SVMN Education Course

Microfinance 101: The Fundamentals of Microfinance

Silicon Valley Microfinance Network (SVMN) is proud to offer "Microfinance 101: The Fundamentals of Microfinance (MF101)" -- a course in the fundamentals of microfinance, an important tool for economic development around the world.  This training will equip participants with a rich working knowledge of the basic theories, history, and trends in the field of microfinance.  It will explore why and how microfinance operations have grown to provide financial services to poor and low-income people on a broad and growing scale and will discuss the struggles for sustainability.  The course is targeted to executives who want mobilize their companies into action in the microfinance space, to professionals who are looking to transition their careers, and to anyone who wants to gain a substantial understanding of the origins, workings, and current landscape of microfinance.

Content

The course will cover historical origins of microfinance, business reasons behind group lending and a focus on women clients, management of microfinance institutions (MFIs), investor perspectives, geographic difference in microfinance services (between countries, and between urban and rural areas), and the emerging area 'beyond microfinance,' other products and services being delivered using microfinance infrastructure.

SVMN Faculty

MF101 will be taught by your own SVMN Faculty, Silicon Valley Microfinance Network Board Member Sean Foote as primary instructor, with guest lecturers from Opportunity Fund, Kiva and MicroPlace.  Instructor Sean Foote is a partner at Labrador Ventures and a veteran venture capitalist who actively serves on boards of both private companies and nonprofit organizations and lectures on microfinance at UC Berkeley's Haas School of Business.  His brilliant and engaging style make this course an interactive experience whose material participants will draw on for years to come.

(See below for full Instructor Bio)

The SVMN Faculty believes in raising the level of understanding about microfinance and helping people move into the sector, and they are generously donating their time and expertise for this course.

Format

MF101 will consist of three 2-hour sessions, once per week for three consecutive weeks.  It will run 6:30 -- 8:30pm on Mondays, February 14, 21, and 28. 

Registering here once will enroll you for all three sessions.

The meetings will be brown bag style; please feel free to bring dinner with you.

Instructor Biography

Sean Foote, Instructor

Mr. Foote, Partner at Labrador Ventures, has been a venture capitalist investing in early stage companies for the past 10 years. He is active on the board of directors of Eoplex Technologies, Everyone.net, Integrated Materials Inc., Altierre Corporation and Solaicx. He also serves on the Development Council of Entrepreneurs Foundation, a nonprofit organization that engages high growth companies in corporate citizenship and philanthropic efforts; Silicon Valley Microfinance Network (SVMN); and Freedom from Hunger, a nonprofit, international development organization that fights against hunger and poverty; and he is founder of Community Promise, an education-focused nonprofit.

Before venture investing, Mr. Foote was a management consultant with Boston Consulting Group, working in a wide range of industries such as telecom, computers, healthcare, banking, and automotive on topics ranging from strategic alliances to Internet strategies. Mr. Foote also worked as a systems engineer for AT&T Bell Laboratories, developing artificial intelligence systems for testing the most complicated telecommunications networks.

Mr. Foote is a lecturer at the University of California's Haas School of Business, where he teaches the top ranked venture capital and private equity classes as well as Microfinance.   He has also taught classes on entrepreneurship at the University of Michigan's Business School, University of Virginia's Darden School of Business and University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business.

Mr. Foote received his undergraduate degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Missouri Rolla (1988), and his MBA from the University of Virginia's Darden Graduate School of Business (1993), where he received the Shermett Award granted to the top 3% of students.