MCS Staff

Sam Daley-Harris is director of the Microcredit Summit Campaign. He is the founder of RESULTS, a grassroots lobbying organization that seeks to create the political will to end hunger and the worst aspects of poverty. He is also the founder of RESULTS Educational Fund, a 501(c)(3) organization dedicated to mass educational strategies to generate the public will to end world hunger and the worst aspects of poverty.

Sam is currently leading phase II of the campaign to help boost the UN’s Millennium Development Goals for 2015 and includes two of its own new goals: 1) reaching 175 million of the world’s poorest and 2) ensuring that 100 million families rise out of $1 a day poverty, lifting half a billion people out of extreme poverty.

Mr. Daley-Harris is the esteemed recipient of the first Susan M. Davis Lifetime Achievement Award and is the author of the book Reclaiming Our Democracy: Healing the Break Between People and Government, about which President Jimmy Carter said, “[Daley-Harris] provides a road map for global involvement in planning a better future.” Mr. Daley-Harris has also edited two cutting-edge publications on microfinance: Pathways Out of Poverty: Innovations in Microfinance for the Poorest Families and More Pathways Out of Poverty.

Jeff Blythe handles research at the Summit including tracking of general trends in the field of microfinance and providing technical project inputs for MCS publications and grants. Jeff is also Manager of the Movement above the $US1/Day Threshold Project (MDP). His tasks includes oversight of In-Country Expert Panels in India and Bangladesh and assisting with grant proposals and reporting.  In addition, he plays a valuable role in administrative support to MCS regional organizers and headquarters staff. Jeff is also managing efforts to implement the global expansion of MCS’s Microfinance and Health Integration project.

Jeff has an extensive background in non-profit management with over ten years of experience in senior administrative positions. He worked for three years in Ethiopia with various NGO’s including the International Rescue Committee. Most recently he worked with Relief International in Los Angeles. Jeff received his BA and MA from Point Loma Nazarene University in San Diego, California.

Dr. D.S.K. Rao has been the Asia Organizer of Microcredit Summit Campaign since 2000. Soon after joining the Campaign he played a stellar role in organizing the Regional Microcredit Summit at New Delhi. Since Dr. Rao joined, practitioner membership in Asia has increased from 250 to 2500. Dr. Rao is a certified Trainer on Cashpor House Index (CHI) and Participatory Wealth Ranking (PWR), the two efficient and cost-effective tools of identifying poor. He has conducted trainings in Sri Lanka, Nepal, India, Bangladesh and Indonesia on this subject. He has also conducted trainings in four Asian countries on MCS’s Microfinance and Health Integration project. He is presently implementing a project sanctioned by Johnson and Johnson on mainstreaming integration of three selected MFIs in South India.

Lisa Marie Laegreid is Director for the Global Microcredit Summit to be held in Valladolid, Spain from November 14 – 17, 2011. In this capacity, she will ensure project targets and goals are being met across countries through managing monitoring and evaluation, work plan and budget development, and reporting processes and activities with country partners. She will also be the point of contact for media and partnership outreach. Lisa has previously served as Senior Program Manager for the Latin America/Caribbean Regional Microcredit Summit in Santiago, Chile in 2005 and the Global Microcredit Summit in Halifax, Canada in 2006.

Lisa has over eight years of experience in international development project management, including with Worldview International Foundation in Sri Lanka, with the Education Development Center, and with The QED Group LLC where she worked on two contracts for USAID’s Microenterprise Development office. Lisa is fluently trilingual in English, Spanish and Norwegian and she holds an MA in Philosophy.