The Boulder Institute Board of Directors

Robert Peck Christen

President / Board Member

Robert is the President of the Boulder Institute. Mr. Christen has worked in over 40 countries advising governments, banks, and microfinance service providers. He has held a variety of management positions including Director of Financial Services for the Poor at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Senior Advisor to the Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP) at the World Bank. He has founded a number of important initiatives that serve the industry including: the MicroBanking Bulletin and subsequently the Microfinance Information Exchange, the Microfinance Management Institute, and the Boulder Institute of Microfinance.

Mr. Christen holds a Master’s Degree in Agricultural Economics and Development Finance from Ohio University. He received his B.A. in Political Science from Beloit College. Mr. Christen is the author of a large number of publications in microfinance: 'Managing Risks and Designing products for Agricultural Microfinance: Features of an Emerging Model,' with Doug Pearce, CGAP Occasional Paper No. 11, 2005; 'The Rush to Regulate, Legal Frameworks for Microfinance' with Richard Rosenberg, CGAP Occasional Paper No. 4, 2000; Financial Institutions with a 'Double Bottom Line: implications for the future of microfinance' with Richard Rosenberg and Veena Jayadeva, CGAP Occasional Paper No. 8, 2004.

Consuelo Muñoz Araya

Vice-President / Board Member

Consuelo is one of the founding members of the Boulder Institute of Microfinance, and is engaged in generating new initiatives that respond to emerging issues related to microfinance as a tool for addressing a variety of social, economic and environmental goals. During 2003, she served as Director of the Sustainable Development Program at Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado, USA. For nine years, from 1991 through 2000, Consuelo served as the Senior Manager for the Unit on Environment and Natural Resources, at the National Environmental Commission (CONAMA) Santiago, Chile.

Consuelo was trained as a large animal veterinarian and animal science specialist before obtaining her advanced degree in wildlife zoology from Ohio State University. After leaving school, she worked for 10 years in the field of animal husbandry and rural and indigenous community development in Chile, Honduras, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, and most recently in Guatemala. She has been Consultant on Biodiversity, Natural Resources, Indigenous Affairs to various Governments and Multilateral Agencies.

Sousan Urroz-Korori

Vice-President / Board Member

Sousan is a senior faculty in International Finance Development and an Executive Administrator with over 20 years of experience in private and public sectors. She was the Director of the Center for the World Banking and Finance at the Economics Institute in Boulder Colorado for many years and has advised and trained in macro/micro economics policy many of the central bankers around the world.

Her research and consulting fields include microfinance, financial infrastructure and capital market development, financial crisis management, currency valuation-protection, monetary integration, and dollarization. Since 1998 to present she is a senior Faculty at University of Colorado, Leeds School of Business at Boulder. Sousan is also a founding member of the Boulder Institute of Microfinance, and founder and the Director of the Center for Women Economics Advancement through Entrepreneurship and Higher Education. Her recent works has been concentrated on how to eliminate poverty especially for women in developing countries.

Margarite Robinson

Board Member

Marguerite S. Robinson received her B.A. and Ph.D. degrees from Harvard University and served as Professor of Anthropology and Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Brandeis University before joining the Harvard Institute for International Development (1978-2000). She is now an independent consultant and author. Dr. Robinson has worked extensively in Asia, in rural and tribal areas and among the urban poor. She served for many years as adviser to the Indonesian Ministry of Finance and to Bank Rakyat Indonesia (BRI) on the development of BRI's Microbanking system-now the largest financially self-sufficient microfinance system in the world. She also works in other countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, advising governments, banks, donors, and others, and is the author of many papers and books on development and microfinance. Her most recent books are the first two volumes of a multi-volume book, The Microfinance Revolution, published by the World Bank and Open Society Institute; two additional volumes are in progress.

Richard Rosenberg

Board Member

Richard Rosenberg holds a law degree from Harvard University. He is currently a senior advisor on policy issues and research at the Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP), a World-Bank-housed consortium of international donor agencies supporting microfinance. Richard has been with CGAP since its founding in 1995. He has written or contributed to numerous CGAP publications. His current areas of focus include interest rate issues, over-indebtedness, and regulation of microfinance. His 29 publications in the field include policy studies on regulation and supervision of microfinance, manuals on appraisal and audit of microfinance institutions, and guides to financial indicators and reporting standards.

His experience with microfinance spans 20 years and two dozen countries. Before joining CGAP, Rosenberg was deputy director of the U.S. Agency for International Development’s Center for Economic Growth and spent nine years in Latin America, managing investment promotion, privatization, pension reform, and development finance activities.