Timothy Lyman

Tim Lyman joined CGAP in 2005 to lead the Government and Policy Team as Senior Policy Adviser. In this capacity, he focuses primarily on regulatory and supervisory issues in financial inclusion. He is a co-author of CGAP’s Guide to Regulation and Supervision of Microfinance and began the group's pioneering Focus Notes series on branchless banking regulation.

He co-chaired the Basel Committee’s Microfinance Workstream, which led to the publication in August of 2010 of Microfinance Activities and the Core Principles for Effective Banking Supervision – the Basel Committee’s first ever guidance on a financial inclusion topic. Lyman also led CGAP’s work in 2010 on behalf of the G-20 Financial Inclusion Experts Group, including CGAP's input into the G-20's Principles for Innovative Financial Inclusion. Presently, he leads the work stream of the G-20 Global Partnership for Financial Inclusion on engagement with the financial sector standard-setting bodies.

Lyman has worked in the area of microfinance-related policy and regulation in every region of the world, and has been working in community development for over 25 years. For most of his career, he worked as a partner in the law firm of Day, Berry & Howard (now Day Pitney) and served as president of its affiliated philanthropic foundation, the Day, Berry & Howard Foundation. From 1994 to 2005, he served as principal outside legal counsel to Save the Children/U.S. Lyman holds a bachelor’s degree from Harvard University and a law degree from New York University School of Law. He speaks English, French, Spanish, and Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian, as well as conversational German and Russian.