Upoma Antara Husain is the Head of Impact and Innovation at BRAC International Microfinance (BI MF), which aims to improve financial resilience, women’s economic empowerment, and quality of life for its 700,000 clients (97% women) in six countries.

Upoma provides strategic leadership in social performance and impact management, product innovation, and knowledge management across all BI MF’s entities in Asia and Africa.

In particular, she has been leading BI MF’s work on the microfinance clients’ outcome measurement and ensuring the use of impact data to achieve BI MF’s social mission. Her work includes critical change management to ensure the implementation of Universal Standards of Social and Environmental Performance Management and Client Protection Standards across BI MF’s microfinance portfolio.

Upoma has also been managing the strategic partnerships with Cerise+SPTF (contributing to the standards revision, case studies, outcomes measurement, and customer empowerment), 60 Decibels (spearheading work on the client impact measurement framework), IPA (leading poverty outreach work on the Poverty Probability Index Alliance), and many thought partners such as CGAP, Mastercard Foundation, and the Gates Foundation (advancing financial inclusion for female smallholder farmers and young women).

Beyond her BRAC career, Upoma has worked on the Ultra-poor Graduation programme, renovation and rehabilitation programmes for smallholder cocoa farmers, and ESG risks mitigation for agricultural supply chains with organizations such as the Boma Project, World Cocoa Foundation, and World Wildlife Fund.

She holds a master’s degree from the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University and a bachelor’s of Business Administration from the University of Dhaka. She is currently based in Nairobi, Kenya.