Gender Lens Investing in the Philippines: An Interactive Workshop

As Managing Director and Founder of Value for Women, Rebecca has spearheaded the growth of the organization into a globally-recognized leader in gender-inclusive business practice. With over 20 years of global expertise, Rebecca leads Value for Women in its efforts to design innovation for gender inclusion with investors, small and medium enterprises (SMEs), banks, financial institutions, development organizations and corporate foundations. Under Rebecca’s leadership, the Value for Women team works globally in a collaborative, multidisciplinary manner, applying practical, hands-on approaches to solve business and investment challenges with a gender and inclusion lens. This involves delivery of advisory services, and the design of research, training and communications. Rebecca has also authored and led sector-changing research on the intersection of gender, investment, entrepreneurship and economic development across sectors such as Sustainable Energy, Finance, Agriculture and Entrepreneurship. Rebecca is frequently invited to speak as an industry expert in Asia, Africa, and the Americas.

Aparajita leads VFW on the strategic design of gender and business innovation, focused on financial institutions, investors and other SME ecosystem actors. She leads a team of Business and Gender Experts to devise new ways for organizations to adopt gender-inclusive practices in their day-to-day operations. She brings over 18 years of experience in impact investing, social entrepreneurship, strategic partnerships and business development. She has a solid background in delivering impact projects at the intersection of business and development especially in developing markets like India, Indonesia and Kenya. She has domain expertise in innovative finance, microfinance, livelihoods, education, and women entrepreneurship. She has previously worked as India Director for the British Asian Trust and as a Co-founder and Director-Sankalp Forum at Intellecap where she established Sankalp as the leading global platform for impact investing in South and South-East Asia and East Africa. Aparajita has a management degree from IIFM, India. She lives in Goa, India.

Luis has over 12 years of experience in the design and implementation of gender equality and women’s economic empowerment projects, advisory services, evaluations, studies, institutional strategies, and strategic partnerships. He has worked with a variety of development organisations, including the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), the United Nations, and the World Bank. At Value for Women, Luis leads global and regional landscape reporting on women’s STEM employment in the infrastructure sector, gender-lens investing, and women-led businesses’ access to finance. His work also focuses on helping financial institutions design programmes that create value propositions for women-led small and medium enterprises (SMEs); conducting women’s entrepreneurship ecosystem assessments that offer policy recommendations to policymakers and private sector partners; and providing investors and corporations with gender-lens investing advisory support and trainings. Luis is originally from Mexico and has worked extensively in Latin America and the Caribbean. He holds a BS in Business Administration from Boston University’s Questrom School of Business and an MA in International Relations from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University.