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Elizabeth Israel
Co-Founder, President and CEO (Principal)
Elizabeth Israel co-founded GreenMicrofinance, LLC in 2002. As Principal and CEO, she oversees a team of highly dedicated individuals who are passionately committed to pursuing their mission of poverty alleviation and environmental sustainability. GreenMicrofinance merges microfinance and the environment.
For thirty-one years Elizabeth has worked in community-based economic development. For 7 years, she lived in rural communities with her family while serving in the Commonwealth of Dominica and in Nepal under the United Methodist Church. She began her career with Trickle Up (TUP), forming one of the first TUP groups in 1979, called The Banana Bunch, a peer group agribusiness. After returning from Nepal, she joined the US-based Working Capital. As New Hampshire State Director of Working Capital, she was able to take the Working Capital peer group lending concept, completely unproven in the United States, and make it a national model for domestic rural development. [This program evolved into Microcredit-NH]. Her leadership assisted Working Capital to become the foremost U.S. microfinance institution, which received the First Presidential Award in Microenterprise Development for Innovation from President Bill Clinton at the White House in 1997.
Returning to international development, she served as Washington Director of Christian Children's Fund (now ChildFund), overseeing the formation and development of CCF MEDI--Microenterprise Development Initiative. She was a consultant for ADRA International and World Relief. He work brought her to Thailand, India, Philippines, Senegal, Cote d’Ivoire, Uganda, Kenya, Angola, and Guatemala.
During her many years living among the very poor, Elizabeth experienced daily the impacts deforestation, smoke-filled kitchens, impure water, scarcity of water and food supplies, lack of clean energy, sustainable housing, inadequate roads, and the economic effect these conditions had on the lives of the poor. From these experiences emerged the seeds for GreenMicrofinance.
She has a MS in International Community Economic Development from Southern New Hampshire University, and a MS in Management from Antioch University New England. She enjoys camping and numerous outdoor activities with her family, including 8 grandchildren.
Thomas B. Israel
Co-Founder, Vice-President (Principal)
Thomas Israel is a founding Partner of GreenMicrofinance, LLC in association with his wife, Elizabeth Israel. He serves as President of Green Microfinance, LLC (GMf™). Since retiring in 2002 from an interesting and creative real estate career spanning forty-five years, he has devoted significant effort toward the success of the Green Microfinance Companies. His business experience is enhanced by high creative imagination, and strong analytical, communication, and inter-personal skills.
He commenced his business career in Richmond, Virginia. As a licensed Virginia Real Estate Broker, he acquired over 40 years of experience in real estate, primarily as a commercial real property broker and analyst. After fifteen years, Thomas became a Corporate Officer and the Director of Real Estate Development for a Virginia firm, a position he held for ten years. His responsibilities included all corporate real estate, finance, and construction oversight functions for the company. Subsequently, as a Florida Certified Appraiser, his fifteen years of professional valuation experience encompassed a broad sweep of commercial real property analyses, the valuation of complex properties, and scopious feasibility analyses.
He has a BA Degree in Fine Arts from The College of William and Mary in Virginia, and has completed over 80 academic credit hours of post-graduate studies. Through the American Institute of Real Estate Appraisers, Israel completed some twenty courses and seminars including, among them: Capitalization Theory, Income Property Appraising, Environmental Issues, Factory-built Housing, Regression Analysis, and Real Estate Risk Analysis. Thomas is a trained hospice care counselor. He is licensed by The Elijah House as a Pastoral Prayer Counselor. A Eucharistic lay minister, Thomas sits on the Board of Barnabas Ministries, Lynchburg, VA., whose mission is education of and outreach to the poor, primarily in the Philippines and in Africa.
Jay Brown
Director of Operations
Jay Brown has thirty-five years business experience in technology, product, and business development. Prior to joining SEI Corporation in 1981, Jay worked for Mathematica Policy Research and Computer Sciences Corporation in the areas of economic research, electronic publishing, and large database applications.
His tenure at SEI has been primarily focused on managing software development, most recently as the leader of the Corporate Technology unit.
For the past ten years, Jay has worked in Wealth Network business unit at SEI, developing solutions to life issues likely to effect wealthy families and impact their financial wellness, on building a differentiated advice model, and on strategic business development. Jay was instrumental in establishing SEI’s Community Philanthropy program, and served as the first President of the Community Philanthropy Board.
Jay graduated from Rutgers University in 1973 with a degree in English and Urban Studies. He currently lives in Phoenixville, PA with his wife Barbara and daughter Samantha.
Paula Pagniez
Director of Program Development
Paula Pagniez is a firm believer in microfinance as a tool to bring socioeconomic development to underserved communities and has applied her extensive background in the nonprofit, government and financial private sectors of Latin America to the development of this innovative industry.
She is a highly accomplished, motivated economic development professional with 9+ years international experience in microfinance, socio economic development and financial markets. She has outstanding skills as an innovative problem-solver, excels in the start-up and management of projects targeting microfinance/microinsurance, small businesses and sustainable development, including education, social and environmental investments. She is skilled in effective project management and strategic planning and has successfully started-up and directed a Latin American foundation and has been responsible for the origination and coordination of research and technical assistance projects.
She brings to GreenMicrofinance strong program development and implementation skills: research, market study, qualitative and statistical analysis, product development, distribution channels, training and marketing. She has additional experience in credit and financial analysis, portfolio risk management, (re)insurance, performance monitoring.
Paula has excellent cross-cultural, multidisciplinary communication, presentation and team working skills. She is fluent in English, French and Spanish, as well as conversational in German. She received a M.S. in Finance from the Universidad de 'San Andrés' and B.S. in Economics from Universidad de Buenos Aires.
Joan C. Hall
Co-Founder, Project Finance Manager
Joan Hall has sixteen years of experience in international development, with a specialty in microfinance. She received her Master of Science degree in Development Management in 1986 from The American University in Washington, D.C.
She began her career with FINCA in El Salvador in 1990, working with John Hatch, President and Founder of FINCA, to create one of the first microfinance institutions in that country. That MFI, the Centro de Apoyo a la Microempresa, is still providing microfinance loans to thousands of poor women and changing their lives. She also worked with Catholic Relief Services in El Salvador , training a number of local partners in microfinance. Some of these partners have merged in the financial company Enlace, which currently reaches 13,000 microfinance clients.
Subsequently she became the supervisor of a group lending program in southern Viet Nam , a program that supported farmers, livestock producers, and microentrepreneurs with microloans. After Viet Nam , she became the supervisor of a program that provided small business loans to Palestinians in the West Bank for asset acquisition and working capital. In 1998, she became an independent consultant, and has worked with such organizations as UNCDF, the African Development Bank, the InterAmerican Development Bank, USAID, governments, NGOs, and others.
Her consulting work targets noncommercial and transforming institutions, including microfinance, small business, and rural finance institutions, as well as cooperatives and credit unions. Her skills include training and technical assistance, financial analysis, portfolio management, product development, the environmental impact of credit, management information systems, and monitoring and evaluation. She works in English, Spanish, and French.
In 2002, the year of the World Summit on Sustainable Development, Joan joined with her two colleagues in creating an initiative aimed at promoting the positive environmental impact of microenterprise, using microfinance as a tool. Green Microfinance is the result. |
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