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India - Faces - Rural women driving their own change 2
Image by mckaysavage
Rural women in their richly coloured saris meeting as members of self-help groups (SHGs).
Within their SHGs, these women now access micro-finance loans, hold their own savings and start successful micro- and small-scale businesses.
Their newfound confidence and authority shows clearly in their faces and the many questions they ask and how they now drive the change agenda in their villages.
www.hihseed.org/
William Foote - Root Capital
Image by dpict.info
William Foote is founder and CEO of Root Capital, a nonprofit social investment fund that is pioneering finance for rural grassroots businesses in Sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America. Root Capital provides capital, financial management training, and market connections to small and growing businesses, such as farmer and artisan associations that are caught in the gap between microfinance and traditional banking. Foote will speak to his experience founding his organization and the challenges and aspirations of scaling Root Capital's work for the greatest impact.
He began his career as a financial analyst in the Latin American Corporate Finance group at Lehman Brothers, and as a journalist in Mexico and Argentina. Elected to Ashoka's Global Fellowship in 2007, he was also named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum in 2008, and a member of the Young Presidents’ Organization (YPO) in 2009. Root Capital has received the Financial Times and IFC Achievement in Banking at the Bottom of the Pyramid Award (2009); Fast Company/Monitor Group’s Social Capitalist Award (2006, 2007, 2008); the World Business Award in Support of the Millennium Development Goals (2006); and the Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship (2005).
Foote serves on the executive committee of the Aspen Institute's Aspen Network of Development Entrepreneurs (ANDE) and was a founding board member of the Finance Alliance for Sustainable Trade (FAST). He is a life member of the Council on Foreign Relations and serves on the boards of the Open Learning Exchange (OLE) and E&Co. He has been featured in many publications, including Financial Times, Miami Herald, LA Times, and Boston Business Journal. Foote holds a B.A. from Yale University and a M.Sc. in development economics and economic history from the London School of Economics.
