Ayesha Wagle
We are pleased to welcome Ayesha Wagle to the Truelift Steering Committee. Chris Dunford, Executive Committee Co-Chair for Truelift, discusses the valuable experience Ayesha will bring to Truelift:
“Ayesha’s experience and wisdom will help the Steering Committee address two major needs. First, based on her career in the financial industry and most recently as the VP overseeing the lending portfolio of MicroCredit Enterprises (an innovative, pro-poor MIV), Ayesha will help us understand the perspective of the social lenders and investors. A major value of recognition by Truelift is the credibility it bestows on MFIs in the eyes of pro-poor lenders and investors.
Second, Truelift aspires to become relevant not just to MFIs but more generally to social businesses of all types who seek to enhance their pro-poor performance. Ayesha has recently become CEO of Komaza, a very pro-poor social forestry business in Kenya. Her experience at Komaza and more generally in the non-financial social business sector will be invaluable to our thinking about how to expand the relevance of Truelift.”
Executive Committee Co-Chair Carmen Velasco, Co-Founder of Pro Mujer, welcomes Ayesha to Truelift:
“We are privileged and very happy to have you on board. I am sure you are going to feel the same commitment we all do in the Steering Committee. Truelift is a powerful initiative to make real difference in the fight against poverty, and you are going to play a key role in helping Truelift achieve our goals.”
Ayesha began her microfinance work in 2007 at Mann Deshi Mahila Sahakari Bank, a women’s cooperative bank in rural Maharashtra, India. As Maharashtra’s largest microfinance institution, Mann Deshi is a pioneer in financial and non-financial services for 140,000 of India’s poorest women. Through her work over the last 6 years in microfinance, she has committed herself to bringing access to financial services, something she views as a basic human right, to the world’s poor and underserved.
Ayesha recently joined KOMAZA as President in August 2013. Along with KOMAZA’s Founder & Executive Director, Ayesha is responsible for leading fundraising and strategic initiatives to enable KOMAZA to scale and have the greatest impact possible. Prior to joining KOMAZA, Ayesha spent five years managing the global loan portfolio at MicroCredit Enterprises, a California non-profit committed to reducing poverty by financing microentrepreneurs. Ayesha has also worked with Feed the Hunger Foundation, Morgan Stanley, and Grameen Foundation’s Capital Markets and Advisory Committee, assisting with the organization’s Growth Guarantees fund. Ayesha graduated magna cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania with a degree in Economics and International Relations and has a Masters degree from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. She is originally from Washington, DC.
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