Laura Foose

Laura Foose has been the Director of the Social Performance Task Force since 2005, focused on client-centric business practices and client protection issues in financial inclusion. She has over twenty years of experience in policy design and advocacy promoting microfinance and poverty alleviation in developing and transitional countries. As a partner of Alternative Credit Technologies for ten years, she designed microfinance projects, conducted evaluations of financial service providers (FSPs), and was a working group facilitator for the SEEP Network in the areas of poverty assessment/outreach. As Secretariat of the Microenterprise Coalition at FINCA for five years, Ms. Foose represented microenterprise practitioner and advocacy organizations to donor agencies, the U.S. Administration, and members of the U.S. Congress. Ms. Foose is a professor of financial inclusion at Georgetown University; a co-founder of Women Advancing Microfinance; and is currently on the Taxonomy Committee of “The Impact Reporting and Investment Standards (IRIS) project” of The Global Impact and Investing Network. Ms. Foose holds an M.S. in Foreign Service from Georgetown University, with specializations in international economics and business, and a B.A. from Brown University, where she graduated with a double major in economics and international relations. She is based in Washington, DC.