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Women’s leadership has been central to microfinance from the inception of the industry. Many of the industry’s pioneers were women, and as microfinance institutions grew, women were well represented in management. To this day, in comparison with other industries, the representation of women in leadership remains strong in microfinance.1 In recent years, however, microfinance providers have been strained by unprecedented rates of growth, the increasing need for skill sets from the private sector, and pressure to become more commercially motivated. There is evidence that with these changes in the industry, the percentage of women in leadership positions is beginning to decline. Even within the Women’s World Banking (WWB) network—the only global microfinance network expressly committed to women’s leadership—there has been a decline in women in board positions (from 66 to 58 percent) and in senior management (from 66 to 51 percent) from 2003 to 2007.2 This paper offers institutional approaches to increase the representation of women professionals in microfinance. Section one shows the importance of women’s leadership in microfinance and discusses the business case for gender diversity. Section two offers a case study of Pakistan’s Kashf Foundation, a member of the WWB network whose methods of furthering organizational gender diversity have been exemplary. In 2008, WWB worked with Kashf to further strengthen the organization’s initiatives to promote gender diversity. Finally, section three presents Women’s World Banking’s strategies for improving gender diversity in microfinance institutions (MFIs), including WWB’s Women’s Leadership Development Program and the newly developed Organizational Gender Assessment (OGA) methodology, a tool for diagnosing challenges and identifying opportunities that MFIs face in the attraction, retention and promotion of qualified women staff members.

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245: $a: transforming the landscape of leadership in microfinance e
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100: $a: Elizabeth Lynch
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