Ruth Goodwin-Groen
Ruth is currently a senior microfinance consultant with two areas of specialization - the integration of microfinance into the financial system and increasing aid effectiveness in microfinance. When she graduated from Harvard Business School with Distinction in 1992, Ruth took a different path from most of her colleagues, choosing to work in the little known field of microfinance, because she believed access to financial services was critical to overcoming poverty. Having grown up as a missionary kid on three continents and worked in famine relief prior to business school, she knew first-hand the importance of access to financial services. Ruth has consulted for a wide range of microfinance funders in most regions of the world with her major long-term client being the Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP). Ruth is now based in the UK studying for her doctorate in Economics and International Development at the University of Bath but has been a resident of Manhattan for the last fourteen years, after relocating from her native Australia. Either as Treasurer of her church or volunteering with her husband Paul as leader of a Bible Study for the homeless, Ruth has tried to serve where needed.
