Rama Bijapurkar is one of India's most respected thought leaders on market strategy and India's Consumer Economy. She is also a keen commentator on social and cultural change in liberalising India. She has her own strategy consulting practice and works with an impressive list of Indian and global companies, helping them across sectors, and describes her mission as bringing market focus to their business strategy.
In addition to her consulting practice, Rama serves or has served as an independent director on the boards of several of India's blue chip companies. She presently serves on the boards of CRISIL (S&P India), Mahindra & Mahindra Financial Services; ICICI Prudential Life Insurance, Janalakshmi Financial Services and on the governing board of IIM Ahmedabad, where she is a visiting faculty. Past boards include Axis Bank, Bharat Petroleum, Infosys Ltd., Mahindra Holidays & Resorts, Titan Industries, Godrej Consumer Products Ltd.
Rama's past work experience includes employment with McKinsey & Co, MARG Market Research (now AC Neilsen India), MODE Services (now TNS India) and full time consulting with Hindustan Unilever Ltd. (then Hindustan Lever Ltd.)
Rama writes extensively in the media and is a dominant voice on issues relating to India's business, consumers and Polity.
Her book "We are like that only: Understanding the Logic of Consumer India" (Penguin India) has been widely acclaimed. The international edition "Winning in the Indian Market": Understanding the Transformation of Consumer India" (Wiley & Sons) has been translated into Hindi and Mandarin. She is also the author of "Customer in the boardroom? Crafting Customer-Based Business Strategy" (Sage), and a book based on the course she teaches at IIM Ahmedabad, and her consulting experiences.
Rama holds a BSc (Hons) degree in Physics from Delhi University and a PGDM from IIM Ahmedabad.
Bhaskar Chakravorti is the executive director of Fletcher's innovative Institute for Business in the Global Context and Center for Emerging Market Enterprises (CEME) and a professor of practice in International Business. Prior to Fletcher, he was a Partner of McKinsey & Company and a Distinguished Scholar at MIT's Legatum Center for Development and Entrepreneurship. He also served on the faculty of the Harvard Business School and the Harvard University Center for the Environment. Over his 20+ year career as consultant and educator, he has advised more than 30 companies in the Fortune 500, policy-makers, investors, and entrepreneurs. His work has spanned multiple geographies: the Americas, EU, Asia, and Africa. At McKinsey, he was a leader of its Innovation and Global Forces practices and he served on the Firm's Knowledge Services Committee that oversees McKinsey Knowledge Centers, a 1,200 member group of researchers and analysts based in China, India, Belgium, and the US, among others. At Harvard, he taught innovation, entrepreneurship management, and new venture formation. Chakravorti's prior appointments include: partner and thought leader at Monitor Group; game theorist and member of the technical staff at Bellcore (formerly Bell Labs); assistant professor of economics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; and officer of TAS, the executive cadre for the Tata Group. Chakravorti's book, "The Slow Pace of Fast Change: Bringing Innovations to Market in a Connected World," Harvard Business School Press -- selected as one of the Best Business Books of the year by multiple publications and an Amazon.com best-seller on Innovation -- has been influential in many client and policy recommendations. He has published widely in both academic and widely read publications and has been invited to speak before academic, executive, and policy audiences and to the media around the world.
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Daryl Collins
Daryl Collins leads the research efforts of Bankable Frontier Associates, with a specialization in the demand-side dynamics of development finance. She was the principal investigator of the Financial Diaries, 2003-2004 field study based at the University of Cape Town, South Africa and is a co-author of "Portfolios of the Poor". Daryl began her career as an emerging market economist at a New York investment bank before moving to South Africa in the late 1990’s. She ultimately joined the finance faculty of the University of Cape Town, where she leveraged a successful career in portfolio management into research on the financial behavior of the poor. Daryl holds bachelor's and master's degrees in economics from the London School of Economics and a PhD in public policy from New York University.
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Yuwa Hedrick-Wong
Yuwa Hedrick-Wong is a business strategist and economist with 25 years of experience gained in
over thirty countries. He is a Canadian who grew up in Vancouver, British Columbia, and spent
the last 20 years working in Europe, Sub-Sahara Africa, and Asia/ Pacific. He has served as
strategy advisor to over thirty leading multinational companies in the Asia/Pacific region.
As the economic advisor to MasterCard Worldwide in Asia/Pacific since 2001, Yuwa has been responsible for monitoring and forecasting economic growth and emerging business development trends in the region. He chairs a MasterIntelligence Knowledge Panel of leading economists, policy analysts, academics and business strategists in Asia/Pacific, Middle East and Africa. In 2007 he was appointed Advisor at Southern Capital Group, a private equity fund; and in 2009 he was appointed to the Investment Council of ICICI, India’s largest private bank.
Yuwa is a frequent speaker at numerous international high-profile conferences. Recent presentations include the Morgan Stanley Investment Forum, McKinsey & Co’s Kitzbeuhel Forum, the BusinessWeek CEO Forum, Asia Business Conference at Harvard University, the Indian Economic Summit, and the Annual Asia Leadership Forum. He has also spoken at, among others, The Royal Institute of International Affairs at Chatham House, London; the World Finance Forum; the World Knowledge Forum; the Trinity Forum in London; the ASEAN Business & Investment Summit; The Economist Strategic Forecast Forums; Pacific Basin Economic Council of APEC; and the Forbes Global CEO Conference. Yuwa is a frequent commentator in the broadcast media on current economic, policy and business issues in Asia/Pacific, and is a published author in consumer market dynamics, economic development, trade, and international relations. He was voted “Communicator of the Year” in Asia in 2006 by the Asia Association of Public Relations Professionals. He wrote a regular column in Forbes Asia called “Asian Angles” in 2005 and 2006. He was adjunct professor at the School of Management, Fudan University, Shanghai, China; from 2005 to 2008; and guest lecturer at the Graduate School of Business, University of Chicago.
As a student of philosophy, political science, and economics, Yuwa studied at Trent University and pursued post-graduate training at the University of British Columbia and Simon Fraser University in Canada, where he received his Ph.D. He also received training, at the post-doctoral level, in health economics, energy and environmental economics, and scenario forecast and planning.
He is currently adjunct professor at the Sauder School of Business, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, B.C. Canada.
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Janet Heisey
Janet Heisey leads Trickle Up’s efforts in providing technical assistance to ensure the inclusion of people living in ultrapoverty in government and development initiatives. She also coordinates Trickle Up’s efforts to include people with disabilities in the program and organization. Janet has served at Trickle Up since 1999, first in the development department and then as Director of the Asia program. Previously she traveled widely in Asia and Latin America, working for a consultancy group in Hong Kong and a South American resource center in Lima and Quito.
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Lauren Hendricks
Ms. Lauren Hendricks serves as CARE’s Executive Director for the Access Africa initiative, which aims to provide 30 million people in sub-Saharan Africa with financial services in the next decade. Prior to leading the Access Africa initiative, Ms. Hendricks was Director of the Economic Development Unit for CARE USA and responsible for strategic direction and technical leadership for over 100 active micro finance and enterprise development programs in 54 countries. Prior to joining CARE, Ms. Hendricks was a Program Specialist at the Center for Institutional Reform and the Informal Sector (IRIS) at the University of Maryland. Her research focused on the development of low-cost tools to assess the poverty outreach of USAID funded micro enterprise development programs. Ms. Hendricks has over nine years of experience evaluating, designing, and promoting the development of micro finance programs worldwide. She spent three years in the Republic of Georgia managing a micro finance program and overseeing its transformation into a locally registered and managed institution. Before getting involved in international development, Ms. Hendricks worked for several years as a Loan Officer for Keystone Mortgage Company. She is a Director of the Board of MicroVest. She has also served as the President of the Access Africa Fund Investment Committee, and as the Chair of the Access Africa Board, since 2010. Ms. Hendricks has an M.A. from UCLA in Africa Studies and a B.A. from UCLA in Political Science.
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Ignacio Mas
Ignacio Mas has been Senior Advisor in the Financial Services for the Poor program at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and at the Technology Program at CGAP. Previously, he was Director of Global Business Strategy at Vodafone Group, Executive Vice President of Marketing and Account Management at DoCoMo interTouch, and Senior Manager responsible for telecoms investments in Europe for Intel Capital.
Dr. Mas has undergraduate degrees in mathematics and economics from MIT and a PhD in economics from Harvard University. He has been Adjunct Professor at the Booth School of Business at the University of Chicago. He is currently an Associate at Bankable Frontier Associates (BFA).
Dr. Mas’ website features recent presentations and speaking engagements, and contains links to his current blog posts, publications, and other activities.
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Maria May
Maria May is the Program Manager of BRAC's Social Innovation Lab She also is the focal point of the Harvard South Asia Initiative's work in Bangladesh. For the past 2 years, she has provided strategic and communications consulting to a community-based prenatal education program working with Latina immigrants in the United States.
In 2011, Sheco-authored Making Tuberculosis History: Community-based Solutions for Millions about BRAC's work in Bangladesh and beyond. Her other experience includes three years at Harvard's Global Health Delivery Project as a case writer and project manager for its research on sustaining delivery at scale, conducting social epidemiological research in New York City, and providing quality improvement support for programs serving people in the United States living with HIV. You can follow Maria on twitter @mariamayhem523.
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Elisabeth Rhyne
Elisabeth Rhyne works to bring together leaders in financial services to address challenges facing the microfinance industry today. She is a co-creator of the Smart Campaign for client protection in microfinance. As senior vice president of Accion from 2000-2008, Ms. Rhyne led Accion’s initial entry into Africa and India and directed the organization’s research efforts to develop new financial products and managed Accion’s publications and educational activities.
Ms. Rhyne has published numerous articles and five books on microfinance, including Mainstreaming Microfinance: How Lending to the Poor Began, Grew and Came of Age in Bolivia (Kumarian Press, 2001). She was also co-editor of The New World of Microenterprise Finance (Kumarian, 1994), which provided the introduction to microfinance for many of the field’s current professionals. Her most recent book, Microfinance for Bankers and Investors, was published by McGraw-Hill in 2009.
Ms. Rhyne was director of the Office of Microenterprise Development at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) from 1994 to 1998, where she developed and led USAID's Microenterprise Initiative. Ms. Rhyne’s experience includes eight years living in Kenya and Mozambique, consulting on microfinance policy and operations for governments, international organizations, and microfinance institutions.
Ms. Rhyne holds a master's degree and Ph.D. in public policy from Harvard University. She earned a bachelor’s degree in history and humanities from Stanford University.
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Marguerite Robinson
Marguerite S. Robinson received her B.A. and Ph.D. degrees from Harvard University and served as Professor of Anthropology and Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Brandeis University before becoming an Institute Fellow at the Harvard Institute for International Development (1978-2000). Now retired from Harvard, she is an independent consultant in international development, with a specialty in commercial microfinance. She has worked extensively in international development, with a specialty in large scale commercial microfinance.
Advising governments, banks, microfinance organizations becoming regulated, donors, and others, she has carried out intensive fieldwork in developing countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, in rural and tribal areas and among the urban poor. Her writings include books on Sri Lanka and India, and Volumes I and II of The Microfinance Revolution. She is a Member of the Board of Directors of the MasterCard Foundation, and of the Boulder Institute of Microfinance, and she is a Member if ACCION’s Advisory Council for its Center for Financial Inclusion.
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Nicholas Sullivan
Nicholas P. Sullivan is co-author of Money, Real Quick: Kenya’s Mobile-Money Innovation (Guardian Books, 2012), focusing on Safaricom’s M-PESA mobile-money service. He is also author of You Can Hear Me Now: How Microloans and Cell Phones Are Connecting the World’s Poor to the Global Economy (Jossey-Bass, 2007), which focuses on entrepreneurship and innovation in developing countries. He is co-author (with Fletcher Professor Jeswald Salacuse) of “Do BITs Really Work: Bilateral Investment Treaties and Their Grand Bargain” (Harvard International Law Journal, 2007, and Oxford University Press, 2009).
Sullivan is Publisher of Innovations: Technology/Governance/Globalization (MIT Press), a quarterly journal that promotes “entrepreneurial solutions to global challenges” with first-person case studies written by entrepreneurs. Previously, Sullivan was a founding partner of the Global Frontier Fund, a private equity fund-of-funds for frontier markets; VP/Editor-in-Chief of Inc.com, a sister company toInc. magazine; and VP/Editor-in-Chief of Home Office Computing, where he wrote the long-runningWorkstyles column.
Sullivan is co-leader (with CEME Senior Fellow Kim Wilson) of The Fletcher School Leadership Program for Financial Inclusion, an innovative residency program designed for central bankers from emerging and frontier markets funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Sullivan has been a Bellagio Fellow (winter 2011), a Visiting Scholar at MIT’s Legatum Center for Development & Entrepreneurship (2007/8), and a Visiting Fellow at the Feinstein Center (2008), as well as a recipient of grants from the John Templeton Foundation and Rockefeller Foundation. He is a graduate of Harvard University and The Fletcher School.
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Peter Walker
Peter Walker has been Director of the Feinstein International Center at Tufts University since September 2002 and active in development and disaster response since 1979. He has worked for a number of British-based NGOs and environmental organizations in several African countries, and has been a university lecturer and director of a food wholesaling company. He joined the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies in Geneva in 1990 where he was Director of Disaster Policy for 10 years before moving to Bangkok as Head of the Federation's regional programs for Southeast Asia. He has traveled extensively in the Middle East, Africa, Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union, and has published widely on subjects as diverse as the development of indigenous knowledge and famine early warning systems, to the role of military forces in disaster relief. Dr. Walker was the founder and manager of the World Disasters Report and played a key role in initiating and developing both the Code of Conduct for disaster workers and the Sphere humanitarian standards. He holds a BSc from Sheffield University and a Ph.D in soil science, also from Sheffield University.
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Kim Wilson
Kim Wilson is a lecturer at The Fletcher School and a Fellow with the Center for Emerging Market Enterprises and the Feinstein International Center at Tufts University. Spending time in India beginning in 2001 through 2005, Professor Wilson worked closely with savings groups, connecting them to banks with a particular focus on tribal areas. She has worked for Catholic Relief Services heading their Microfinance Unit, and in that tenure, spearheaded CRS' shift from focusing on credit to the poor to savings of the poor. Professor Wilson has consulted for many international agencies in savings and credit. Previously, she was in the private sector, occupying senior management positions in finance and franchising.