Mary Ellen Iskenderian, President and CEO of Women's World Banking, is the author of There’s Nothing Micro About a Billion Women: Making Finance Work for Women (MIT Press; April 19, 2022). Women’s World Banking is a global nonprofit devoted to giving more low-income women access to financial tools and resources they need for both security and prosperity.
Prior to Women’s World Banking, Mary Ellen worked for 17 years at the International Finance Corporation, the private sector arm of the World Bank. She had previously worked for the investment bank Lehman Brothers. Mary Ellen is a permanent member of the Council on Foreign Relations, as well as a member of the Women’s Forum of New York, and the UN’s Business and Sustainable Development Commission.
A 2017 Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center Fellow, Mary Ellen holds an MBA from the Yale School of Management and a Bachelor of Science in International Economics from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service. Most recently, she was recognized in the Forbes 50 over 50: Investment list, which highlights female investors and financial leaders.
Cinthya has spent the past few years living in NYC, working in marketing at tech startups and eating her way through the city's best restaurants. She's a feminist and loves bringing people together for dinner nights, book clubs, and road trips.
She's really interested in helping bridge the gender and minority data gap (per Caroline Criado-Perez's book "Invisible Women"), and would love to work on any research being conducted around that. Cinthya is particularly interested in testing and creating better products for minorities and hope to gain product experience this summer.
Cinthya is originally from Mexico, grew up in Washington state, went to BYU for undergrad, and lived in Argentina for a bit.
