Antonique Koning is the CGAP Gender Lead. Antonique has over 20 years of experience working on a range of topics related to microfinance and financial inclusion, with special expertise in consumer protection and responsible finance, customer centricity and customer empowerment. Prior to joining CGAP in 2004, Antonique gained hands-on experience developing and implementing microcredit programs in El Salvador and working with savings banks globally. She has a Master’s degree in International Trade Management and Policy from the University of Birmingham and a Master’s degree in Applied Economics from the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven. Antonique is based in Belgium, and speaks Spanish, French, and Dutch.

Yasmin Bin-Humam is a CGAP Financial Sector Specialist and also serves as the Program Manager for FinEquity. Yasmin works on analyzing excluded segments to more closely examine who remains financially excluded and how financial services might impact their lives. Before joining CGAP, she developed indicators measuring women’s equality under the law for the World Bank’s Women, Business, and the Law project and contributed to publications on legal barriers to women’s economic empowerment. Yasmin has Juris Doctorate and master’s degrees from Georgetown University and a bachelor’s degree in economics from Harvard. 

Diana Dezso is the FinEquity Facilitator. Prior to this she led the Data and Measurement Working Group of FinEquity. Diana has 20 years of experience in the financial inclusion sector. She specializes in knowledge management, organizational development and learning, capacity assessments, program implementation and evaluation, and new business development. She has worked in senior leadership positions of international organizations in both Washington DC and the field, including the SEEP Network and ACCION USA. Diana has an MPA from New York University. She is fluent in Romanian, proficient in Spanish, and speaks basic French. 

Catherine Highet leads the Technology working group at FinEquity. Prior to this role, she worked with the GSMA Connected Women program and FHI 360, focusing on digital inclusion activities, including DFS, digital identity and gender equality. Catherine has also consulted for several digital development partners in the public and private sector including IREX, Mozilla and Souktel. 

Nisha Singh leads the Social Norms Technical Lead for FinEquity. She has over 17 years of experience promoting access to finance and financial market systems development, with a focus on women’s economic empowerment and inclusion. Nisha worked at The SEEP Network from 2008 and 2016 to promote inclusive market systems development by building partnerships across the 120+ SEEP member organizations and associated stakeholders. Since 2017 her work has focused on increasing economic opportunities for women through innovations in financial services as well as gender mainstreaming for private sector actors. Nisha has a master’s degree from the School of Social Policy at University of Pennsylvania, and an MBA from the University of Hyderabad. 

Jamie M. Zimmerman leads the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s work to increase low-income women’s economic empowerment through access to and usage of digital financial services. Prior to this appointment, Jamie led the team’s efforts to drive global scale of digital financial inclusion by cultivating partnerships which accelerate and maximize collective impact. Jamie joined the foundation in 2017 after several years as an independent global advisor to several partners, including the World Bank, CGAP, IFC, USAID, UNCDF, BFA Global, World Food Program and the International Rescue Committee. From 2006 to 2013, she directed the Global Assets Program at New America, a Washington DC based think tank, and was previously deputy director of Globalization Studies at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise, where she authored, with Dr. Susan Aaronson, Trade Imbalance: The Struggle to Weigh Human Rights Concerns in Trade Policymaking. Jamie holds a B.A. in Foreign Languages and International Economics, and a Master's in International Political Economic and Development, both from the University of Kentucky.

Deanna Morris is a Programme Management Officer at United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP). She manages the Innovative Financing component of a US$ 10 million programme on “Catalyzing Women’s Entrepreneurship.” Deanna also led the establishment of ESCAP’s Women’s Impact Investment Fund and works with key partners to implement a FinTech challenge fund across the Asia-Pacific region. She also works with regulators and policy makers to support financial inclusion priorities and mainstream gender considerations into respective national strategies/frameworks. Prior to joining ESCAP, Deanna was the Deputy Programme Manager of the Shaping Inclusive Finance Transformations Programme (SHIFT) at the United Nations Capital Development Fund (UNCDF). 

Marisa McKasson supports CEGA’s agricultural development and financial inclusion research programs, which include the Agricultural Technology Adoption Initiative (ATAI) and the Digital Credit Observatory (DCO). In addition, she has prior experience working at a social enterprise in Bangkok, Thailand, where she helped provide financial services and information to young women pursuing a college education. Marisa holds a BA in Economics from UC Berkeley with a minor in Peace and Conflict Studies.

Naomi Bourne is a Policy Analyst with UNCDF based in Brussels. She works closely with financial authorities such as the Bank of Sierra Leone on consumer protection. As part of this work, she advocates for community consultation to bring consumers directly into the policymaking process. Prior to her current role with UNCDF, Naomi worked with the Australian Treasury on financial innovation and payments and UNCDF in Myanmar. 

Smita Nimilita leads the implementation of HERproject in Bangladesh and supports the development of HERfinance Digital Wages Program in other countries such as Egypt and Cambodia. Prior joining to HERproject, she was a Research Associate at IPA, a research and policy nonprofit organization that discovers and promotes effective solutions to global poverty. She led multiple programs throughout her career and has robust experience working in the garment supply chain on various issues such as financial inclusion, enterprise development, women empowerment and health rights.

Wendy Chamberlin serves as the Global Program Director for the BOMA Project. In her role, Wendy focuses on the expansion and innovation of BOMA’s poverty graduation program through partnerships with the Government of Kenya, the private sector and the social sector. Wendy comes to BOMA after 12 years at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, most recently as Associate Program Officer for Financial Services for the Poor, where her work including developing and delivering solutions to drive financial inclusion for the ultra-poor in emerging markets.

Fiona Jarden is KIT’s Senior Financial Inclusion Advisor. She leads KITs financial inclusion advisory work with the financial sector, development banks and other stakeholders in Africa, Asia and Europe. Fiona is a financial inclusion and women’s economic empowerment specialist. Her thematic expertise includes financial solutions for low-income or underserved market segments including female entrepreneurs, youth and migrants, and gender lens investing.

Stephen Morrison is a Senior Designer at Dalberg Design. Stephen’s practice spans human-centered design (HCD) research, strategy, creative facilitation, communication design, and multi-media production. He employs HCD methodologies to surface novel, actionable insights that elevate community voices and support partners’ goals across diverse sectors and communities, often in complex systems and environments.  Stephen's experience in the humanitarian and development sectors ranges from financial inclusion, global health (including maternal, newborn and child health; health systems strengthening; NCDs and patient experience), childhood education, social entrepreneurship, data literacy, humanitarian response, and more

Shelley Spencer is the CEO of Strategic Impact Advisors, www.siaedege.com, a digital financial services consulting firm with team members in Ghana, Malawi, Uganda and the U.S.  Her firm holds a cooperative agreement with USAID. From 2011-2020, Shelley led the payment innovation practice for NetHope, a global consortium of nearly 60 of the world’s leading nonprofits. Shelley started her career practicing telecommunications regulatory law in Washington, D.C. and became an accidental entrepreneur founding several successful mobile companies. She has supported DFS market developments in Indonesia and the work of USAID to advance the digital payments movement across its portfolio and to build women’s digital financial inclusion. Shelley received her law degree from Georgetown and a B.A. in Economics from Baldwin-Wallace University in Ohio.

Wisdom Alorwuse is a digital inclusion specialist with over nine (9) years’ experience in program management, digital financial services, digitizing agricultural value chains, branchless banking, and Information technology. He currently serves as Africa Lead at Strategic Impact Advisors. As a lead in Africa, he manages a vibrant team of industry experts. Wisdom led digital transformation projects in Ghana, Nigeria, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Zimbabwe, and Malawi. Wisdom has an intense enthusiasm for digital agriculture, digital financial services, women economic empowerment and financial inclusion. He is currently a peer at Digital Frontiers Institute.

Sophie Romana is an expert in gender, women’s economic empowerment and financial inclusion. She’s currently developing a Digital financial literacy campaign for women with SIA and a Gender Lens Investment Framework with WOCCU, both WGDP projects. She’s led Oxfam’s Saving for Change program (2011-2018) and has worked  in private equity. She’s a graduate from La Sorbonne (Law) and Columbia Business School (MBA). She lives in Maine where she’s started a small organic dog biscuit company, inspired by Castine, her chocolate Labrador. 

Sandra Abrokwa Owusu-Kyerematen has 13 years of management experience in marketing, strategy and consulting for multinationals and tech startups in Africa and the USA. She is passionate about technology to enhance business and create impact. She has managed Tonaton.com, Ghana's largest online marketplace. Now Ghana’s country director for Viamo, a tech social enterprise focused on behavior change communications and evidence-gathering for NGOs and governments across Africa, Sandra attended a women's college and is a strong advocate for female empowerment and leadership.

Nandini Harihareswara is Lead Focal Point on Gender Equality for UNCDF’s IDE division. She formerly worked as the UNCDF Digital Finance Regional Technical Specialist in Zambia and Malawi. She was a founding member of the USAID Digital Development Division in 2011 and served as the Strategy & Operations Chief and Senior Digital Finance Advisor. She began at USAID working as an Investment Officer for the Development Credit Authority Office. She began her career as a Presidential Management Fellow at the US Department of Transportation & the World Bank. She was the architect of the UNCDF Zambia Sprint4Women DFS design competition, and the author of numerous publications focused on finance, technology and international development, most recently a co-author of the recent G20 paper on Advancing Women’s Digital Financial Inclusion. Nandini has an MBA and a Masters in International Trade and Investment Policy from the George Washington University. She also holds a BS in Psychology and a BA in Political Science from the University of California at San Diego.

For decades Renana Jhabvala has organized women in the informal economy into trade unions, co-operatives and financial institutions in India. She has been extensively involved in policy issues relating to poor women and the informal economy and has written on the topic. She currently serves as the President of SEWA Bharat, the All-India Federation of SEWAs. In 1990, she was awarded a Padma Shri from the Government of India for her contributions in the field of social work. In April 2012, She was Chancellor Gandhigram Rural University (2012-2017) and was Member of UN Secretary General’s High Level Panel on Women’s Economic Empowerment (2016-2017).

Josefhine Chitra is Senior Manager, Public Affairs at Gojek. In this capacity, she serves as primary lead for Gojek Public Affairs' research and advocacy on social impact. She also leads engagement on issues related to environmental impact as well as women’s safety, gender equality, and welfare. Josefhine earned her master's degree in development management from the London School of Economics. 

Moonmoon Shehrin is the lead for the Digital Cluster unit of BRAC Microfinance. Under her leadership, the unit works to ensure that digital financial products and services offered by BRAC are efficient and client-centric in design. Moonmoon has been with BRAC Microfinance since 2012. She has carved her niche in financial product design and scale-up, which includes BRAC’s medical treatment loan, and credit shield insurance. She also established a campaign unit in the programme to raise user awareness and accelerate the uptake of new financial products and services in the field.   

Subhalakshmi Nandi is Senior Program Officer (Gender Equality) at the India Country Office of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. She leads the execution of the Foundation’s gender strategy in India. Her career spans over 17 years in the field of gender and development including macroeconomic policy analysis, engendering of social protection, transforming microcredit programs, addressing issues of informal economy, women’s unpaid work, gender-based violence, and securing rights of women farmers. Previously she worked with the International Center for Research on Women (ICRW), UN Women South Asia/India office, and women’s rights organizations. 

Akhand Jyoti Tiwari is a Senior Manager at MicroSave Consulting and has over 11 years of experience across Asia and Africa. He spearheads MSC’s flagship approach to behavioral research and design for financial services—MI4ID. Akhand has worked with financial service providers, agent networks, telecom companies, the Government of India, and central banks. Before joining MSC Akhand worked with the Centre for Micro Finance at IFMR. He holds a Post Graduate Diploma in Forest Management from the Indian Institute of Forest Management in Bhopal. Akhand is fluent in Hindi and English and has a working knowledge of French.

Sonal Jaitly is a Senior Manager at MicroSave Consulting. She is a gender specialist with over 10 years of experience gained through projects with development banks, international funding agencies, UN Women, MFIs and community-based institutions in India. Her areas of expertise include research and analysis, project management and programme design for enhancing women’s financial inclusion and economic empowerment. She specialises in promoting women led enterprises, gender mainstreaming within the financial sector, integrating insights from Behavioural Sciences, and the use of technology and digital financial services to enhance inclusion.

Dr. Sita Sumrit is Head of the Poverty Eradication and Gender Division and Assistant Director of the Human Development Directorate at ASEAN Secretariat in Indonesia. Previously she was Chief of Women and Children Empowerment Programmes at the Thailand Institute of Justice. She has worked across Southeast Asia with Oxfam, the UN as well as at academic institutions, and has been awarded UNDP’s Human Development Academic Fellowship on the theme of Gender Equality. Sita received her PhD in Gender and Development from University of Cambridge and her Masters Degree from the London School of Economics.

Krishna Thacker is MetLife Foundation’s Director for the Asia region and leads philanthropic work with a focus on building financial health of low to moderate income communities. Krishna brings over 15 years of experience in working closely with some of the leading banks, fintechs, governments and NGOs across the region in advising and working with them at the intersection of digital transformation and customer centricity. He has designed, led and implemented large scale financial inclusion programs supported by Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Asian Development Bank, and the United Nations. Krishna has a Post Graduate Diploma in Development Management from Entrepreneurship Development Institute of India, Ahmedabad.

Mr Gunanidhi Das, CEO of Women’s Micro Bank has over 20 years of experience across a range of financial institutions in India, Timore-Leste, Nepal, Myanmar, and Papua New Guinea. He has devoted his career to giving strategic guidance for sustainable exponential growth using Management Information Systems and project management as the main catalysts. Over the past 7 years in PNG he was engaged by ADB to provide mentorship to microfinance organizations and Savings and Loan Societies, while streamlining their systems and procedures for business growth. In this capacity he formulated strategies on product development and business analysis to reach target markets, emphasizing that products and services need to be customer-centric, rather than organization-centric. He joined Women’s Micro Bank to implement his ideas for doing real microfinance in PNG and is the driving force for its new management.

Carolina Trivelli is an economist working on rural finance, and financial inclusion in Peru. She is a senior researcher at the Instituto de Estudios Peruanos and former Minister of Development and Social Inclusion of Peru (2011-2013). She holds a MA in Agricultural Economics from the Pennsylvania State University, USA and Bachelor in Social Sciences with a major in Economy from the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú. 

Carolina Robino is a Senior Program Officer at Canada´s International Development Research Centre (IDRC). She is based in Montevideo at IDRC’s Regional Office for Latin America and the Caribbean. Her areas of interest include poverty and inequality, labour markets, financial inclusion and  women and youth economic empowerment. She also works on the role of businesses and social innovation as a tool for inclusion of women and youth. Prior to joining IDRC, she worked as a researcher and visiting lecturer at the Department of Development Studies of the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University in South Africa. She holds a B.A in Economics from the Universidad de la República in Uruguay; a M.A. in Latin American Social and Political Studies from the Universidad Alberto Hurtado in Chile, and PhD in Development Studies at the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University.

Diana Mejía is a Senior Specialist in Financial Inclusion and Education at CAF – Development Bank of Latin America. Prior to this position, she worked for the Central Bank of Colombia where she was Director of Economic and Financial Education and Director of Institutional Communication, among other functions. She is an economist with a master’s degree in economics from Universidad de los Andes in Bogota, Colombia and has a master´s degree in public administration from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. In her work experience she has participated in various projects on financial inclusion and financial education in Latin America including projects that measure the financial capabilities of the population in various countries of the region, as well as having advised national governments on the design and implementation of national strategies on financial inclusion and financial education. She has also led projects on innovation, productivity and technical and vocational education and training in several countries in Latin America. She has authored several publications on the subject.

Karina Azar is currently working with CAF – Development Bank of Latin America in drafting better policies for productivity and technical assistance projects related to gender and financial inclusion. Prior to CAF, she was working as a Researcher with OCO Global in Paris by supporting governments in Latin America in their foreign direct investment strategies. She also worked with ProBarranquilla, economic development agency in Colombia, where she was the Head of the Investment Promotion Division. Karina has a Bachelors’ degree in International Relations and a Masters’ degree in Sustainable Territorial Development by Sorbonne University, KU Leuven and Padova University.

Laura Fernández Lord currently serves as Head of Women’s Economic Empowerment at BBVA Microfinance Foundation (FMBBVA). She holds an MA in International  Relations at SAIS, Johns Hopkins University. She has worked at the FAO, at the Inter-American Development Bank, the Spanish Cooperation Agency and Fundación Lealtad as transparency  analyst of Spanish NGOs. At FMBBVA she has worked for 7 years at the HR Department where she was in charge of Culture and the Leadership Program for the +8,100 employees. She has also been in charge of Corporate Governance training workshops for +400 MFI board members.

Teresa Burelli is the International Partnerships lead at the BBVA Microfinance Institution. Previously, she spent four years at the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) working for the SDG Fund managing private sector partnerships. Teresa has also worked at the ONE Campaign. She received a Masters with Honours in Social Anthropology and Social Development from the University of Edinburgh in Scotland.

Daniela Konietzko is President at Fundacion WWB Colombia since 2013. She holds a bachelor degree in Finances and International Relations from Universidad Externado de Colombia, a postgraduate degree in Management and a Master’s degree in International Cooperation from Universidad Complutense (Madrid, Spain). Before working at Fundacion, Daniela worked in multinational companies and NGO´s both in Colombia and Europe, such as Travenol-Baxter, The Chamber of Commerce, Alvaralice Foundation, the European think tank FRIDE, and at Altran Technologies.

Barbara Magnoni is a Co-Founder of Andares, Mujeres para las Microfinanzas, co-founder of MeXCo Soluciones, and President of EA Consultants, a financial inclusion advisory firm with 13 years of global experience. She has more than 23 years of experience promoting global financial inclusion. She has a Master's degree from Columbia University's International School of Public Affairs and a BA from Tufts University.

María José Roa has almost thirty years of research and teaching experience. She holds a Phd in Economics from Universidad Autónoma de Madrid. Her expertise is in financial inclusion, financial well-being, financial education, financial education in the school curriculum, gender gap, design and evaluation of national and local strategies, financial consumer protection, behavioral finance, natural and field experiments, and economic development. She has taught at various universities and research centers in Europe, Latin America and the United States. She currently works as an independent researcher and consultant, and as a professor teaching policy courses. She is member of the Research Committee of the OECD/INFE.

Mariana Martínez manages the Spanish Gateway site, Portal FinDev. She is an economist with over 15 years of experience in financial inclusion, microfinance and economic development, working with international organizations, NGOs, microfinance institutions and governments in Latin America and the Caribbean. Mariana is also a Co-Founder of Andares, Mujeres para las Microfinanzas, a network of over 260 women in 17 countries in LAC and 26 countries worldwide who work in the financial inclusion field and seek opportunities to support the leadership of women in their sector. She holds a Master in Economics and a Master in Latin American Studies from Florida International University (FIU).