#75 Michaela Walsh - Founding the Women’s World Banking Movement, Financial Inclusion, and Female Entrepreneurship

The Wall Street Lab

Our guest today is Michaela Walsh. Michaela is an activist, scholar, mentor, educator, and author. She was the Founding President of Women’s World Banking. Women’s World Banking is the global leader in women’s financial inclusion. Prior to that, Michaela served as a Project Director for the U.S. Congressional Office of Technology Assessment, and as a Program Associate with the Rockefeller Brothers Fund. Michaela also was a pioneer woman manager with Merrill Lynch in Beirut, Lebanon, in the ’60s, and the first woman Partner of Boettcher & Company in the ’70s, and in 1980.

This episode is a rare one. Michaela at 86 years old has a treasure trove of experience and is a true force of nature. We talk about the founding idea of women's world banking, the issues it wanted to solve, the story how it came into existence. We talk about Michaela’s experience in female financial inclusion and the positive effects of it. We talk about how WWB financed over 100 million women over the years and became one of the most important financial institutions for female empowerment.