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Why Gender Diversity Matters
Gender diversity matters in microfinance. WWB champions gender diversity because we believe that diverse perspectives lead to stronger decisions and healthier, more vibrant organizations. Incorporating women’s voices when designing and delivering microfinance products is particularly important when a majority of clients are women. Equally as important, microfinance clients often speak of the inspiration they derive from seeing powerful women leaders in the organizations that serve them. How best to achieve diversity? The answer lies in leadership and technical skill development of individual, high-potential leaders as well as in organizational transformations to ensure that all women and men work in environments where they can perform, excel and lead.
Featured Publication
“Transforming the Landscape of Leadership in Microfinance: Maintaining the Focus on Women” introduces WWB’s new methodology for helping MFIs support gender diversity at all levels of their institution. WWB has expanded its Women’s Leadership Development Program, which works with individuals, to include a tool that focuses on the challenges and opportunities microfinance institutions face in the attraction, retention, and promotion of qualified women staff members - the Organizational Gender Assessment. Now available in English and Spanish.
Women in Leadership Workshop, Bangalore, India, January 11 to 15, 2010
The Center for Microfinance Leadership hosted its Women in Leadership Workshop for South and East Asian women leaders in Bangalore in January 2010. The five-day program carries forward WWB’s overarching commitment to develop the female leadership and management capacity of the microfinance industry worldwide. The workshop, co-hosted by Friends of Women’s World Banking India and sponsored by Accenture India, brought together 15 women managers from 10 leading MFIs across South and East Asia.
Two of the workshop participants were awarded the 2009 Financial Women’s Association (FWA) award. Each year, the FWA award helps to fund executive leadership training for women working in microfinance organizations around the world. This year’s recipients were Carol Furtado, Chief Operating Officer (Southern Region) of Ujjivan and Adiyahuu Yanzan, Head of Credit Review Department of XacBank Mongolia. The recipients were chosen on the basis of their demonstrated professional commitment and success as well as their enthusiasm and commitment to helping women around them to realize their potential.
Special guest speakers included: Rekha Menon, Executive Director of Accenture India, Vijayalakshmi Das, CEO of FWWB India, Jayshree Vyas, Managing Director of SEWA Bank, Michael Useem, Director of the Center for Leadership and Change Management at Wharton Business School, Vinita Bali, CEO of Britannia Industries Limited, and Samit Ghosh, CEO of Ujjivan Financial Services, India
During the workshop, participants design a road map for their own leadership development and leave with an individualized action plan, as well as peer support, to help them achieve their goals. As a testament to these future leaders, WWB Board Member Michael Useem noted that the participants’ “resolve, engagement, and creative energy certainly offered reaffirmation that microfinance will be in very good hands.”
The course, which targets senior female managers of MFIs, is designed to help women develop the leadership skills necessary to become effective managers and innovators in their field.
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