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.

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 Deputy Director of the Microcredit Summit Campaign. In this role, she oversees the production of the annual State of the Campaign Report; the organization of regional and global summits; the provision of trainings on poverty measurement tools, on integrating health education with microfinance, along with other critical issues.  Lisa also oversees the advocacy and media outreach efforts to help bring the Campaign’s work to the general public.

Lisa has over nine 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. 

Sabina Rogers is Program Manager of the State of the Microcredit Summit Campaign Report.  In this role, she is responsible for managing the collection of Institutional Action Plans (IAP) and data analysis as well as the Report compilation, publication, and launch process.  Supervising the annual call campaign, Sabina and other staff target the top 200 Campaign member organizations to submit their IAP—through which microfinance practitioners report annual data on their client portfolio and outreach to the poorest.

Sabina has 6 years international development experience both in the field and home office.  As a Senior Program Associate at the SEEP Network’s Member Services team, she made a direct impact on improving service to and increasing engagement of SEEP’s members and other practitioners through management of member-led working groups and the publications process.  Work experience abroad includes leading community development and gender equity advocacy as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Togo and managing sports development and leadership training clinics for youth in Afghanistan. Sabina is bilingual in English and French and hold a MS in Development Management from the School of International Service at American University.

Anna Awimbo is Interim Director of Research & Administration of the Microcredit Summit Campaign (MCS). In this capacity she coordinates the MCS Movement Above the US $1 per Day Theshold and Financing Healthier Lives projects. 

She has more than 15 years of experience working on women’s and youth issues to help identify alternative strategies for addressing poverty alleviation and unemployment.  She has served as a consultant and advisor for, among others, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), Five Talents International, EcoVentures International, The Foundation on Economic Trends and RUPIA Kenya Ltd.  Her work includes tracking data to monitor the Campaign’s progress towards its goal of reaching 175 million poorest clients by 2015 and its contribution towards the UN Millennium Development Goals.  As co-designer of the Summit’s training modules, she is involved in the planning and implementation of training activities in Africa and Asia on the integration of microcredit with education in child survival, HIV and AIDS prevention and reproductive health.  Ms. Awimbo is a co-editor of the book More Pathways out of Poverty. 

Jesse Marsden is the Program Manager for the Global Microcredit Summit (GLOMCS).  In this role he is responsible for coordinating all the plenaries and workshops that will be held at the upcoming Summit in Valladolid, Spain from November 14-17, 2011.  The conference will bring together practitioners, advocates, investors, donors, and others to assess progress and challenges to achieving the Summit’s new goals for 2015.

Jesse brings three years of experience in working on major advocacy conferences and other events on issues such as hunger and poverty alleviation, emergency response and U.S. immigration reform.  Graduating with an MA in International Affairs, he focused on peace and conflict resolution and international development at American University’s School of International Service.  His thesis focused on developing entrepreneurship in ecotourism within resource-constricted areas of Central America.  He is also co-author on an article on the path-wise development of new businesses in emerging regions of southern Mexico.

Fred Schick is Program Associate of the State of the Campaign Report. In this role, he provides technical assistance to the Program Manager with the collection and verification of the Institutional Action Plans (IAPs).

Fred has worked in 6 different countries and speaks English, French and Spanish fluently.  Before joining the Microcredit Summit Campaign, he worked in Ecuador as a Peace Corps volunteer for the Awa Federation, an indigenous organization.  He served as a natural resource conservation consultant by providing technical assistance to the Federation leaders in project management, grant writing and small business development.  Prior to his Peace Corps engagement, he worked as the training coordinator for EcoVentures International, where he helped develop entrepreneurship training material, facilitate training workshops and organize fundraising events.  Fred is an American and French citizen and holds a BA in Economics from Boston University as well as an MSc in Ecological Economics from the University of Edinburgh.