PRESIDENT'S PAGE

Mary Ellen Iskenderian,
President and Chief Executive Officer

Mary Ellen Iskenderian is President and CEO of Women’s World Banking (WWB), the world’s largest network of microfinance institutions and banks. Ms. Iskenderian leads the WWB global team, based in New York, in providing hands-on technical services and strategic support to more than 50 top-performing microfinance institutions and banks in 30 countries in Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe, Latin America and the Middle East. WWB’s network members consistently rate among the top three microfinance institutions in their countries and more than 70% of their clients are poor women entrepreneurs.

Ms. Iskenderian, who joined WWB in 2006, has more than 20 years of experience in building global financial systems throughout the developing world. Ms. Iskenderian has become a leading voice for women’s leadership and participation in microfinance and a strong advocate for the role of capital markets in the sector. She has spoken widely on microfinance at Harvard, Yale, Wharton Business School and at numerous industry and banking forums. More recently, she spoke at the Singapore Conference on Savings, Assets and Financial Inclusion; the Inter-American Development Bank and FELABAN Seminar on Banking Regulation and Supervision in El Salvador and the ResponsAbility Microfinance Conference in Zurich, Switzerland. She is frequently quoted in the media, including The Wall Street Journal, BBC News, Voice of America, the Miami Herald, the Philadelphia Inquirer, Dallas Morning News and other major international outlets. She has also written many articles and op-eds, including “Private Banks Find Microfinance,” a feature article which recently appeared in the premier issue of the Americas Quarterly, published by the Americas Society and the Council of the Americas.

Prior to WWB, Ms. Iskenderian worked for 17 years in senior management at the International Finance Corporation, the private sector arm of the World Bank, where her numerous leadership positions included Director of Partnership Development, Director of the Global Financial Markets Portfolio and Director of the South Asia Regional Department. Previously, she worked for the investment bank, Lehman Brothers.

Ms. Iskenderian currently sits on the advisory boards of the Dignity Fund and Kiva. Before joining WWB, she was a director on many corporate boards, including ShoreCap International, an important equity and loan fund for microfinance. She holds an MBA from the Yale School of Organization and Management and a Bachelor of Science in International Economics from the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service.