NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

Joyce Klein is director of the Aspen Institute Microenterprise Fund for Innovation, Effectiveness, Learning and Dissemination (FIELD). The mission of FIELD is to identify, develop and disseminate best practices, and to educate funders, policymakers and others about microenterprise as an anti-poverty strategy.

Klein has worked with FIELD for fifteen years, and has more than 20 years of experience studying and supporting microenterprise and entrepreneurial development programs in the United States. Her recent work has included the Scale Academy for Microenterprise Development, in which FIELD is helping leading microenterprise organizations in the U.S. to increase their scale; the Asset Building through Credit pilot, which is working with microenterprise programs to offer a secured credit card as a credit- and asset-building tool for entrepreneurs; and FIELD’s new leadership development program for the U.S. microenterprise field, ELM2.

Klein also has worked as a consultant in the microenterprise field, providing assistance to clients including the Community Development Financial Institutions Fund of the U.S. Department of the Treasury, and CFED (formerly the Corporation for Enterprise Development). Prior to her work with FIELD, Klein led CFED’s work in microenterprise development. She holds a Master’s Degree in Public Policy from the University of California at Berkeley and a B.A. in Economics from Boston College.

Luz Gomez is a consultant with the Aspen Institute Economic Opportunities Program. Shehas over 13 years of experience in the U.S. microenterprise field. She is author or co-authorof several studies related to scale in the microenterprise field including Dollars for Dreams:Scaling Microlending in the United States, and A Newly Crowded Marketplace: How For-Profit Lenders are Serving Microentrepreneurs. Most recently, she worked with microlenderACCION USA as Senior Director of Marketing, where she identified new partnershipopportunities and conducted market and product research. In 2003, she launched ACCIONUSA’s Miami program, leading it to become the state’s largest microlender. She holdsan M.A. in Political Science from Columbia University and a B.A. from the University ofCalifornia, Berkeley.