to Global Poverty, published by Princeton University Press; the other is Make Poverty Business (with Peter Wilson from the UK), published by Greenleaf Publishing. Craig has a Bachelor of Arts degree in Asian Studies from Griffith University, Brisbane, and a Master's degree in International Affairs, specialising in Economic Policy Management, from Columbia University, New York.
YANG Tuan
Deputy Director, Center for Social Policy Studies
Chinese Academy of Social Sciences
Dr. Yang Tuan is Professor and Deputy Director of Center for Social Policy Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. Additionally, she is Head of the Social Policy Office, Institute of Sociology and the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.
She graduated from the Beijing Institute of Economics in 1978 and was appointed as director of the general department of the National Economic Restructuring Commission in 1988. In 1991, she worked as director of the social distribution department at the Research Institute of National Restructuring Commission and was the secretary general of the China Population Foundation in 1993.
Her academic achievements since 1989 include the following: The Study of Social Security Policy in China; The Development of NGO and NPO and its Relations with Community Construction; Social Security Operation Mechanism; Community Construction and Community Management (from the angle of community services); NPO Institution Evaluation – A study of Shanghai Luoshan Community Center; Community Service for the Aged; Research on China’s Social Security System; Rural Social Security System; the Operation and Analysis of Foundations in China; and Study of Companies and Social Donation (first, second and third stage).
