Laura Foose has been the executive director of the Social Performance Task Force since 2005. She has over twenty-five years of experience in program management, policy design, training, and advocacy in promoting private sector development and poverty alleviation in developing and transition countries. She has run a number of microfinance industry working groups focused on standards development for social and environmental performance management, consumer protection, client centricity, poverty alleviation, impact investing and reporting. Prior to SPTF, she was a founding partner of Alternative Credit Technologies where for ten years she designed microfinance projects, conducted evaluations of microfinance institutions, and was a working group facilitator for the SEEP Network in the areas of poverty assessment and outreach. As Secretariat of the Microenterprise Coalition at FINCA International for five years, Ms. Foose represented microfinance practitioners and advocacy organizations to donor agencies, the US Administration, and members of the US Congress, and helped draft the Microenterprise for Self-Reliance Act that governed US development programs.

Ms. Foose also has extensive experience on boards of directors, and in training and teaching, with more than 15 years in workshops design, training, and curricula development mainly in the fields of microfinance and development, financial inclusion, and business management. She is a professor of financial inclusion at Georgetown University; is a co-founder of Women Advancing Microfinance; served on the steering committee of the Impact Reporting and Investment Standards (IRIS) project of the Global Impact and Investing Network; and currently serves on the Beneficial State Foundation’s Equitable Bank Standards (EBS) Council to provide a measurable, step-by-step pathway for all U.S. banks to foster socially, racially, and environmentally equitable banking.

Ms. Foose holds a master’s degree in foreign service from Georgetown University, with specializations in international economics and business, and a bachelor of arts from Brown University, where she graduated with a double major in economics and international relations. She is based in Washington, DC.