Max Mattern

Senior Financial Sector Specialist

For over a decade, Max Mattern has sought to improve the lives of the economically and socially excluded through inclusive finance. Max currently leads CGAP’s Financial Services for Inclusive Carbon Markets Project, which explores how financial services can support climate mitigation, adaptation and a just transition by enabling low-income households and communities to participate in and benefit from voluntary carbon markets. Over the years, Max has also led and contributed to CGAP’s efforts to design better digital financial services for smallholder farmers, support innovation in inclusive asset finance, address social norms preventing rural women’s access to financial services, build more inclusive digital public infrastructure, and expand access to essential services such as energy.   

Before joining CGAP, Max worked at the World Bank. In addition to his experience in financial inclusion, his previous roles include consulting and research in rural and agricultural development, nutrition, and food security. His work has spanned countries and continents, with regional concentrations in the Middle East, North Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa.

Max holds an M.A. in Development Economics and International Business from the Fletcher School at Tufts University and a B.A. in International Studies from the University of Arizona. He is fluent in French. 

By Max Mattern

Blog

Inclusive Voluntary Carbon Markets Could Finance a Just Transition

New CGAP research suggests that voluntary carbon markets (VCMs) hold the potential to finance a green transition across low and middle-income countries.
Blog

Out of the Norm: myAgro Breaks Down Barriers to Serving Rural Women

Gender norms often prevent rural women in Senegal from accessing financial and agricultural services. Pilot projects by CGAP and myAgro are providing insights into how companies can better serve rural women by addressing these norms.
Research

Strengthening Rural Women’s Climate Resilience: Opportunities for Financial and Agricultural Service Providers

Rural women are critical to ensuring global food security but disproportionately vulnerable to climate change. In this working paper, CGAP and Mercy Corps AgriFin provide an overview of 10 opportunities for service providers, investors, and donors to improve rural women’s climate resilience and share examples of innovative business solutions.
Blog

In Senegal, Supporting Rural Women Starts with Reshaping Gender Norms

MyAgro partnered with CGAP and Dalberg Design to explore how they could expand their outreach to Senegalese women and weren’t surprised to learn that social norms were the number one barrier standing in their way.
Blog

As PAYGo Moves Beyond Solar, Addressing Risks Can Ensure Impact

PAYGo financing is expanding beyond solar, creating the potential to improve the lives of low-income households through financial inclusion. The challenge will be to manage the accompanying consumer risks without killing innovation.