Posted by Jeffrey Riecke, Communications Associate, CFI

<em>Last month Larry Reed, Director of the <a href="http://www.microcreditsummit.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Microcredit Summit Campaign</a>, attended the</em><a href="http://ecuadorvivelainclusion2015.com/"><em> International Summit of Productive Inclusion</em></a><em> in Guayaquil, a conference focused on financial inclusion for one of the world’s most underserved populations: persons with disabilities. The event was organized by Ecuador’s Office of the Vice President, whose leadership has been seminal in advancing disability inclusion in Ecuador and around the world. I caught up with Larry to learn more about the event and the Microcredit Summit Campaign’s efforts to support persons with disabilities living in extreme poverty.</em>

<strong>1. The event included diverse stakeholders and topics related to financial inclusion for persons with disabilities. Did anything in particular stand out to you?</strong>

The first thing that impressed me was just how big it was. Over 2,000 people attended the event, and it was also live-streamed. The 2,000 people were not only a diverse group in terms of sector, but also in how they related to persons with disabilities. And the interesting thing was that about half the people in the audience were either people with disabilities or caregivers for people with disabilities. The event included a fair where people could buy things made by people with disabilities. Even the food stands for lunches were all run by people with disabilities. It was an event that actually practiced what it preached.

The event aimed to further the work of Ecuador’s previous vice president on inclusion for people with disabilities and extend it into the financial sector. They’ve done a lot of work in Ecuador to get people with disabilities included. For example, there’s a law that says for any company over 25 employees, 4 percent of its employees must be people with disabilities. But, because there are not very many large companies in Ecuador, that law results in employment for only a small portion of the population that has disabilities. The government sees a need for self-employment and small businesses run by people with disabilities. And to advance that they need to have the financial sector providing services that help promote business start-up and growth.

<strong>2. You were quite active at the event, delivering several speeches and serving on multiple panels. Could you tell us about these discussions?</strong>

My role at the event was mostly to talk about what financial inclusion was doing in other parts of the world. I dealt not specifically with people with disabilities, but with efforts elsewhere that helped include previously excluded people. I tried to show how that would apply to people with disabilities.

We looked at the things the Microcredit Summit Campaign is actively promoting as financial inclusion strategies that reach people in extreme poverty and assist movement out of poverty – things like supporting agricultural value chains, linking government cash transfer programs to microfinance graduation programs or asset-building programs, technology development that reaches to the poorest, linking savings groups with the financial system through mobile payments, and so forth. I promoted activities that could be applied to people with disabilities.

The same things apply in Ecuador as in many countries where many people with disabilities live in rural areas and could earn an income through agricultural work of some type, even though they have a disability. The event featured examples of some of those types of businesses, but the big challenge is how to look at the whole value chain to make sure there’s enough value to be created – that there are markets for what people grow so that those businesses can succeed and thrive.

<strong>3. What messages did you take home with you? </strong>

The key thing to me in this whole area of including the excluded is a change of mindset. What it does to a country and to a people when they begin to see a broader definition of “we”? The spirit that was tangible at the event was the sense that, “We can do this. We can care for all our people, and we as a society are better off because we include them.” I think that’s the message we have to get out into the whole financial inclusion world. Everyone has abilities, everyone has something to contribute, and we, our economies and our societies are better off if everyone is included.

<strong>4. Disability inclusion is a severely under-addressed issue globally. How did it come to the fore in Ecuador? </strong>

This all started in the previous administration with the previous vice president, Lenin Moreno, who is paraplegic. Moreno is now the Special Envoy on Disability and Accessibility to the United Nations, heading up some of the U.N.’s work in this area, and Ecuador is sought after all over the world for advice on how to do this work.

Moreno had been a business man, and one day he went out to buy a loaf of bread and someone was robbing the store. He got shot and became paralyzed. He almost gave up, and what brought him back to feeling like life was possible for him as a paraplegic was laughter therapy. And so he has published a few books on good jokes. Out of it all he became a well-known motivational speaker, and then he was picked as the vice presidential candidate, and his party won. Moreno then led a movement to include people with physical disabilities, with himself representing the contribution that people with disabilities could make to society.

While I was there I went out for a run and noticed all the bus stops and buses are handicapped accessible. You don’t step up into the bus. They open the door, more like that of a subway, and someone with a wheelchair can roll right on.

In their disaster preparedness work, teams of survey takers went out to the rural areas – villages, everywhere – and identified where every person with a disability lived. Then in the disaster plans they included how they would locate these people and evacuate them if there is a tsunami, tornado, or earthquake.

The current vice president of the country, Jorge Glas, has continued this emphasis on disability inclusion. His focus is on financial inclusion for disabled people, so that they are able to develop businesses and build assets.

<strong>5. Switching gears slightly, how does providing financial services to persons with disabilities fit with the Microcredit Summit Campaign’s push to ensure that vulnerable populations are not excluded from MFIs?</strong>

One of our key goals at the Campaign is to see 100 million of the world’s poorest families move out of extreme poverty as a result of access to appropriate financial services and other help as they may need it. As we become more granular in looking at that goal and how we address it, we find that there’s a need to identify the groups of people that are traditionally excluded or among the poorest in different parts of the world, and ask what strategies help address the needs of those groups. People with disabilities is one of those groups.

Even within microfinance organizations that want to serve the poor, there are often unwitting prejudices about the capabilities of people with disabilities, and they end up excluded. So we think this is one of the areas that we need to highlight for microfinance organizations to make sure that they are being inclusive and that where possible and necessary they are taking steps to ensure people with disabilities can access their services and can use them well. At a couple of our Summits Josh Goldstein [who leads <a href="http://www.centerforfinancialinclusion.org/programs-a-projects/pwd">CFI’s disability inclusion work</a>] has participated and presented and made Campaign Commitments. We’ve also had workshops on including people with disabilities for Summit participants.

<strong>6. What would you identify as the biggest barriers to advancing financial inclusion for persons with disabilities?</strong>

Probably the number one barrier is the range of prejudices or assumptions that people grow up with and maintain throughout life. One way of targeting these is helping people see how people with disabilities can contribute and identifying the types of activities they can be involved in.

Other barriers are found among financial institutions’ policies and physical structures. I once spoke with Josh about this. Often a microfinance institution will have a branch office on the second floor because that’s less expensive. However, this doesn’t mean you can’t serve people outside of the second floor office space. Is there a way of creating a kiosk or holding meetings in other locations that are accessible?

<strong>7. Our disability inclusion team has been enthusiastic about its collaboration with the Microcredit Summit Campaign. Is this topic gaining traction with other Campaign members? Is there a movement to advance financial inclusion for persons with disabilities? </strong>

I think the message is starting to get through. It’s something we need to continue to work on, but Campaign members are already motivated to help people who are excluded. So in their case, it’s mostly pointing out what exclusion looks like in this area and what the steps they can take are to promote inclusion. We’re seeing a number of organizations starting to work through that.

For example, Fundacion Paraguaya is actually working with the government of Ecuador to figure out how to do financial inclusion for persons with disabilities in Paraguay. On the flip side of this, I spoke with the Ecuadorian government and suggested that they need to do more analysis on the results of their disability inclusion work, and I suggested using the “Poverty Stoplight” system Fundacion Paraguaya created. It’s one of the best systems for tracking movement out of poverty, as well as a source of information that helps clients look at their own situation and see how they might improve their lives. Right away upon hearing this Alex Camacho of the Vice President’s Office sat down with Jimena Vallejos of Fundacion Paraguaya and they started planning how to share the information on using the stoplight system.

<strong>8. Any closing thoughts you’d like to share? </strong>

One lasting image I have from this conference is the delegation from Brazil. It was two people who work in the government on rights for people with disabilities, a blind woman and a paraplegic man. I first noticed them because they were staying in the same hotel. I kept looking for the other people from Brazil who got them there – and there wasn’t anyone. As they went through the venue, it was just the two of them together, the blind woman pushing the wheelchair of the paraplegic man while he provided directions to her. Her legs could propel him, his eyes could guide her. It was such a great image of the theme that everyone has something to contribute. We all have something to give, and if we can work together and provide the necessary means, we then include all those abilities in our society – and we’re all better because of it.

<strong>Have you read?</strong>

<a href="http://cfi-blog.org/2012/09/06/extending-financial-inclusion-to-persons-with-disabilities-in-ecuador/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Extending Financial Inclusion to Persons with Disabilities in Ecuador</a>

<a href="http://cfi-blog.org/2014/09/04/13000-pwd-and-counting-receive-financial-access-in-india/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">13,000 Persons with Disabilities (and Counting) Receive Financial Access in India</a>

<a href="http://cfi-blog.org/2013/10/22/combatting-exclusion-for-persons-with-disabilities-in-india-and-mexico/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Combatting Exclusion for Persons with Disabilities in India and Mexico</a>

Disability Inclusion, in Ecuador and Around the World: An Interview with Larry Reed

Virginia Moore

Jordan Coriza

Colombia

Costa Rica

Egypt, Arab Rep.

Honduras

India

Pakistan

Peru

Philippines

Bolivia

Dominican Republic

Ecuador

Guatemala

Latin America and The Caribbean

Nicaragua

Panama

Paraguay

Consumer Protection

Enabling Environment

Policy, Regulation and Government Initiatives

Trends

Credit

Microfinance

Article

India is a global leader in financial inclusion. For over a decade, Accion has worked with and learned from India’s innovators, investors, and policymakers to expand economic opportunity for its people and businesses.

For the last 10 years, the <a href="http://www.centerforfinancialinclusion.org/microscope"><i>Global Microscope on Financial Inclusion</i></a> has systematically reported what it takes to create an enabling environment for financial inclusion. The good news is that the global financial inclusion community increasingly understands what works and is designing essential reforms. But the rate of progress is gradual and uneven, and in some areas, still lacking. The latest <i>Global Microscope</i> takes a closer look at what it takes to create an inclusive financial sector—and where intensive effort is most needed.
<h2>The leaderboard</h2>
Tying for first place in the global rankings are Peru and Colombia, scoring 89 (out of 100). Second place is also a tie, with two Asian countries, India and Philippines, each scoring 78. Pakistan earns third place with a score of 63. The spreads between first, second and third place are wider than they are between any other consecutive rungs in the index, but the top-ranking countries are in fact the same as last year. Peru, Colombia, Philippines, India, and Pakistan are longtime financial inclusion institutional and regulatory leaders.

With this much consistency in the leaderboard, the more fascinating stories may lie with this year’s “most improved players”: India, Costa Rica, Honduras, and Egypt. Each country has made notable progress on financial inclusion, but none more than India. With a national biometric identification system in place, continued progress on access and usage of bank accounts, an improved institutional framework and commitment to digital payments, India—already among the top countries—is increasingly seen as a model for ongoing progress.
<h2>Keys to success</h2>
<h3><b>Commitment and consistency matter. </b></h3>
An enabling environment for financial inclusion does not happen overnight. Colombia’s and India’s financial inclusion policy efforts predate even the first <i>Global Microscope</i>. Peru and Philippines signed on to the Maya Declaration, the first global platform for commitment to financial inclusion, back in 2011, with a small group of only 15 other countries. In short, it has taken years of concerted effort and political will for the top countries to earn and keep their spots in the <i>Global Microscope</i> index.
<h3><b>Broad-based policy pays off.</b></h3>
The <i>Global Microscope</i> measures 12 components of the financial sector, ranging from the level of government support to strength of dispute resolution mechanisms. None of the leading countries scored below 50 percent in any of the 12 components, and all but India achieved 100 percent in at least four components. (Colombia achieved perfect scores in a whopping eight components.) The leading countries demonstrate that you have to proceed on multiple fronts simultaneously to make meaningful progress in financial inclusion.
<h3>Consumer protection is a winning strategy.</h3>
Treating consumers right is an essential part of successful financial inclusion, but when it comes to fair treatment, especially mechanisms for airing and resolving customer complaints, most countries are underperforming. By contrast, leading countries prioritize consumer protection, and their scores show it. Colombia and Peru receive perfect scores in the consumer protection-focused components, and the rest of the leading countries rank in the top eight. Prioritizing consumer protection, as the leading countries have done, is a key to expanding financial inclusion.
<h2>Remaining challenges</h2>
<h3>Enforcement is limited.</h3>
Rules don’t mean much if you can’t enforce them, and that’s the story for many countries’ financial sectors. The average score for regulatory and supervisory capacity for financial inclusion, which spans credit portfolios, deposit-taking activities, insurance for low-income people and branch/agent models, is only 48 out of 100.
<h3>Consumer protection is especially weak.</h3>
Again, consumer protection is an area of particular weakness, constituting some of the lowest average scores in the index. For example, monitoring of consumer protection for insurance for low-income people netted an average score of just 15 out of 100. Most countries are grappling with widespread lack of market transparency and predatory sales and collection practices.
<h3>Usage still lags policy.</h3>
Countries like India and Philippines have successfully enacted policies to increase access to formal banking, but are still exploring how to get people to actually use the accounts they open. Those countries are pursuing tactics like government-to-person (G2P) transfers to build familiarity and instill the habit of using accounts. On the other hand, countries like China that are experiencing the fallout from unregulated peer-to-peer (P2P) lending are now exploring how to protect investors without prohibiting the flow of capital.

As the financial sector expands thanks to digital advances and new product offerings, the policy environment will also need to evolve accordingly. The <i>Global Microscope</i> continues to report what the policy environment for financial inclusion should entail.

<em>This post originally appeared on <a href="http://partners.wsj.com/metlife/multipliers/articles/financial-inclusions-best-in-class/">Multipliers of Prosperity</a>. </em>

Financial inclusion’s best in class

If Accion’s 53-year history were represented as a pie chart, it might arguably have only three slices: one for the first 10 years it committed to community development projects, another for the last five-plus years it has dedicated to exploring frontiers beyond microfinance, and a hefty slice in the middle representing all the years in between that Accion devoted solely to creating microfinance institutions.

A former Jesuit missionary by the name of Stephen Gross is possibly one of the most important actors in that middle period, having played an instrumental role in the creation of microfinance institutions in the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Bolivia, Panama, Paraguay, and Nicaragua. Those institutions currently serve millions of micro- and small businesses across Latin America and the Caribbean and have been the testing ground for innumerable products, services, and practices that are replicated by microfinance programs around the world today.

Only a handful of other early Accion employees enjoy a legacy as rich as Steve’s. From the institutions he established to the myriad courses he developed and taught to the hundreds of professionals he trained and motivated, his story is as inspiring as it is remarkable.

[caption id="attachment_431" align="aligncenter" width="1024"]<img class="wp-image-431 size-large" src="http://blogs.accion.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Steve-Gross-ordination-Accion-microfinance-1024x967.jpg" alt="Steve-Gross-ordination-Accion-microfinance" width="1024" height="967" /> Steve Gross at his ordination.[/caption]
<h2>Jumping in with both feet</h2>
Accion recruited Steve Gross in 1977 and deployed him to the Dominican Republic. His first assignment was to develop and teach a managerial training course for farmers who were receiving loans from the Dominican Development Foundation. The 15-month course Steve developed, which met twice monthly and for which he wrote and helped illustrate some 40 study books, was initially piloted in one community but quickly spread throughout the country. In addition to teaching the courses himself, Steve trained trainers, who would then go out to teach groups of farmers. Classes covered skills such as budgeting, cost projection, prices, marketing, sales, production, loans, capitalization, bookkeeping, quality control, and so on.

Once the program was well established, Steve and his Accion colleagues pitched a new idea to the Dominican Development Foundation: to create a microcredit program in the poor urban areas of Santo Domingo. Everyone was keen, except for one small detail.

“We knew what could be improved based on our experiences in Brazil,” Steve said, in reference to adapting the lending methodology that Accion had created and had been using in that country since 1973. “We knew you could lend money and get it back, but we also knew we had to get the loan size and term down to what the clients could handle. We realized [in Brazil] that even a $300 loan to be paid over one year was too much. We had to get the loan to a smaller amount that could be paid in a shorter amount of time, thus giving the client a reachable goal and a sense of success when they paid off their debt.”

But the Dominican Development Foundation didn’t agree with Steve, so he looked for other people who would be willing to look at the Accion methodology and run with it. And he found them, of all places, on a Wednesday night in Santo Domingo, sitting at his poker table.

Pedro Jimenez was a successful businessman who had spearheaded the establishment of the first duty free zone in the Dominican Republic. Camilo Lluberes was a banker and big businessman Steve described as an idealist. When Steve explained his desire to create a microenterprise development program for their country, both men jumped in with both feet.

To get the program started, Pedro and Camilo contributed their own funds and, with them, were able to raise more money from USAID. That initial microcredit program, which employed Steve’s idea of smaller loans at shorter terms (and charged interest to cover its costs), would eventually become Banco ADEMI. Today, with 48 branches and more than 166,000 clients served with approximately $250 million in loans, ADEMI is one of the Dominican Republic’s premier financial institutions serving micro- and small enterprises.

<img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-447" src="http://blogs.accion.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Steve-Gross-Accion-microfinance-chalkboard.jpg" alt="Steve-Gross-Accion-microfinance-chalkboard" width="746" height="529" />
<h2>Key realizations</h2>
Steve calls the events he witnessed during his tenure at Accion “evolutionary stages of growth.” The term refers to a series of assumptions, organized in chronological order, that were formulated based on past experiences building microcredit programs and that had to be corroborated before moving forward. For example, what happened with the creation of ADEMI in the Dominican Republic corroborated Accion’s fourth hypothesis: that even the poorest of the economically active were willing and able to pay for the necessary services for their own development, and that programs that worked with them could cover their own costs. Previous hypotheses proven in Brazil and Colombia included: 1) that it is possible to lend money to microenterprises and get it back, 2) that it is possible to replicate the experience of Brazil in other countries in Latin America, and 3) that it is possible to reach the poorest sector of the economically active with loans of $100 or less.

Following his work in the Dominican Republic, Steve relocated to Quito to help the Ecuadoran Development Foundation create an urban microenterprise lending program. Using a similar credit methodology to the one applied in the Dominican Republic – as well as providing microentrepreneurs with business management courses – the program flourished. Still in existence today as one of many services offered by the Ecuadoran Development Foundation, the microcredit program serves thousands of microentrepreneurs throughout Ecuador.

Then came Paraguay.

By the time Steve arrived in Asuncion in the early eighties, he had realized a few things. First, the key to establishing a successful and enduring microcredit program was to identify two fundamental players: a person who could command the attention and respect of high-profile people to head the board of directors, and another with strong leadership skills to run the daily operations of the organization.

A second realization was that those young organizations’ success depended – in a fundamental way – on the commitment and motivation of their staff. So strong was Steve’s belief in this that he designed an entire management and communication training program based on the following four principles:
<ol>
 	<li>The task of creating microcredit programs is of such magnitude that only an excellent organization can adequately respond.</li>
 	<li>An excellent organization is composed exclusively of excellent personnel.</li>
 	<li>People can aspire to excellence to the extent that they feel that they are on the road to satisfying their personal and professional needs.</li>
 	<li>The responsibility for creating, maintaining, and strengthening such a productive working environment must be borne by each and every person in the organization.</li>
</ol>
Based mainly on heuristic games and with a strong emphasis on the ideology of microcredit – faith in its transformative power – the training program was such a resounding success that Accion made it a part of its modus operandi, sending Steve to every partner institution to deliver the three-day classes at least twice per year.

“These courses worked very well throughout Latin America,” Steve says. “And you say, ‘Yeah, but that’s just the Latin temperament.’ But then [after Accion] I gave these courses in South Africa, Jordan, Ramallah, the West Bank, using the same exercises and the same games. And it turns out we are all alike. Human beings are all alike. And what motivates us in one part of the world motivates us in another.”

<img class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-451" src="http://blogs.accion.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Steve-Gross-Accion-microfinance-water-pump-1024x730.jpg" alt="Steve-Gross-Accion-microfinance-water-pump" width="1024" height="730" />
<h2>The kindness of microcredit</h2>
Strange as it may sound, Steve’s strategy for setting up a new microfinance institution was very simple. He would identify the two people for the critical roles of executive director and board president, help them settle in over one to two weeks and leave them to run the organization. He would then stay in touch with them by phone and correspondence, only coming back to deliver his management and communication courses occasionally.

“When I came to a new place with the Accion ideas,” Steve says, “most of them would look at me like I was crazy. They would say, ‘Well, that can be done in Guatemala, but not here in Colombia,’ or ‘That can be done in Colombia, but not here in Paraguay.’ And that was conventional wisdom in all these countries until we had a track record of all the previous programs.”

Juan Álvaro Munguía was the legal advisor to Nicaragua’s president, Violeta Chamorro, when he met Steve – whom he affectionately referred to as Esteban – in Managua in 1990. “Esteban talked to us about the kindness of microcredit after a terrible war, when the country was in much need of kindness and healing. So we started looking for people. Esteban said that we had to form a reconciliatory institution, meaning that we should involve Sandinistas and non-Sandinistas, but it was very hard. When I was ready to give up, Esteban would urge me to keep going and say, ‘We can do it.’”

The organization Munguía started is called Financiera FAMA, which was incorporated in April of 1991 and gave its first microloan to a solidarity group in 1992. During that first year, the organization disbursed 75 loans. In 1995, FAMA purchased its first building and christened it the Esteban Gross building. Today, FAMA is a fully regulated financial institution, having lent approximately $500 million and with a network of branches that serve the entire country. At 72, Munguía is still chairman of FAMA’s board.

[caption id="attachment_427" align="aligncenter" width="599"]<img class="size-full wp-image-427" src="http://blogs.accion.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Munguia.jpg" alt="Juan-Álvaro-Munguía" width="599" height="799" /> Juan Álvaro Munguía[/caption]
<h2>Creating a network</h2>
By the mid-eighties, Accion had entered a new evolutionary stage of growth, with a new hypothesis to corroborate: a network in which participating organizations share ideas and experiences and maintain working relationships is mutually beneficial to members and promotes progress in the field of microfinance.

Cathy Quense was Accion’s chief financial and administrative officer during Steve’s tenure at Accion. “Steve had a good sense for people. He could kind of spot somebody who really had the passion and the ability to relate to Accion’s mission and vision and run with it in the field. He was a real mentor to these people and a wonderful trainer. And for us in Boston, he was the connection with the field – the staff and the institutions that later became part of the [Accion] network.”

One of those people was Carlos Herrera, executive director of Guatemalan microfinance institution Génesis Empresarial. He met Steve in 1990 when Steve went to Guatemala to deliver one of his management and communication courses. “When I first met Steve he said he worked at Accion but lived on American Airlines. He was incredibly charismatic. He taught us how to work together as a team, with exercises where the CEO had to clean the bathrooms and the janitor had to book a meeting. His classes were transformational to our staff.”

Largely based on Steve’s principles, Génesis staff gather yearly to participate in what they call their Taller de Siembra y Cosecha (sowing and harvesting workshop) – an annual two-day retreat to evaluate the past year’s results, plan for the future, and engage in team-building exercises.

By 1984, the Accion programs had evolved into a network to promote financial inclusion, social entrepreneurship, and the self-sustaining model of microfinance. Génesis is among the 26 members that currently participate in the network’s yearly meetings, provide statistical and impact data on an ongoing basis, and submit project updates and lessons learned to be shared in the network’s newsletter – which Steve named Micronoticias.

<img class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-450" src="http://blogs.accion.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Steve-Gross-Accion-microfinance-horses-1024x814.jpg" alt="Steve-Gross-Accion-microfinance-horses" width="1024" height="814" />
<h2>What makes life make sense</h2>
After retiring from Accion in 1999, Steve explored volunteer opportunities and found a calling in hospice care. For the past 12 years he has been working part-time, first as a volunteer and then as a chaplain with those who have terminal diagnoses and less than six months to live.

A clear line of service runs through Steve’s life.

“What I became clear on,” Steve explains, “was the fact that everybody in their growth and development has to, eventually, as they mature, become aware of the question, and interested in finding the answer to: ‘What, for me, makes life make sense?’ Service is, for me, the answer to that question. What fills my cup is serving others, because when I serve others in small ways, big ways, in any way, I’m serving my own needs. It’s all one and the same. It’s one act. It’s one attitude. It’s one way of looking at life.”

Steve Gross: The missionary of microfinance

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Financial inclusion’s best in class

Steve Gross: The missionary of microfinance

From the Center for Financial Inclusion

Disability Inclusion, in Ecuador and Around the World: An Interview with Larry Reed