Susan Davis (BRAC USA)


Susan Davis
Occupation President and CEO of BRAC USA

Susan Davis is an author, public speaker and expert in international development and social entrepreneurship. She is a founder and current president and CEO of BRAC USA, an organization created to support BRAC, a development organization founded in Bangladesh in 1972 and the largest nongovernmental organization in the world.[1] BRAC runs programs to alleviate poverty using microfinance, education, healthcare, legal services, community empowerment, and other methods.[2]

Career

In addition to her role at BRAC, where she is also a member of the governing body of Stichting BRAC International,[3] BRAC's arm overseeing international operations, Davis has been a senior advisor to New York University's Catherine B. Reynolds Program for Social Entrepreneurship since its inception.[4] Susan led Ashoka's Global Academy for Social Entrepreneurship and serves on its international board committee that selects Ashoka Fellows. She also oversaw Ashoka's expansion to the Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia and served as a Senior Advisor to the Director General of the International Labor Organization. Davis served as the Assistant Director of the first quasi-public export treading company (launched in the 1980s) by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.[5] She was the executive director of Women's Environment & Development Organization, founded in 1990 by Bella Abzug and Mim Kelber to take action in the United Nations and other international policymaking forums.[6] Prior to that, she led initiatives aimed at scaling up microfinance institutions that were owned and governed by poor women at Women's World Banking and the Ford Foundation in Bangladesh.[7] During her four and half years in Dhaka, she organized the Grameen Bank, BRAC and Proshika donor consortia to scale up microfinance.[8] She was a founding board member and chair of the Grameen Foundation and was a board member there as of 2013.[9] She was also featured in Fast Company's The League of Extraordinary Women list in 2012.[10] Davis was educated at Georgetown (BSFS 1978), Harvard (MPA 1982), and Oxford Universities (MPhil candidate 1980-81).[1]

Publications and appearances

In 2010, Davis co-authored the book Social Entrepreneurship: What Everyone Needs to Know with David Bornstein.[11] She has appeared on CNN and ABC News discussing global poverty and health issues.[12][13] Her work on microfinance and entrepreneurship creation in developing countries has appeared in Innovations, Forbes, Harvard Business Review and other publications.[14][15][16] In 2013, she delivered a Frank Rhodes lecture as part of "Creation of the Future: A Lecture Series for a New American University" at Arizona State University.[17]

Board memberships

See also

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 "BRAC USA Board of Directors". BRAC. Retrieved 31 March 2013.
  2. ↑ "About BRAC". BRAC. Retrieved 31 March 2013.
  3. ↑ "BRAC Governance". BRAC. Retrieved 31 March 2013.
  4. ↑ "Reynolds Foundation Program in Social Entrepreneurship at NYU". New York University. Retrieved 2011-07-30.
  5. ↑ http://skollworldforum.org/contributor/susan-davis/
  6. ↑ "Bio & Contributor Information". Skoll World Forum. Retrieved 31 March 2013.
  7. ↑ "Member Profile". Global Philanthropy Forum. Retrieved 31 March 2013.
  8. ↑ "Susan Davis". Carnegie Council. Retrieved 31 March 2013.
  9. ↑ "Susan Davis". Grameen Foundation.
  10. ↑ http://www.fastcompany.com/section/league-of-extraordinary-women-2012
  11. ↑ Davis, Susan (2010). Social Entrepreneurship: What Everyone Needs to Know. Oxford University Press. p. 176. ISBN 0195396332.
  12. ↑ "Debate over 'Kony 2012' viral video". CNN. 2012.
  13. ↑ "Progress in Bangladesh". ABC News. Retrieved 31 March 2013.
  14. ↑ Davis, Susan (2012). "Enabling Entrepreneurial Ecosystems". Innovations 7 (2): 3–10. doi:10.1162/INOV_a_00122. Retrieved 31 March 2013.
  15. ↑ Davis, Susan. "Scaling Up Without Losing Your Edge". Harvard Business Review. Retrieved 31 March 2013.
  16. ↑ Davis, Susan. "Can Technology End Poverty?". Harvard Business Review. Retrieved 31 March 2013.
  17. ↑ "Susan Davis delivers Frank Rhodes Lecture". ASU News. Arizona State University. March 2013. Retrieved 1 April 2013.
  18. ↑ "Board Members". Sirleaf Market Women's Fund. Retrieved 31 March 2013.
  19. ↑ "AWDF-USA Board". African Women's Development Fund. Retrieved 31 March 2013.

External links