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In this episode of The Wall Street Skinny, we dive deep into the world of financial inclusion with Mary Ellen Iskenderian, President and CEO of Women’s World Banking. Microfinance has long been hailed as a key tool for empowering women in emerging markets, but as Mary Ellen explains, true financial empowerment requires far more than just access to microloans.
We explore how Women’s World Banking is rethinking financial inclusion—looking beyond small-scale loans to other necessities like savings, insurance, and digital banking. Mary Ellen breaks down the complexities of creating sustainable economic growth, highlighting the importance of building financial resilience, promoting long-term wealth creation, and ensuring women have the tools to navigate both personal and global economic challenges.
Throughout the conversation, we discuss the vital role of financial literacy, access to capital, and how tailored financial services can create lasting change for women entrepreneurs and their communities. This episode challenges the traditional view of microfinance and dives into the broader strategy needed to empower women economically—unlocking opportunities for sustainable, inclusive development.
Join us for a thought-provoking conversation on what it really takes to build a financially inclusive future for women around the world.
Learn more about Women’s World Banking: https://www.womensworldbanking.org/
Mary Ellen Iskenderian is the President and CEO of Women’s World Banking, a global nonprofit dedicated to serving the nearly one billion women excluded by the formal financial sector. She joined Women’s World Banking in 2006 and leads its global team in partnering with financial institutions and policymakers around the world to design and develop solutions and programs that facilitate systemic change for women. Additionally, she oversees Women’s World Banking’s asset management business that makes direct equity investments in financial service providers as a means to advance women in the workplace and as customers.
Mary Ellen is a passionate advocate for women’s economic empowerment through greater access to finance; she urges the financial services industry and business community to view low-income women as a powerful new market of small business owners, heads of households, and consumers of financial products and services.
Mary Ellen has spoken widely and published extensively on topics ranging from equality of economic opportunity, women’s financial inclusion, climate resilience, and financial abuse. In April 2022, her first book, “There’s Nothing Micro About a Billion Women: Making Finance Work for Women,” was published by MIT Press.
Before joining Women’s World Banking, Mary Ellen worked for 17 years at the International Finance Corporation, the private sector arm of the World Bank, and had previously worked for the investment bank Lehman Brothers. She is a permanent member of the Council on Foreign Relations, serves as a Director on the Board of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, and is a member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council and of Milken’s Africa Business Leaders Council.
A 2017 Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center Fellow, Mary Ellen holds an MBA from the Yale School of Management and a Bachelor of Science in International Economics from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service.
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