A Conference on Female Entrepreneurship
Female Entrepreneurship” What do we know? How to operationalize it?
Wednesday, April 6, 2011 • 8:30 a.m. – 5:30 p.m. • JB1-080, The World Bank •Washington DC
Michel Botzung, SME Capacity Building Global Product Specialist, International Finance Corporation
Michel, a French national, is IFC's SME Capacity Building Global Product Specialist. Michel joined the IFC in November 2002 as Business Development Services Manager of the North Africa Enterprise
Development Facility. In October 2004, he moved to Cairo, to manage the roll-out of “Business Edge” and the “SME Toolkit”- across the Middle East and North Africa. He was instrumental in transforming
Business Edge, from a training product into a flexible tool that is successfully used by various types of IFC stakeholders (ICT, Financial Markets) to build their value chain and to market their products to SMEs.
Michel has twenty years of professional experience in BDS and SME promotion. Prior to joining IFC,
Michel spent 8 years with GRET in France as head of the BDS cluster, developing private and public service providers in Africa and South East Asia for various donors. He participated to the Donor’s committee on small enterprise development on behalf of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs from
1999 to 2002 and initiated the diffusion of BDS literature to French speaking countries. Michel holds
University degrees in Development Economics (from EHESS Paris) and International Relations (from the
Sorbonne Paris & IEP). He also served from 1999 to 2002 as part-time instructor on African Urban
Economics for MA students in Paris, and on Business Development Services at the University of Geneva.
Alejandra Eguíluz, Integration and Trade Specialist, Inter-American Development Bank
Alejandra is Integration and Trade Specialist at the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) where she leads Trade and Gender theme. Alejandra is keenly interested in women´s entrepreneurship, valuechain analysis, competitiveness, and export promotion issues. She has spent over 15 years working on projects related to Small and Medium Enterprise development in North Africa, South East Asia and Latin
America. She started her career working in the Spanish Institute for Foreign Trade, Ministry of Economy and Commerce of Spain helping Spanish firms increase their exports. Mrs. Eguíluz holds Masters in
International Public Policy from Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies which she was a
Fulbright scholar. She also studied Economics and International Trade in Spain and France.
Louise Fox, Lead Economist and Lead Specialist, Poverty Reduction & Economic Management Network
- Africa Region, The World Bank
Ms. Fox is currently Lead Economist and Lead Specialist, Poverty, in the Africa Region PREM. In this capacity, she is advisor to the Director and Sector Managers in Eastern and Southern Africa on poverty work in the Africa region. She has published several studies on poverty reduction in Africa and on labor markets and labor regulation, and has recently completed a book on Working Out of Poverty: Job
Creation and the Quality of Growth in Africa (with Melissa Gaal). She founded the Africa Regional Labor
Markets Analysis Working Group (which she leads jointly with SP colleagues). Her publication “Attacking
Africa’s Poverty: Experience from the Ground,” is an analysis of the political economy of poverty reduction in Africa, including twelve case studies of successful large scale poverty reduction programs.
Prior to her current position, Ms. Fox spent more than 15 years working on issues of labor market adjustments, poverty and social protection in transition economies, including: China and Mongolia, the
Baltic States, Romania, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic and the Former Soviet Union. Before that she researched poverty, inequality and macroeconomic adjustment in Latin America. She has also published in the areas of pension reform, reform of child welfare systems, social protection in Eastern and Central
Europe, female headed households and child welfare, stabilization policies and poverty reduction, the social costs of adjustment, and the economic history of poverty and inequality in Brazil.
1 | P a g e

A Conference on Female Entrepreneurship
Female Entrepreneurship” What do we know? How to operationalize it?
Wednesday, April 6, 2011 • 8:30 a.m. – 5:30 p.m. • JB1-080, The World Bank •Washington DC
Mary Hallward-Driemeir, Lead Economist, Financial and Private Sector Development Department, The
World Bank
Mary Hallward-Driemeier is a Lead Economist in the Office of the Chief Economist of the Financial and
Private Sector Development Network of the World Bank. She has published articles on entrepreneurship and the impact of the investment climate on firm performance. She was the Deputy
Director for the World Development Report 2005: A Better Investment Climate for Everyone. She helped establish the World Bank’s Enterprise Surveys Program, now covering over 100,000 enterprises in 100 countries. She received her Ph.D. in economics from M.I.T. Mary is currently the Task Team Leader for two regional flagship reports “Expanding Economic Opportunities for Women in Africa” and
“Strengthening Africa’s Legal Investment Climate for Women.” The reports use household and enterprise data to map where women are economically active and where there are gender gaps. It examines various factors that could constrain women – and policies that could disproportionately benefit women entrepreneurs. One area of focus is the ways that formal laws, including the formal recognition of customary law, affects women’s incentives and abilities to access assets and start and grow a business.
Pierre Guislain, Director, Investment Climate Department, International Finance Corporation
Pierre is Director of the Investment Climate Department, in the joint Bank-IFC Financial and Private
Sector Development vice Presidency. He is also General Manager of FIAS, the World Bank Group’s multidonor investment climate advisory service and IFC's Business Line Leader for Business Enabling
Environment advisory services. Pierre joined the World Bank Group in 1983 and worked in the West
Africa Projects Department, the Legal Department, the Asia Technical Department, and the Private
Sector Advisory Services Department, before moving to Brussels to manage a joint program between the World Bank and the European Commission on Private Sector Participation in Infrastructure in the
Southern Mediterranean region (1997-2001). Between 2001 and 2005, Pierre managed the Bank’s
Information and Communication Technologies division. Pierre holds an MPA in Economics and Public
Policy from Princeton University and a graduate law degree from the University of Louvain (UCL,
Belgium).
Deborah K, Holmes, Global Corporate Responsibility Leader, Ernst & Young, LLP
Deborah established and leads the Corporate Responsibility (CR) function at Ernst & Young LLP. Focused on skill-based volunteerism in the “3Es” (education, entrepreneurship and environmental sustainability), the Corporate Responsibility team develops strategies that enable Ernst & Young people to make a difference in communities around the world while building their own skills. Ms. Holmes joined Ernst &
Young in 1996, when then-Chairman Philip A. Laskawy hired her away from Catalyst to direct the organization’s efforts to develop and advance women into leadership positions. Ms. Holmes has been named a World Economic Forum Global Leader for Tomorrow and a Crain’s New York Business Rising
Star. Her team’s gender equity work was the subject of full-length feature articles in Fast Company and
Business Week. Ms. Holmes, a published author and frequent public speaker, earned her J.D. from
Harvard Law School and her B.A. in Government, magna cum laude, from Harvard College. She lives in
New York City with her college sweetheart and her two school-aged sons.
2 | P a g e

A Conference on Female Entrepreneurship
Female Entrepreneurship” What do we know? How to operationalize it?
Wednesday, April 6, 2011 • 8:30 a.m. – 5:30 p.m. • JB1-080, The World Bank •Washington DC
Leonardo Iacovone, Economist, Financial and Private Sector Development Department, The World
Bank
Leonardo is an Economist with the Private and Financial Sector Development Department of the Africa
Region. He obtained a PhD in economics from University of Sussex. Before joining the World Bank, as a
Young Professional, he served as economic advisor (ODI Fellow) for the Government of Mozambique and as a consultant for various international organizations (WTO, USAID, UNIDO, UNDP, DfID, European
Commission). His research work has focused on various topics ranging from firm-level responses to the challenges and opportunities of globalization, industrial dynamics, exports, access to finance, commodity prices, energy efficiency and regional trade agreements.
Sarah Iqbal, Program Officer, Women, Business and Law Project, International Finance Corporation
Sarah is a lawyer with expertise in gender and private sector development. She has worked with Global
Indicators and Analysis’s Women, Business and the Law (WBL) Project since its inception and is coordinating the production of the 2011 report and dataset. The WBL Project examines the laws, regulations and institutions that shape women’s economic opportunities when they wish to join the workforce or start a business. Sarah’s main focus is on identifying current and past reforms that may affect women’s ability to interact with the private sector, both as entrepreneurs and as employees. Prior to joining the World Bank Group, she practiced criminal defense and civil litigation. Sarah holds degrees in History, International Law and International Relations from UC Berkeley, UC Hastings, and Johns
Hopkins Universities.
Nancy Lee, Deputy Assistant Secretary –Western Hemisphere, United States Department of Treasury
Nancy is Treasury’s Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Western Hemisphere, responsible for managing
Treasury’s engagement on economic and financial issues with the countries of the Hemisphere. In 2008, she spent a year as Visiting Fellow at the Center for Global Development, working principally on the future of regional integration in the Western Hemisphere. Before her sabbatical, she was Treasury's
Deputy Assistant Secretary for Europe, Eurasia and the Western Hemisphere. Previously at Treasury, she was the Director of the Office of Central and Eastern Europe, Director of the Office of Mideast and
Central Asia, and Deputy Director of the Office of Asian and Near East Nations. Dr. Lee is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and received the Meritorious Executive Presidential Rank Award in
2001. She holds a Ph.D. and an M.A. in economics from Tufts University and a B.A. in economics from
Wellesley College. She is married with two children.
Noa Meyer, Vice President, Corporate Engagement, Goldman Sachs & Company
Noa is the program manager for 10,000 Women. She previously managed John L. Thornton’s global philanthropic initiatives. Her prior non-profit experience includes launching Revenue Watch at George
Soros’s Open Society Institute, as well as developing a program focused on supporting information technology for poverty reduction in developing countries at the Markle Foundation. Noa began her career in Washington, DC where she held several positions in the Clinton Administration, first in the speechwriting office of First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton and then at the United States Agency for
International Development focused on political development in the Balkans. Noa has worked on two presidential and one prime ministerial campaign in Israel. Noa graduated from Vassar College.
3 | P a g e

A Conference on Female Entrepreneurship
Female Entrepreneurship” What do we know? How to operationalize it?
Wednesday, April 6, 2011 • 8:30 a.m. – 5:30 p.m. • JB1-080, The World Bank •Washington DC
Radhah Muthiah, Vice President, Strategic Partnership and Alliance, CARE USA
Radha is CARE USA’s Vice-President for Strategic Partnerships & Alliances, based in Washington, D.C. As a member of the Senior Management team for CARE USA, she proactively develops, manages and grows key relationships and partnerships on behalf of CARE USA with the private sector, multilateral institutions, U.S. Government donors, academia and other international NGOs. A key aspect of her work is to recognize and build upon areas of strength and synergy for CARE and its partners in order to meet mutual goals of sustainable impact through the empowerment of women and girls as catalysts to eradicate poverty. Radha has also spent significant portion of her career in both the private and public sector, and serves as a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a Board member of the Society for International Development. She has an MBA from Stanford University and Bachelor of Arts and
Masters degrees in Economics from Tufts University. Radha lives in the Washington, D.C. area with her husband and two sons.
Pirella Paci, Sector Manager, Gender and Development Group, The World Bank
Pierella is the Sector Manager for the Gender and Development Group (PRMGE). Before joining this group she had been Lead Economist in the Poverty Reduction Group (PRMPR) and in the Europe and
Central Asia region where she lead the work on employment, migration, poverty and on the impacts of economic crises. Before joining the World Bank she had been Professor of Economics at the University of Sussex (UK) and at City University (London). She holds degrees in Economics from the University of
Rome (Italy), the University of York (UK) and Manchester (UK) and has written extensively in the areas of labor economics, gender economics, inequality and poverty.
Claudia Piras, Lead Social Development Economist, Inter-American Development Bank
Claudia Piras is a Lead Social Development Economist at the Inter-American Development Bank. Her work at the IDB has focused on the areas of gender, labor markets and entrepreneurship in Latin
America, in which she has both research and policy experience. She edited the book "Women at Work:
Challenges for Latin America" and is the co-author of the reports “The Gender Divide: Capitalizing on
Women’s Work” and “Women’s Economic Opportunities in the Formal Private Sector in Latin America: A
Focus on Entrepreneurship”. She has participated in projects that promote female entrepreneurship in several Latin American countries. Before joining the IDB she headed the Research Department of the competition agency in Venezuela and taught microeconomics at Universidad Católica Andres Bello and
Universidad Central de Venezuela. She holds a master’s degree in Economic Policy Management from
Columbia University and a MBA from IESA, Venezuela.
Ana Revenga, Co-Director, 2012 World Development Report, The World Bank
Ana is the Director of Poverty Reduction and Equity group at the World Bank. Concurrently, she is Co-
Director of the 2012 World Development Report on Gender Equality and Development. Between 2005 and 2008, she was Lead Economist for Human Development and Manager, Labor and Social Protection, in the East Asia and the Pacific region. Prior to joining the World Bank, she worked in the Research
Department of Central Bank of Spain and taught labor and international economics at the Centro de
Estudios Monetarios and Financieros. She has published extensively on poverty, labor and trade issues, and has worked across a broad spectrum of low, middle and high income countries in Asia, Europe, Latin
America, and North America. She was one of the authors of the 1995 World Development Report
(Workers in an Integrating World) and contributed to the 2006 World Development Report (Equity and
Development). She has a PhD in Economics from Harvard University and a degree in Human Rights from the Law Faculty, at the University of Geneva.
4 | P a g e

A Conference on Female Entrepreneurship
Female Entrepreneurship” What do we know? How to operationalize it?
Wednesday, April 6, 2011 • 8:30 a.m. – 5:30 p.m. • JB1-080, The World Bank •Washington DC
Sevi Simavi , Global Product Leader, Women in Business Program, International Finance Corporation
Sevi is a Global Product Leader with IFC's Women in Business Program, currently spearheading IFC’s work on gender and investment climate. In this role her focus is to design tools and develop new approaches to mainstream gender in investment climate operations globally. She also oversees the design and implementation of gender aspects of regional projects and leads a community of practice to capture lessons learned and share knowledge across regions. Sevi is a lawyer by training. Prior to her current role, she held various positions in the Investment Climate and Legal Departments of World Bank
Group and in the private sector. She holds law degrees from Georgetown University Law Center,
Washington, DC, and Marmara University School of Law, Istanbul.
Piyush Tantia, Executive Director, ideas42
As Executive Director of ideas42, Piyush works closely with leading academics from Harvard, MIT and
Princeton to apply cutting-edge behavioral economics research to invent fresh solutions to tough social problems in various areas including household finance, poverty and healthcare. He also manages ideas42’s research activities housed at Harvard University. In addition to overall management of ideas42, Piyush also leads ideas42’s household finance area. Examples of projects include various financial access product design pilots, improving foreclosure mitigation in the US using behavioral insights, developing an economically self-sustaining “financial health check” for consumers, and generating ideas for the next generation of consumer finance policy. Prior to joining ideas42, Piyush was a Partner in Oliver Wyman’s Retail Banking and Finance & Risk practices. During his 14 years at Oliver
Wyman, he advised clients in a vast array of retail financial services businesses including prime and subprime credit card, home equity, prime and subprime mortgage, deposits, retail distribution, microfinance, and unbanked/ underbanked. He tackled a wide range of issues including strategy, customer and product value management, credit process, distribution and risk management.
Sarah F. Thorn, Senior Director, Federal Government Relations, Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.
Sarah is primarily responsible for international trade and investment issues at Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. She is involved in legislative initiatives and trade negotiations (both regional and WTO) that affect Walmart’s retail and distribution rights overseas. In addition, she works to eliminate import and export tariff and non-tariff barriers that impact Walmart sourcing. Sarah also manages office administration, strategy and planning. Before joining Walmart, Sarah worked for seven years at the Grocery Manufacturers
Association where she led the food, beverage and consumer products industry advocacy on international trade issues. Sarah has also worked as a consultant for PricewaterhouseCoopers and served as an international relations representative with AMP Incorporated. Sarah began her career in
Washington as a Presidential Management Fellow at the U.S. Information Agency. She holds a Master of
Arts degree in law and diplomacy from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and a Bachelor of Arts degree in comparative area studies and comparative literature from Duke University.
5 | P a g e

A Conference on Female Entrepreneurship
Female Entrepreneurship” What do we know? How to operationalize it?
Wednesday, April 6, 2011 • 8:30 a.m. – 5:30 p.m. • JB1-080, The World Bank •Washington DC
Marilou Jane D. Uy, Sector Director, Financial and Private Sector Development Department, The
World Bank
Marilou is the Sector Director for the Africa Financial and Private Sector Development Department at the World Bank. Previously, she served as Director of the Financial Sector Operations and Policy
Department in the Financial Sector Vice-Presidency (FSE) as well as Chair of the Financial Sector Board since September 2002. Ms. Uy joined the World Bank in 1985 as part of the Young Professionals
Program. Since then, Ms. Uy has worked on trade policy, investment climate, and financial sector issues in various operational departments in Latin America, Middle East, and South Asia. She was also part of the Development Economics Group's research team that prepared "The East Asian Miracle" in 1991, in which she focused on financial sector issues, together with Joseph Stiglitz. In 1993, Ms. Uy joined the
Bank's Financial Management and Country Credit Worthiness Department. In 1996, she became the
Division Chief of the Private Sector Development and Finance Division in the South Asia Department. In
1998, she became the Sector Director of the Finance and Private Sector Development Department in the
South Asia Region. Prior to joining the World Bank, Ms. Uy pursued her graduate studies in economics and finance at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Martin Valdivia, Senior Researcher, GRADE & Director, Latin American Office of the Poverty &
Economic Policy Research Network
Martin is a senior researcher at GRADE in Lima, Peru, and director of the Latin American Office of the
Poverty and Economic Policy (PEP) Research Network. His research interests include rural development, social determinants of health inequalities and entrepreneurship. His work is increasingly using randomized control trials to identify what works in interventions associated to these topics. His most recent work on the topic of the conference is “Teaching Entrepreneurship: Impact of Business Training on Microfinance Clients and Institutions”, with Dean Karlan, forthcoming in REStat. Martin received his doctor of philosophy degree from the University of Minnesota.
Monika Weber-Fahr, Senior Manager, Sustainability Business Advisory Services, International Finance
Corporation
Monika Weber-Fahr serves as the Global Business Line Leader for Environmental and Social
Sustainability Business Advisory Services in the International Finance Corporation (IFC) and manages the
Corporation’s Sustainability Business Innovator Division. In these roles, Monika determines strategy for the portfolio of concessional investments and advisory services operations in the areas of climate change, labor & social capital, and biodiversity, and she is responsible for IFC-wide strategy, quality assurance, knowledge management and cross-regional collaboration in these areas. Her unit’s work includes global initiatives as well as collaborative projects undertaken jointly with IFC's regional advisory services teams. As IFC's Business Line Leader for sustainability business advisory services, Monika works to promote the pursuit of market transformations and firm-level changes that deliver social or environmental returns systematically built around increasing firm value and economic growth. Over the past 15 years, Ms. Weber-Fahr has worked in strategy development, innovation and organizational change in IFC, the World Bank and with the Boston Consulting Group (BCG), often with a focus on energy-related topics. She holds an MSc in Economics and a PhD in Business Economics.
6 | P a g e

A Conference on Female Entrepreneurship
Female Entrepreneurship” What do we know? How to operationalize it?
Wednesday, April 6, 2011 • 8:30 a.m. – 5:30 p.m. • JB1-080, The World Bank •Washington DC
Zouera Youssoufou, Head, Women in Business Program, International Finance Corporation
Zouera heads IFC’s Global Women in Business Program (WIN), charged with creating opportunities for women entrepreneurs in the developing world. Zouera is a Financial Services professional with experience in international development, investment management, and management consulting. Prior to leading the WIN program, Zouera headed the Women’s Access to Finance Program where she was responsible for IFC’s first investment for the benefit of Women Entrepreneurs. Zouera joined IFC in 2005 from Citigroup’s Smith Barney unit in New York and Atlanta where she worked as an equity research analyst, covering emerging markets and 13 industry sectors. She has developed a strong understanding of the issues facing women entrepreneurs in Africa, having worked on private sector development issues
– including capacity building initiatives for entrepreneurs in Niger and consulting in Ghana – through the
European Union and Deloitte & Touche Consulting. Zouera holds an MBA (Finance) from New York
University’s Stern School of Business and a BBA in Marketing from the University of Massachusetts’
Isenberg School of Business. She is fully multi-lingual in English, French, and Hausa.
7 | P a g e