Faculty Council
The Faculty Council for the Center for Financial Inclusion consists of academics from premier national and international professional schools. In support of the Center, the Council aims to embed the study of microfinance and financial inclusion in the curriculum of professional schools so that all students have some exposure to the field. The Council also seeks to inspire the next generation of business leaders to choose careers in service to the bottom of the pyramid, and encourage students and faculty to participate in research that can lead to breakthroughs in the field.
Faculty Council Members
Andrew B. Bernard
Andrew Bernard is the Director of the Center for International Business and the Jack Byrne Professor of International Economics at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth. He has been on the faculty at Tuck since 1999. He received his PhD from Stanford in economics in 1991. He was on the faculty at MIT and Yale prior to coming to Tuck.
Professor Bernard is an expert in international trade and investment and specializes in firm responses to globalization. In recent papers, he has analyzed the effects of trade with low-cost countries such as China on firm strategy and performance, and the relationship between exporting and productivity. His current research is on transfer pricing by U.S. exporters and the role of multinationals in international trade and production.
Professor Bernard received a National Science Foundation grant to study firm responses to international trade. In addition to being published in top academic journals such as the American Economic Review and the Review of Economic Studies, his research has been featured on CNN, CNBC, Good Morning America, MSNBC, NPR's Morning Edition, the Marketplace Morning Report, BBC, and in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, the Economist, Nikkei, Fortune, and Business Week.
Bhagwan Chowdhry
Bhagwan Chowdhry is a Professor of Finance at UCLA Anderson where he has held an appointment since 1988. Professor Chowdhry has also taught at the University of Chicago, University of Illinois at Chicago, the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, and the Indian School of Business. He received his PhD in 1989 from the Graduate School of Business at the University of Chicago. He also has an MBA in Finance from the University of Iowa and a B.Tech. in Mechanical Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology.
Professor Chowdhry’s research interests, on which he has published several papers in finance and economics journals, are in International Finance and Corporate Finance and Strategy. He is on the editorial board of a number of finance journals. He teaches International Finance, Corporate Finance and Financial Institutions at Anderson. He has also organized and taught Executive Education programs on Financial Derivatives, Corporate Risk Management and Valuation in Los Angeles, Singapore, Hong Kong, Mumbai, and Hyderabad.
Microfinance has been Professor Chowdhry’s recent teaching, research and applied interest. He has supervised several MBA student projects in Microfinance in the last several years. He has taught an undergraduate seminar class on the subject and is teaching an MBA class on it at Anderson. He has developed a new model for "Franchising Microfinance" on which he has written a research paper and is studying the feasibility of implementing the model with an Anderson MBA student team and a microfinance institution.
Paul Christensen
Paul Christensen is a senior lecturer at the Kellogg School of Management where he teaches courses on microfinance and international business. In addition, he helps direct the school’s International Business and Markets Program where he is involved in international curriculum development, visiting scholars and executives, student club activities and alumni outreach.
Prior to Kellogg, Mr. Christensen served as the founder and President of ShoreCap International Ltd., a $28 million private equity company sponsored by ShoreBank Corporation which invests in financial institutions in developing countries throughout Africa, Asia, and Eastern Europe. Having established the company in London, Mr. Christensen built a portfolio of 15 leading development finance institutions serving over 1,000,000 microfinance and small business clients and produced annual fund returns in excess of 20%. From 2000-2003, Mr. Christensen served as president and CEO of ShoreBank Enterprise Group, a $12 million-asset small business development organization in Cleveland, Ohio. Prior to joining ShoreBank, he was an engagement manager for the consulting firm, McKinsey and Company, where he focused on operations performance, organizational effectiveness and strategic planning for clients in the financial services, manufacturing, consumer goods, petroleum, and electric utility industries.
Mr. Christensen earned an MBA with distinction from Cornell University and a BA in economics, summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa, from Dartmouth College.
Michael Chu
Michael Chu was appointed a Senior Lecturer in the Initiative on Social Enterprise of the General Management Group at Harvard Business School in July 2003. He is also Managing Director of the IGNIA Fund, an investment firm dedicated to investing in commercial enterprises serving low-income populations in developing countries, which he co-founded in 2007. He continues to serve as Senior Advisor and a founding partner of Pegasus Capital, a firm dedicated to deploying equity capital in Latin America.
Professor Chu teaches the second year elective course Business and Base of the Pyramid Markets. He is Faculty Co-Chair of the Executive Education program Strategic Leadership for Microfinance. In the past, he has taught the course Investing and Managing in Emerging Markets and Effective Leadership of Social Enterprises. He is co-head of Project Antares, a collaboration between Harvard Business School and the Harvard School of Public Health focusing on commercial approaches to deliver high-impact primary health care to low-income populations in developing nations.
Before Pegasus, Professor Chu served as President and CEO of ACCION International and participated in the founding of several MFIs and regulated banks throughout Latin America. He has also worked as an executive and limited partner at Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co; Senior Vice President & CFO of PACE Industries; and was a management consultant with the Boston Consulting Group. He currently serves on the boards of Sealed Air Corporation (NYSE), ACCION International (Emeritus) and is a Trustee of Dartmouth College. He graduated with a BA (Honors) from Dartmouth College and received a MBA with highest distinction (Baker Scholar) from Harvard Business School.
Jason Fairbourne
Jason is a Visiting Research Associate Professor at BYU’s Center for Economic Self-Reliance. He is the founder and director of the MicroFranchise Development Initiative and teaches both graduate and undergraduate microfranchise consulting classes. Jason’s focus is on Social Entrepreneurship and microfranchising in particular. Jason has a strong background in international economic development. Jason earned a Masters degree at the London School of Economics and Political Science in Development Management, where he focused his research on international political economy, Africa’s informal economy, poverty, and development management.
Jason has written several articles and books on microfranchising. Jason co-authored the MicroFranchise Handbook, outlining various microenterprises that are being replicated around the world. He is editor and author of the MicroFranchise Toolkit, a guide to assisting organizations in systematizing and replicating microfranchises. He also authored the article MicroFranchising: New Innovative Tool for Economic Development; and the article Microfranchising. And foremost, Jason authored and edited the first book on microfranchising, Microfranchising: Creating Wealth at the Bottom of the Pyramid. Jason has presented at various conferences and Learning Labs around the world and has been featured in articles and radio programs in Africa, Europe and North America.
In addition to Jason’s academic work, he has a consulting firm that consults a number of organizations, including both private sector and non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Jason has assisted and written many business plans for these organizations in a wide spectrum of industries. These industries include health, transportation, manufacturing, technology, finance, and agribusiness, all with a focus on social entrepreneurship and building businesses in developing
countries. Jason is an expert in microfranchising, new business development, market research, needs assessments, and strategic planning, at the base of the pyramid.
Sean Foote
Mr. Foote is a lecturer at the University of California's Haas School of Business, where he teaches the top-ranked venture capital and private equity classes, as well as Microfinance. He has also taught classes on entrepreneurship at the University of Michigan's Business School, University of Virginia's Darden School of Business and University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business
Mr. Foote is a partner at Labrador Ventures, and has been a venture capitalist investing in early stage companies for the past 9 years. He is active on the board of directors of Eoplex Technologies, Everyone.net, Integrated Materials Inc., Altierre Corporation and Solaicx. He also serves on the Development Council of Entrepreneurs Foundation, a non profit organization that engages high growth companies in corporate citizenship and philanthropic efforts; Silicon Valley Microfinance Network (SVMN); Freedom from Hunger, a nonprofit, international development organization that fights against hunger and poverty; and is founder of Community Promise, an educational focused nonprofit.
Before venture investing, Mr. Foote was a management consultant with Boston Consulting Group, working in a wide range of industries such as telecom, computers, healthcare, banking, and automotive on topics ranging from strategic alliances to Internet strategies. Mr. Foote also worked as a systems engineer for AT&T Bell Laboratories, developing artificial intelligence systems for testing the most complicated telecommunications networks.
Mr. Foote received his undergraduate degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Missouri Rolla (1988), and his MBA from the University of Virginia's Darden Graduate School of Business (1993), where he received the Shermett Award granted to the top 3% of students.
Robert Gertner
Robert Gertner focuses his research primarily on industrial organization, resource allocation and decision making in organizations, corporate investment, law and economics, and strategic pricing. His research in progress includes a book on strategic investment decisions (for academic and advanced practitioner audiences); the effects of specialization, communication, and incentives on economic decision making in organizations; capital allocation processes in organizations; and organizational decision making under ambiguity. In 1994, Professor Gertner published Game Theory and the Law with colleagues Douglas Baird and Randal Picker, called the "definitive guide to the field" by University of Minnesota Law professor Daniel A. Farber.
Prior to accepting his position at the GSB, Professor Gertner was a research fellow for the National Bureau of Economic Research, taught courses as a visiting associate professor of management and strategy at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, and worked as a full-time consultant for AT&T. He was a visiting scholar at CEPREMAP in Paris and a visiting scholar at both Cornell Law School and the University of Chicago Law School. His work also has appeared in the Review of Economic Studies, the Journal of Law and Economics, the Stanford Law Review, and the Palgrave Dictionary of Economics and the Law.
He earned a BA summa cum laude in economics from Princeton University in 1981 and a PhD from MIT in 1986. He joined the GSB faculty in 1986.
V. G. Narayanan
V. G. Narayanan is the Thomas D. Casserly, Jr. Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School and has taught in several MBA, doctoral, and executive-education programs there since he joined the faculty in 1994. His research interests include executive compensation, control and coordination issues in supply chains, and activity-based costing and management.
Professor Narayanan did his Ph.D. in Business Administration, MA in Economics, and MS in Statistics at Stanford University. He received his MBA from the Indian Institute of Management (Ahmedabad). Professor Narayanan has published in the Contemporary Accounting Research, The Harvard Business Review, Journal of Accounting and Economics, Journal of Accounting Research, Journal of Cost Management, Journal of Economics and Management Strategy, and the Management Science. He has worked with many companies and authored a number of cases. He is a member of the American Accounting Association, and the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India. He serves on the board of directors of Leader Bank and the board of trustees of Fessenden School.
Paul Hudnut
Paul Hudnut is co-director of Global Innovation Center for Energy, Environment and Health at Colorado State University and teaches entrepreneurship at the College of Business. Mr. Hudnut is a founder and director of Envirofit International, Ltd., which is known for its innovative approach to commercializing environmentally friendly technologies in the developing world. He also serves as a board member of Inviragen, a biotech company focused on emerging infectious diseases in the developing world, and New Belgium Brewing Co., a leader in sustainability. Prior to joining CSU in 2003, Mr. Hudnut was an executive in the biotech and information services industries. Mr. Hudnut earned his BA from Colorado College and his law degree from University of Virginia.
George Priest
George Priest is the John M. Olin Professor of Law and Economics at Yale Law School. Before coming to Yale, he taught at the University of Chicago, SUNY/Buffalo, and UCLA. His subject areas are antitrust; capitalism or democracy; products liability; regulated industries; insurance and public policy; constitutional law; federalism; state and local government law; and civil procedure. Professor Priest has a BA from Yale and a JD from the University of Chicago.
Guy Stuart
Guy Stuart is a Lecturer in Public Policy. He received his PhD from the University of Chicago in 1994 and then worked for four years in Chicago in the field of community economic development. During this time he served as the Director of the FaithCorp Fund, a nonprofit community loan fund.
At the Kennedy School, Professor Stuart teaches courses on management and microfinance. His book Discriminating Risk traces the historical origins of today's mortgage loan underwriting criteria in the United States and examines current underwriting practices. He is currently conducting research on racial and economic segregation in the United States and on microfinance in India, Mexico, and Malawi.
Professor Stuart graduated from Oxford University in 1988 with a BA in politics and economics, and earned a Masters in Political Science in 1990 from the University of Chicago.
Donald F. Terry
Donald F. Terry is an expert in matters involving financial inclusion, particularly remittances and microfinance. Mr. Terry was the General Manager of the Multilateral Investment Fund (MIF) of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) from its inception in 1993 until July 2008. Under Mr. Terry’s leadership, the MIF helped to transform Latin American microfinance into a commercially sustainable industry, which now reaches more than ten million clients, and serves as a model for the rest of the developing world. Currently Mr. Terry consults with the World Bank and the International Youth Foundation, and he provides strategic advisory services to bi-lateral donors, and several international organizations. He is also an adjunct professor at the Morin Center of Boston University Law School.
Before joining the MIF, Mr. Terry served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for International Affairs, where he received that Department’s Meritorious Service Award in 1980. From 1982-1993, Mr. Terry served as Staff Director of three Congressional Committees: The Joint Economic Committee, the House Committee on Small Business, and the House Committee on Banking and Financial Institutions.
Mr. Terry holds a bachelor's degree in Political Science from Yale University (1968) and a law degree from the University of California Law School at Berkeley (1972). He also graduated from the Senior Managers in Government Program at the Harvard Business School in 1978.
Todd A. Watkins
Todd A. Watkins is the Arthur F. Searing Professor of Economics and Director of Lehigh University’s Microfinance Program. Author of more than 50 related publications, his research and teaching focus on the intersection of innovation, entrepreneurship, microfinance, public policy, and economics. He is co-editor of the forthcoming volume
Moving Beyond Storytelling: Emerging Research in Microfinance. His teaching areas encompass technology entrepreneurship, new product development and microfinance innovation.
Dr. Watkins co-founded Lehigh’s award-winning Integrated Product Development Program and is also Director of Lehigh’s Entrepreneurship Program. He has been a research consultant to the U.S. Department of Commerce's NIST Advanced Technology Program, the U.S. Congressional Office of Technology Assessment, and a member of The National Academies’ Committee on Innovation Models for Aerospace Technologies, advising NASA on improving their innovation processes. Dr. Watkins earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Optics from the University of Rochester and his PhD and Masters in Public Policy from Harvard University.
Keith Weigelt
Keith Weigelt is the Rebecca and Morris Marks Professor of Strategy at The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. He is the course head of Management 653 – Field Application Project. The class is one of applied strategy and is taken by over 120 MBAs each year. Keith is a game theorist and his teaching focuses on the theory’s relevance to the business world. He is the recipient of Wharton School Excellence in Teaching Awards for both his negotiation and strategy classes.
Keith has worked with a wide range of organizations in developing strategies including IBM, GM, Boeing, Verizon, Ethicon, The Gap, ESPN, Hartford Life, Philadelphia Museum of Art, and the UN. He also counsels upper level managers as a strategy advisor. He is an expert in the growing micro-credit market working on projects in both the retail and wholesale markets for organizations such as FINCA and Women’s World Banking.
Professor Weigelt has published numerous articles in management and economics journals. He is the co-author of Managerial Economics (sixth edition), a book that is the category leader in the global education market. His articles have also appeared in several books and the popular press. Professor Weigelt is presently finishing a book on “making strategy.”
Sylvia Wisniwski
Ms. Wisniwski has more than 10 years of experience in designing and implementing technical
assistance projects in a variety of financial institutions in about 20 countries world-wide. Since 1999, she has been Head of Bankakademie International, responsible for the overall strategies and operations of the department. Additionally, she is Project Director for Bankakademie’s SME lending projects, e.g. in Macedonia, Serbia, Kosovo and Georgia. She has also conducted several studies within the SME banking sector of Southeast Europe, and possesses strong knowledge of the banking market in the region.
Before joining Bankakademie in 1999, she was a project manager in the section Financial System
Development and Banking Services at the headquarters of Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ).
Ms. Wisniwski holds a Masters in Political Science and Sociology and an MBA from the University of Tuebingen, Germany, as well as a Masters in International Studies from the University of Miami.