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Grameen Foundation : Who we are : Our People : Staff : Social Performance

Social Performance Management Center (SPMC) Staff

Nigel Biggar, Director of Social Performance Management Center
Sharlene Brown, Program Officer
Mary Jo Kochendorfer, Program Officer
Jeff Toohig, Program Officer
Preeti Wali, Program Assistant

E-mail: spm@grameenfoundation.org

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Nigel Biggar
Director, Social Performance Management Center

Nigel has over 14 years working with microenterprise and microfinance in developing countries. He began in this field working as a microentrepreneur with a street youth project he established in Quito, Ecuador in the early 1990s. He has worked extensively with MFIs in Latin America and Asia. Nigel has been with Grameen Foundation since early 2000. He is currently the Director of Social Performance and the principal for the Social Performance/ Progress out of Poverty Index initiative. He previously served as Grameen Foundation’s Regional Director for the Americas where he assisted start-up MFIs in Latin America to build and expand their programs based on the Grameen methodology. He holds a masters degree in Development Studies from the Institute of Development Studies at Sussex University.

Sharlene Brown
Program Officer

Sharlene Brown joined Grameen Foundation in February 2008 as a Program Officer in the Social Performance Measurement group. Sharlene has spent most of her career in the socially responsible investment (SRI) marketplace, initially working as a business development manager for Domini Social Investments, and most recently as research associate for the Social Investment Forum, producing the 2007 Trends Report on Social Investing in the United States.

Sharlene’s interest in microfinance began during her undergraduate career at Wellesley College, where she majored in Economics and Africana Studies, and focused her research on development issues and women in the Caribbean. Throughout her career in the SRI industry, she continued to build her knowledge on microfinance and community investing by sitting on Domini’s Social Policy Review Committee and being engaged in the Social Investment Forum’s 1% for Community campaign.

Mary Jo Kochendorfer
Program Officer

Following her work as a business consultant, Mary Jo founded a microfinance awareness group, the Microfinance Alliance, in Minnesota. Her transition from the private sector stems from her ambition to assist individuals to obtain the means to achieve their dreams. Mary Jo joined the Grameen Foundation staff in October of 2007 and is focused on training, implementing, and supporting the rollout of the Grameen Foundation’s poverty assessment tool, the Progress out of Poverty IndexTM. Mary Jo graduated with a B.S.B dual degree in International Business and Marketing from the Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota.

Jeff Toohig
Program Officer

After 5 years in corporate finance Jeff transitioned into development finance by way of Pro Mujer Bolivia in La Paz where he worked to adjust messaging from a focus on donors to one including socially responsible investors. The time spent analyzing the social return on investment possible with the Grameen style system in use by PMB led to a natural fit with Grameen Foundation’s Social Performance Management Team. Jeff joined the Grameen Foundation staff in January of 2006 and is focused on strategy, planning, design and operationalization of Grameen Foundation’s poverty assessment tool “The Progress out of Poverty Index.” Jeff graduated with a BS dual degree in Comparative Literature and History from Fordham University.

Preeti Wali
Program Assistant

Preeti currently assists the SPMC with the rollout of Social Performance communications initiatives. Prior to joining the Grameen Foundation she worked on Social Performance projects at Alternative Credit Technologies (ACT). Preeti developed an interest in microfinance after witnessing its successful application in South Asia – specifically, instances in which impoverished women were enabled to provide education for their children and earned greater social capital within their communities.

Before ACT, Preeti worked for MSHC Partners, Inc., a Democratic political consulting firm and spent three years working on campaigns such as Wal-Mart Watch, the Kerry-Edwards 2004 Presidential campaign, and Hillary Rodham Clinton's Senate campaign in 2000. She holds a B.A. in International Affairs, Economics, and Political Science from the Maxwell School at Syracuse University. Originally from Kashmir, India and raised in Syracuse, NY, Preeti speaks Hindi, Kashmiri, and French.

Grameen Foundation : Who we are : Our People : Staff : Social Performance