Women’s World Banking, with the generous support of the MasterCard Foundation, has established the Center for Microfinance Leadership to promote world-class leadership and management practices throughout the microfinance sector. The Center will work with founder partners, the Aresty Institute of Executive Education at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and with Creative Metier, to design and deliver executive education programs focused on cultivating principled, visionary leaders in microfinance.  WWB will also expand its pioneering work in building workforce diversity in microfinance institutions through the Center, partnering with a select set of leading microfinance institutions to expand opportunities for all qualified staff, regardless of gender.

Creative Metier will deliver a Coaching Program each year for the next three years for selected senior leaders drawn from the top 200 microfinance institutions world wide and the Women’s World Banking network on behalf of the newly established Center for Microfinance Leadership. Creative Metier’s online resources v-interactive and v-interactive 100 have been customised for the Program and translated into Spanish for use by participants in Latin America.

WWB is a leading global network of 40 microfinance providers and banks, working in 28 countries to bring financial products and services to low-income entrepreneurs, especially women. The network is supported by an international team of experts based in New York who deliver expertise in product design and distribution, access to capital markets, and customer care and insight. The network serves over 20 million micro-entrepreneurs.  For more information on WWB, please visit its website at http://www.womensworldbanking.org and for more on the Center visit http://leadership.swwb.org/

You can also download the Center’s brochure which includes details of Creative Metier’s involvement at http://leadership.swwb.org/files/cml/cml-english.pdf

To read about the Center’s first event – the Management Development Programme held in Sri Lanka please go to: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8395370.stm