Is Microfinance Dying?

Featuring: Maya Chorengel, Sean Foote,
Dr. Lamia Karim & Dr. Ruth Shapiro

The industry that could do no ill, has done ill. Since Mohammad Yunus accepted his Nobel Peace Prize in 2006, microfinance funders and practitioners alike have witnessed:

• Financiers reaping millions off the backs of microfinance borrowers through IPOs;
• A global financial crisis that has crippled economies, lending and investments world-wide;
• Dozens of over-indebted borrowers that committed suicide in Andhra Pradesh, India; and
  
• The 'Grandfather of Microfinance’ ousted from the very organization he founded.

Is microfinance a dying industry? What is the actual  impact on the lives of clients? What is the ROI (financial and social) for microfinance investors? Will microfinance survive this global financial meltdown, and if so, what are the industry's next steps?

Join us on Tuesday, December 6th as industry leaders answer these questions and more in a heated round table discussion.

Panelists:

Dr. Ruth Shapiro, The Commonwealth Club of California (Moderator)

Maya Chorengel, Elevar Equity

Sean Foote, Labrador Partners & UC Berkeley Haas School of Business

Dr. Lamia Karim, Author, Microfinance and Its Discontents

Purchase your ticket early! Seatings is limited.

Microfinance and Its Discontents
Women in Debt in Bangladesh

By Dr. Lami Karim

Panelist Dr. Karim's newest book will be on sale at the event. You can also purchase a copy in advance by clicking here.

Speaker Bios

Dr. Lamia Karim

Dr. Lamia Karim is associate professor of anthropology and the associate director for the Center for the Study of Women and Society at the University of Oregon-Eugene. She is a native of Bangladesh with 15 years of experience in microfinance, NGOs women, and development.

Her highly acclaimed new book, Microfinance and Its Discontents: Women in Debt in Bangladesh (University of Minnesota Press, 2011), is a critical investigation into microfinance practices in Bangladesh, home to the 2006 Nobel Prize winner the Grameen Bank and is considered the paradigmatic site of microfinance. Her expertise in this area has been widely sought by media outlets both nationally and internationally, including National Public Radio and the Wall Street Journal.

Sean Foote

Sean Foote is the Managing Director of Labrador Ventures and a Professional Faculty Member of the Haas School of Business, University of California-Berkeley. Sean has been a venture capitalist investing in early stage companies since 1998, including cleantech companies Solaicx and Integrated Photovoltaics, SaaS company Green Border (sold to Google), and materials companies Eoplex Technologies and Integrated Materials, Inc.

Previously, Sean was a management consultant with Boston Consulting Group and a systems engineer for AT&T Bell Laboratories. He is philanthropically interested in microfinance, serving as a Trustee of Freedom From Hunger, as well as education, as co-founder of Community Promise ("You graduate high school, we'll pay your California college tuition"). He is Chairman of the Development Council of Entrepreneurs Foundation, a non-profit organization that engages high growth companies in corporate citizenship and philanthropic efforts, and sits on the Advisory Board of Silicon Valley Bank's Private Client Services.

Sean is on the Professional Faculty of the University of California-Berkeley's Haas School of Business where he teaches two courses: Venture Capital & Private Equity, one of the most highly sought classes at the school, and Microfinance, which is simulcast to over 30 college campuses around the world, including 13 of the top 20 U.S. MBA programs. Sean received his undergraduate degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Missouri Rolla (1988), and his MBA from the University of Virginia's Darden Graduate School of Business (1993), where he received the Shermett Award granted to the top 3% of students. He is a middling singer/songwriter and an avid triathlete and sailor.

Maya Chorengel

Maya Chorengel is the Managing Director of Elevar Equity, a leading microfinance/BoP investor. She has previously served as the Managing Director of Unitus Equity Fund and CEO of the Dignity Fund, a microfinance debt fund. Prior to joining The Dignity Fund, Maya was a Vice President of the private equity firm, Warburg Pincus, working in the firm’s New York, Hong Kong and Menlo Park offices. She was responsible for investments in a variety of companies, from early stage business service ventures and mature consumer packaged goods companies in the US, to manufacturing, service and food companies located in China, South Korea, the Philippines and the US.

Earlier in her career she was an associate in the investment banking division of Morgan Stanley Asia Limited and an analyst at James D. Wolfensohn, Incorporated, a boutique mergers and acquisitions focused investment bank. Maya holds a BA in Social Studies with honors from Harvard University and an MBA from Harvard Business School, where she organized the 1996 International Development Club Conference: Mobilizing Finance for Development.

Dr. Ruth Shapiro (Moderator)

Ruth serves as the Commonwealth Club’s “Entrepreneur in Residence” where she oversees The Club’s social enterprise speaker series, manages her own non-profit start-up, which will focus on the relationship between business and society, and helps The Club find new and entrepreneurial ways to promote its goal of educating the public on a wide-ranging set of subjects.

Ruth has built several successful businesses around social missions. Her latest and largest achievement was to create and run the Asia Business Council, a Hong Kong-based membership organization of top CEOs in Asia, committed to sustainable economic development. As its founder, Dr. Shapiro raised the startup capital from private foundations and individuals, recruited key chief executives to develop the initiative, and built the council into the organization it is today.

Before creating the Asia Business Council, Ruth worked in the field of international development. In this capacity, she held various management positions and established new program areas at the Academy for Educational Development, and the Harvard Institute of International Development and Global Outlook.

Ruth, a Palo Alto resident, recently relocated back to the United States after living in Hong Kong and London for the last six years. She holds a doctorate from Stanford University and Masters degrees from Harvard University and George Washington University. She completed her undergraduate work at the University of Michigan.

This event takes place in space provided by O'Melveny & Myers LLP. Thank you!

SVMN is a project housed by Opportunity Fund, California's largest non-profit microlender.