#FinEquity2023 Speakers

Graça Machel, Philanthropist and Founder of the Graça Machel Trust

Graça Machel is one of the world’s leading advocates for women’s and children’s rights. Born in Mozambique, Machel fought for the country’s independence before becoming Mozambique’s first Education Minister. Machel serves as Board Chair of the Africa Child Policy Forum, Board Chair of the African Centre for the Constructive Resolution of Disputes, Board Chair of United People Global as well as Chair of the Mandela Institute for Development Studies. Machel is a Board Member of the South African Future Trust (SAFT), Mo Ibrahim Foundation, and Education Above All. She is Board Chair Emeritus for the Partnership for Maternal, Newborn & Child Health (PMNCH) and is a UNICEF Young People's Agenda Global Advisory Board Member. She is a member of the Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund Advisory Council and of the Africa Frontline First Council. She also sits on the Jack Ma Foundation’s Africa Business Heroes Advisory Board. She is the Chancellor of the African Leadership University and a Sustainable Development Solutions Network Leadership Council and Campaign for Nature Global Steering Committee member. Machel has more recently focused on advocating for women’s economic and financial empowerment, education for all, an end to child marriage, food security and nutrition, and democracy and good governance. 

Antonique Koning, CGAP Gender Lead

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. 

Nandini Harihareswara, Independent Consultant

Nandini has spent a decade focused on ensuring the benefits of the Digital Economy are inclusive of those underserved in emerging markets especially women. She has worked with policy makers, banks, telcos, and fintechs across Asia and Africa to remove market constraints to advancing digital inclusion, leveraging data, research and best practices.

Christian Pennotti, Senior Director, Market Based Approaches, CARE

Christian Pennotti is currently Senior Director for Market Based Approaches at CARE where he leads efforts to deepen financial inclusion, close the digital divide and advance economic security with an central focus on overcoming gender inequality. He has 20 years of experience pursuing these goals, engaging marginalized communities and building partnerships with civil society, public and private sector actors to develop impactful, scalable solutions.

Ana Bolena Escobar, Research Director, Fundación WWB Colombia

Ana is an economist from the Universidad Icesi, with a master's degree in Public Policy from the University of Potsman and a PhD in Business Management from the University of Valencia. She has more than 10 years of experience in education. She currently leads the research area of the WWB Colombia Foundation, generating, promoting and promoting and disseminating knowledge on issues related to gender, vulnerability, entrepreneurship and financial inclusion.

Joyce Chirwa Mlewa, Southern Africa Commercial Director, Pula 

Joyce Chirwa Mlewa is a highly results-oriented individual with over 30 years of experience working in both the public and private sectors. She worked with the Government of the Republic of Zambia as a performance auditor until 2005, after which she became an agro-dealer, working in rural parts of Zambia to help smallholder farmers improve their yields, until 2018. Joyce joined Pula in 2018 and has risen to become Pula’s Southern Africa Commercial Director. 

Lydia Baffour Awuah, Senior Programme Manager, Opportunity International UK

Lydia Baffour Awuah is a Senior Programme Manager at Opportunity International UK. She has more than 20 years experience in the financial inclusion sector, working on a range of sustainable solutions to development challenges such as women’s empowerment, enterprise development and rural and agricultural livelihoods. Prior to Opportunity, Lydia worked in Ghana, specialising in product design, impact evaluation and research especially on gender-based constraints to women’s economic growth and champions strategic initiatives that put clients at the heart of programme design to respond to their real needs. She has an MSC in International Development (University of Bath) and a BSC in Agricultural Economics (Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology).

Catherine Highet, Digitally-Enabled Financial Inclusion Thematic Lead, FinEquity

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

Dr. Natalia Realpe Carrillo, CEO, HEDERA Sustainable Solutions

Natalia is a green inclusive finance specialist fostering financial and energy inclusion. She is CEO of HEDERA Sustainable Solutions, co-head of the e-MFP GICSF-AG, and lecturer at PAUWES and TU Berlin. Natalia co-founded HEDERA to support microfinance stakeholders worldwide in understanding the clients’ needs and tracking and boosting their impact.    

Lukas Kellar, GIZ, Advisor

Lukas is an Advisor with the Financial Systems Development and Insurance Sector Program at GIZ, where he focuses on digital finance topics as well as the promotion of financial inclusion of particularly vulnerable groups. Before joining the Program in December 2022, he worked as a Policy Advisor for the GIZ-hosted Secretariat of the Access to Insurance Initiative (A2ii) for two years. Prior to that, Lukas was a consultant for the Inter-American Development Bank in Washington, DC, focusing on research and technical cooperation projects aimed at promoting financial inclusion and social security coverage in Latin America and the Caribbean. Lukas completed his bachelor’s studies in Business Management, Social Sciences and Law at the University of Magdeburg and holds master’s degrees in Political Science and Public Administration from the University of Konstanz and Rutgers University.

Rebecca Rhodes, Senior project manager Consumer Protection and Circularity, GOGLA

Rebecca leads GOGLA’s work on Consumer Protection and Circularity. In this role, she manages programmes that aim to define, improve and enhance standards of operational performance in the off-grid solar sector to safeguard social and environmental impacts and benefit consumers, companies and investors alike. She also works within GOGLA to promote a gender-forward industry, a growing response to climate change and market-based solutions for energy access in humanitarian settings. Rebecca joined GOGLA after working in PAYGo operations in East Africa. 

Emma Etchells, Project Coordinator, The Mediae Company

Emma works on a number of different projects at The Mediae Company – ranging from coordinating research for Shamba Shape Up Kenya and Uganda, to more specific projects focused on youths in agriculture, CSA and the financial inclusion of female smallholder farmers. 

Nisha Singh, Gender-Transformative Solutions Thematic Lead, FinEquity

Nisha Singh, FinEquity's Gender-Transformative Solutions Thematic Lead. 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.

Luis Marquez, Director of Advisory Services, Value for Women

Luis has over 15 years of experience in the design and implementation of gender equality and women’s economic empowerment projects, advisory services, studies, institutional strategies and strategic partnerships. He leads Value for Women’s advisory services and oversees initiatives that provide development finance institutions, impact investors, financial institutions and governments with advisory support in gender-lens investing and cutting-edge research. Luis has worked with a variety of development organizations, including the Inter-American Development Bank, the United Nations, Data2x and the World Bank.  

Edel Were, WIRAL, CGAP

Edel is a Consultant at CGAP’s Women in Rural and Agricultural livelihoods (WIRAL) team. Her work focuses on women and the critical roles they play in food and financial systems and the intersection with climate change. She previously worked at Dalberg Advisors as a Senior Consultant and Co-Lead of the Education and Employment platform. She has an MSc in International Social and Public Policy from the London School of Economics. 

Dr. Sam Owilly, Interim CEO BOMA

Sam Owilly is BOMA’s Interim CEO. He is a recognized leader with more than 15 years of experience in building and leading large and high-performing teams and a respected subject matter expert in business strategy, organizational management, poverty graduation/economic inclusion, climate adaption and resilience building, livestock market systems and rangeland resource management in Kenya and Eastern Africa.

Dr. Michael R. Carter, Distinguished Professor of Agricultural and Resource Economics, UC Davis

Michael R. Carter is a Distinguished Professor of Agricultural and Resource Economics at the University of California, Davis and an Honorary Professor of Economics, University of Cape Town. He directs the BASIS Markets, Risk & Resilience Innovation Lab and the Resilience+ Innovation Facility and has served on the boards of directors of Oxfam America and the Grameen Foundation, and multiple scientific advisory panels.

Jenny Morgan, Impact Pathways Thematic Lead, FinEquity

Jenny Morgan is FinEquity's Impact Pathways Thematic Lead. She has over 15 years of experience in inclusive financial growth, entrepreneurship and small business development, women’s economic empowerment, and resilience.

Joanna Ledgerwood, Independent, FinEquity Technical Advisor

Joanna is a former commercial banker with expertise in financial inclusion, market systems development, gender and women’s economic empowerment, policy and regulatory reform, governance, monitoring and evaluation, and knowledge management. She was the founding Director of Financial Sector Deepening Zambia and is currently a member of CGAP’s gender team and FinEquity Technical Advisory Committee, as well as providing advisory services to the FSD Network, Access to Finance Rwanda, GIZ, and others. Joanna has published widely, including the Microfinance Handbook (1998), Transforming MFIs (2003) and The New Microfinance Handbook (2013). 

Barbara Magnoni, President, EA Consultants

Barbara Magnoni is the president of EA Consultants, a development consulting firm dedicated to supporting initiatives that facilitate access to finance, markets and social protection for low income segments of the world’s population. She is the Client Value Project Manager for the Microinsurance Learning and Knowledge (MILK) Project, an initiative of the MicroInsurance Centre that seeks to understand 1) the value microinsurance products have to low-income clients and their families and 2) the business case for microinsurance among insurers and delivery channels.

Shameran Abed, Executive Director, BRAC International

Shameran joined BRAC Bangladesh in 2009 and BRAC International in 2012 and has been instrumental in bringing BRAC’s flagship programmes of microfinance and ultra-poor graduation to global scale. Since 2016, Shameran has also led BRAC’s ultra-poor graduation work. Shameran has significant Board experience on several non-profit and corporate entities, chairing the board of bKash, BRAC Bank’s mobile financial services subsidiary and one of the world’s largest mobile money providers, and serving on the boards of several institutions including BRAC Bank, BRAC Uganda Bank, and the Global Alliance for Banking on Values (GABV). He holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Economics from Hamilton College in the United States and is a qualified Barrister in the UK. 

Shiphra Chisha, Director of Programmes, Graça Machel Trust  

Shiphra is the President and Co-Founder of the African Women in Business (“AWIB”), a Pan-African organisation representing the interests of all women entrepreneurs across industries. She is also a Development Expert and Director of MKT Investments, a 15-year consultancy firm established to ensure sustainable socio-economic development (SED) through collaboration with mining companies, government, MSMEs (SMME) and other stakeholders. Shiphra is a member of the SADC Non-Tariff Barriers to Trade Steering Committee and Member of the Trade Forward Southern Africa (TFSA), an Advisory Board Member of the University of South African Graduate School of Business Leadership, Advisory Board Member of African Women in Power and Energy, and Pan-African Tech Foundation.  

Mary Ellen Iskenderian, President and CEO, Women’s World Banking 

Mary Ellen joined Women’s World Banking in 2006 and leads the Women’s World Banking global team. She previously worked at the International Finance Corporation and Lehman Brothers. She is a permanent member of the Council on Foreign Relations, a member of the Women’s Forum and serves on the Board of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation Board. A 2017 Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center Fellow, Mary Ellen holds an MBA from the Yale School of Management and a Bachelor of Science in International Economics from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service. Most recently, she was recognized in the Forbes 50 over 50: Investment list, which highlights female investors and financial leaders. Her first book, There’s Nothing Micro About a Billion Women: Making Finance Work for Women, was published by MIT Press earlier this year. 

Carolina Trivelli, Member of the Fiscal Council (FC), Ministry of Economy and Finance (MEF) Peru

Carolina holds a Master's degree in Agricultural Economics from The Pennsylvania State University and is an Economist from the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú (PUCP). She is currently a Senior Researcher at the Instituto de Estudios Peruanos (IEP). She has been Advisor in Strategic Analysis at the FAO Regional Office for Latin America and the Caribbean, Manager of Pagos Digitales Peruanos, consultant for various international organizations, advisor to international society organizations, advisor to civil society organizations and Minister of Development and Social Inclusion of Peru (between the years 2011 and 2013).

Aude de Montesquiou, Facilitator, FinEquity

Aude de Montesquiou is the FinEquity Community of Practice Facilitator at CGAP. She has close to 20 years of experience in poverty reduction and has published widely on social protection, livelihoods, and financial inclusion. Previously, Aude was the Senior Advisor at the BRAC Institute of Governance and Development and Social Protection specialist in the World Bank’s Social Protection and Jobs Global Practice where she co-created the Partnership for Economic Inclusion.

Sophie Sirtaine, CEO, CGAP

Sophie is responsible for leading the CGAP operational team to develop, resource, and deliver CGAP’s 5-year strategy. She is also a member of CGAP’s Executive Committee. With over twenty years of experience in the World Bank, Sophie has held various positions including as Director of Strategy and Operations in the Independent Evaluation Group of the World Bank Group from 2016-2021 and as country director for Latin America and the Caribbean from 2013-2016. She also worked in South Asia, and the Europe and Central Asia regions; the Corporate Secretariat; and the Operations, Policy and Country Services Vice Presidency of the World Bank Group. Among others, she led the World Bank’s banking sector crisis response in several EU countries during the 2008-2009 global financial crisis. Sophie also worked in London in investment banking at JP Morgan and as an infrastructure economist for Halcrow Fox and Associates prior to joining the World Bank.