 Beth Porter, a founder of WAM and leader of its Northern California chapter, was honored as WAM Woman of the Year at a lively reception in metropolitan Washington on November 4.
Beth was recognized for her years of service to the microfinance industry in senior positions at a number of top organizations, most recently at Making Cents International where she is launching an initiative to expand youth-focused financial services worldwide. WAM honored Beth specifically for her leadership throughout 2009 in creating WAM USA, an umbrella entity that will cover WAM domestic chapters and relieve them of some of the associated legal and administrative concerns.
As a leader of WAM Northern California, Beth helped run the only WAM domestic chapter that had legally registered itself from the beginning – as such, she and her chapter had the least personal stake in whether WAM USA was formed or not. She nevertheless devoted immense time and energy to conference calls with the other chapter leaders, consultations with legal counsel, and liaising with WAM International to make WAM USA a reality. It was legally incorporated on October 20.
In accepting the pearls from the original WAM Woman of the Year, Jennifer Hansel, Beth spoke movingly about the inspiration she receives from watching WAM grow and thrive, and about her passion for the role WAM can continue to play in expanding and improving microfinance.
WAM President Anne Folan explained the origins of the WAM pearls tradition, reading a greeting in absentia from the pearls’ original possessor, fellow WAM founder Deborah Burand. Click here for the full text of Deborah’s, Anne’s and Jennifer’s remarks.
Keep your eye on dynamic WAM members! WAM will be accepting nominations throughout the coming year for your candidates for WAM Woman of the Year 2010.
Greetings from Deborah Burand
“WAM Pearls started with Tricia Gates, then working in Central Asia for the Frontier Fund/now working in Seattle for Kiva, who gave me this strand of pearls to thank me for helping to start WAM. I must admit I wore those pearls like a talisman. Whenever I had a particularly challenging or scary day facing me, I would reach for those pearls to remind me that someone (albeit someone very very far away!) thought I had what it took to make it to the finish line. After wearing the pearls for nearly a year, it dawned on me that there were many more women in microfinance equally (if not more so!) deserving of this gift so I decided to share the pearls with a "WAM Woman of the Year," with the understanding that each recipient would, like I did, pass the strand of pearls on to someone else deserving of this recognition in our industry. To date, the pearls have traveled from their origins in China, to Central Asia to US to Ecuador to Poland and now back to US.
“What I love about the pearls is that they reflect in many ways the beauty of the wonderful women in our industry. And, like these pearls, we are all the more beautiful and valuable when we are linked together.”
Anne Folan on Jennifer Hansel, original WAM Woman of the Year and presenter of the WAM pearls to Beth
It is my honor to introduce Jennifer Hansel, who will present the pearls on behalf of the outgoing WAM Woman of the Year, Kasia Pawlak of the Microfinance Center in Poland. Kasia was unable to come to the States this year, but she sent the pearls via a colleague and sends us her greetings, as does Maria Sara Jijon of WAM Ecuador who was WAM Woman of the Year before Kasia. Along with Kasia and Maria Sara, Jennifer is a past WAM Woman of the Year, in fact the very first one so honored. Jennifer is a current member of the WAM International board of directors who has played a major leadership role, whether now as a director or previously as a volunteer, in most of our key initiatives. She spearheaded both the current strategic plan (2009-2011) and the first plan as well. Along with WAM Founder Kate McKee, Jennifer designed and led the hugely successful WAM Gender Policy Forum at SEEP 2007. She was also an early leader of WAM DC. You can read about her professional accomplishments in the biographies section of the WAM website, but it is a particular privilege to have her here to pass on the pearls to the new WAM Woman of the Year, WAM Northern California’s Beth Porter.
Remarks of Jennifer Hansel
Beth is one of the founding mothers of WAM. In addition to being a founder of the organization that became WAM International, she was a driving force behind the creation of the WAM chapter in Northern California. She has played a leadership role in microfinance in many ways - as a senior manager at Freedom From Hunger, in management roles for Save the Children and Catholic Relief Services, on the SEEP Network Board, on the board of CRECER, and as an independent consultant. Most recently, in her professional life, Beth is playing a leadership role in the emerging field of youth-focused financial services, heading up Making Cents International’s new initiative aimed at strengthening both financial services providers and youth-focused service organizations to carry out that work.
Tonight, though, WAM is honoring Beth especially for her leadership around the creation of WAM USA. WAM figured out that we needed something like WAM USA long before we figured out what to do about it. The administrative burdens on the chapters of setting themselves up as some form of legal entity, opening bank accounts, taking in dues and other forms of income and staying on the good side of the tax authorities . . . all these kinds of considerations were way more than most people had had in mind when they decided to join WAM.
But even as the chapters recognized the need for some sort of holding company structure that could consolidate these kinds of administrative burdens, the devil is in the details. What degree of autonomy, was the logical question, might a chapter have to trade off, to have the support of a holding or umbrella company?
Thus ensued a very long period of conference calls and consultations with lawyers and volumes of e-mail traffic.
In her role as a leader of WAM Northern California, Beth had been part of the one chapter in the WAM network that had already incorporated itself right from the start. She was thus uniquely positioned to know first hand all the trade offs and the gritty details – details that were fairly abstract for the other chapters.
Beth absolutely drove the process of getting WAM USA over the finish line. More than anyone else, she focused the minds of all the chapter leaders on the most essential questions, completely listened to every point of view, answered most questions from her real-world perspective and – most important of all – kept pushing the issue towards resolution.
Going forward from now on, the success of the domestic chapters will owe a great deal to Beth’s persistent and enlightened leadership during 2009.
From Deborah: "When I need someone to get a job done or to help me regain my perspective, Beth is one of the first women in the microfinance sector that I turn to. She brings common sense as well as a world-changing passion to all that she does, as well as a great sense of fun and humor. I am sure I am not alone when I say that I have been a more effective professional in microfinance because of my friendship with Beth. She inspires and supports so many women in this sector. We are all the better for having her in our midst."
Ladies and gentleman, WAM’s Woman of the Year for 2009, Beth Porter.
|
News 