Meet the Team

Heather Clark (Review Board)
Heather is an independent consultant with 20 years of experience working in microfinance with funding agencies, microfinance institutions, and training institutes. Heather works with MFIs, banks and member-owned organizations in Asia, East Africa and Latin America. Previously, she served as the Director of the UN Capital Development Fund's Special Unit for Microfinance and worked as a Senior Technical Advisor with UNDP and USAID. She is a long standing faculty member of the Boulder Institute where she teaches a course targeted to donors, and she taught microfinance at Columbia University and American University. Heather has an M.A. from The Johns Hopkins University, School for Advanced International Studies in International Economics. Heather has worked closely with CGAP’s aid effectiveness initiative from its inception, including serving as a peer reviewer and receiving a Microfinance Donor Peer Review, drafting donor good practice case studies, and writing Donor Briefs.  She is a SmartAid Review Board member. Heather reads all submissions, scores agencies, and contributes to the final reports.

Ruth Goodwin-Groen (Review Board)
Ruth has worked on building inclusive financial systems in Africa, Asia and Central Europe with a wide range of funders (bilaterals, multilaterals, foundations and networks) over the past 15 years. Assignments have ranged from training retail providers of microfinance and funders, designing and evaluating microfinance projects, to analyzing new policies which affect access to finance for low income clients. Ruth has an MBA with distinction from Harvard Business School. She is currently undertaking a Ph.D. in Economics and International Development from the University of Bath (U.K.). Ruth has worked closely with CGAP’s aid effectiveness initiative from its inception, authoring Donor Briefs and donor good practice case studies, conducting effectiveness reviews at both the country and headquarters level, and helping to shape and deliver training tailored for funders. She is a SmartAid Review Board member. Ruth reads all submissions, scores agencies, and contributes to the final reports.

Alexia Latortue (SmartAid Team, Review Board)
Alexia joined CGAP in 2002 and is based in Paris.  She manages the Donors and Investors team and leads CGAP’s work on improving the effectiveness of funding for microfinance.  Alexia provides strategic and technical services to a broad range of funders and has written extensively on aid effectiveness in microfinance.  Before joining CGAP, she was a development specialist with Development Alternatives, Inc, where she worked with a range of financial service providers in Haiti.  She has a master’s degree in Development Economics from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and speaks French, Creole, and German, and has rudimentary Spanish. Alexia helped launch CGAP’s work with funders in 2002 and has been involved in all aspects of it, including managing the Microfinance Donor Peer Reviews, helping to draft the Good Practice Guidelines for Microfinance Funders, overseeing the production of operational resources for funders, delivering training, and participating in country-level effectiveness reviews.  Alexia is the initiator of SmartAid.  She is also a SmartAid Review Board member. Alexia reads all submissions, scores agencies, and contributes to the final reports.

Rich Rosenberg (Review Board)
Rich joined CGAP at the time of its launch in 1995 and is a Senior Advisor.  He has produced over two dozen publications on microfinance.  Rich is deeply familiar with how development agencies function, having worked with the United States Agency for International Development, where he specialized in development finance in Latin America and elsewhere.  He has worked with two dozen microfinance institutions, as funder or consultant.  Rich is a core faculty member of the Boulder Institute’s annual Microfinance Training.  Prior to turning to development and microfinance, he practiced law in Chicago and did investment management in Washington.  Rich holds a law degree from Harvard University, and speaks Spanish. Rich conducted several microfinance portfolio reviews of funders. He captured the results and learning of two portfolio reviews in “Aid Effectiveness in Microfinance: Evaluating Microcredit Projects of the World Bank and the United Nations Development Program.” Rich has also reviewed and contributed to numerous Donor Briefs and authored the draft core performance indicators for microfinance.  Rich is a SmartAid Review Board member. He reads all submissions, scores agencies, and contributes to the final reports.

Mayada El-Zoghbi (SmartAid Team)
Mayada El-Zoghbi is a founding partner of Banyan Global, a development consulting firm with offices in New York and the Washington, DC area. She has directly managed the start-up and growth of MFIs in Bosnia & Herzegovina and Kosovo. In the past eight years, Mayada has been working to support microfinance organizations, donors and investors in numerous countries in Africa, the Middle East, and Central and Eastern Europe. For the past three years, she was adjunct associate professor at Columbia's School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) teaching courses on microfinance. Mayada holds a Master’s of International Affairs from SIPA at Columbia University and a BS in Business from the University of Minnesota. She has worked frequently with CGAP’s donors and investors team, delivering training courses and conducting research. Mayada is a consultant to the SmartAid Team, and supports the Review Board, provides overall technical guidance, and drafts reports to participating funders.

Barbara Gähwiler (SmartAid Team)
Barbara Gähwiler joined CGAP’s Donors and Investors team in Paris in 2008. She is in charge of the team’s communications, monitoring and evaluation, and helps disseminate good practice standards and operational resources to donors and investors. Previously, Barbara worked in corporate communications in the financial sector and conducted an analysis of the tourism market for Swisscontact in Bolivia. She has Master’s degrees in International Affairs from the University of St. Gallen and the Institute of Political Science in Paris, where she specialized in development studies. Barbara is fluent in German, English and French, with working knowledge of Spanish. Barbara helped prepare and launch SmartAid 2009. She is responsible for managing SmartAid submissions and maintains close contacts with participating funders. Barbara also provides inputs to key SmartAid documents and helps market the Index.

Alumni

Tillman Bruett (SmartAid 2007)
Till co-founded Alternative Credit Technologies (ACT) in 2000 to provide consulting services in the field of microfinance and microenterprise development.  Till works with microfinance institutions, banks, and microenterprise support projects to develop business plans, establish programs, develop products, train staff and strengthen monitoring and controls.  In addition, he works with microfinance networks, private and public funders, and governments, providing strategic advice and operational support, designing programs, and conducting  evaluations.  Till is an adjunct professor at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.  Previously, he worked with FINCA International and Chemical Bank in New York.  Till has an M.A. from The Johns Hopkins University, School for Advanced International Studies in International Economics and European Studies and speaks German and Spanish. Till has worked as a consultant with CGAP's Donors and Investors team over the past four years, conducting a country level effectiveness review and a donor portfolio review and drafting technical guides for funders before joining the SmartAid team.  Till helped finalize the Index, draft all submission documents and the scoring guidelines, review all submissions, and contributed to the final reports.

Claudia Huber (SmartAid 2007)
Claudia joined CGAP’s Donors and Investors team in Paris in 2006.  She serves as relationship manager to several funders and helps disseminate good practice messages and operational resources to donors and investors.  Before, she held a scholarship from the German National Academic Foundation and the Bosch Foundation.  During her scholarship, Claudia worked with Banco los Andes ProCredit in Bolivia where she got trained as a credit officer and with KfW.  Claudia has a Master's degree in Business Administration/Economics and a CEMS Master in International Management from the University of St. Gallen and has studied in Argentina, Spain and Switzerland.  Claudia is fluent in German, French and Spanish. Claudia has been a core SmartAid team member shaping the development of the Index since the beginning.  She participated in drafting the concept note for the Index and bringing in learning from other indices. Claudia helped manage the roll-out of SmartAid 2007, including contributing to key submission documents and the final reports.