Over & Out from Mexico City

Ciudad de Mexico It’s now been a week+ since we wrapped up our final projects. I think Priya Tayal & I are the last of our group to still be here in Mexico. According to Facebook however, a good number of our GMBA 2011 colleagues are still MIA in the various corners of the world [...]

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Deng 360: Señor Francisco

Ciudad de Mexico, Mexico Deng Chol interviews Mexico-IRP Client Francisco Perales regarding GWSB’s reputation in Mexico & where to get good tequila in Mexico City.

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Deng 360: Señor Joel

Deng Chol gleans insight from Señor Joel Davidson regarding the tremendous potential of banking the unbanked in Mexico.

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Deng 360: Señor Murat

Ciudad de Mexico, Mexico Renowned international journalist Deng Chol interviews GWSB’s Murat Tarimcilar during his tenure as Associate Dean of the Mexico IRP.

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Microfinance: Field Version

Finally! All the way down the supply chain – if you want to call it that – to the clients. Yesterday found most of the Mexico IRP team piled into our tall awkward gringo van at an early hour, en route to Puebla, to visit yet another MFI. To learn about their work in general [...]

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Ciudad de Mexico, d.f.

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Hospitality in pictures

Ciudad de Mexico Two nights ago the Mexico IRP team piled itself into three cabs that caravan-ed from Zona Rosa to Polanco, to the home of our much-loved Mexican colleague Harry Heisler. Who happened to be in Sweden at the time, feasting – we can only assume – on meatballs and gravy with lingonberry jam [...]

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Scale, profits & serving the poor: Microfinance makes it big in Mexico

Ciudad de Mexico, Mexico What happens when you take a microfinance NGO, scale it up, make a profit, and issue an IPO? What if your IPO is oversubscribed by 13 times, and your MFI is suddenly worth $1.6 billion? And then the acknowledged founder of microfinance, Muhammed Yunus – who was awarded the Nobel Peace [...]

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Making change, making meetings

Ciudad de Mexico, Mexico Meetings by day and meetings by night – such has been the Mexico team’s Modus Operandi for the last several days. We’ve met with ProDesarrollo – a microfinance trade association of Mexican Sofomes (small, informal Microfinance Institutions (MFIs)) and Cajas (larger, regulated MFIs acting as credit unions), to discuss financial education, [...]

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Veggies & fish juice

Mexico City, Mexico The Mexico team is mostly flying into Ciudad de Mexico this afternoon, after which, starting Monday morning, our non-stop schedule begins. I’ve been staying the last couple nights with a journalist friend based in Mexico City, and we spent yesterday walking around various parts of the city, including the world’s largest wholesale [...]

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