As microfinance is still an young industry, we have not enjoyed a strong conference circuit. Although many excellent conferences have been held, the industry lacks a suite of quality, reoccurring annual gatherings. Conference offerings focused on investment have been even sparser. With four recent developments, the circuit has gained critical mass.
Most recently, Goldman Sachs has signed on as a major sponsor of the Women’s World Banking (WWB) annual conference entitled “Microfinance and the capital markets: a global exchange,” which until now had been exclusively limited to members of the WWB community. While WWB maintains a low public profile, it is one of the elite US microfinance organizations attracting high-flying Goldman. Goldman is newer to microfinance relative to other global investment banks. This conference is in New York City by invitation only and will be held January 16 & 17.
Second, Accion International’s “Cracking the capital markets II” will celebrate its second year, to be held in New York City March 19 & 20. Accion is yet to announce its sponsors for this conference. However, given the surging popularity of microfinance investment and Accion’s star quality, we anticipate that this conference will be backed by a major capital player. This event is open to the public.
Third, the “Chicago Microfinance Conference” hosted by the business schools at University of Chicago and Northwestern will be held for the third year in April (date not yet announced). This conference does not have a capital markets focus. The quality of the generalist agenda may well propel it as the premier annual conference in microfinance, although that mantle remains contested as no single conference has emerged as the leader. This conference is open to the public.
Fourth, the conference in the strongest position to become the industry standard in the US market is the SEEP Network Annual Conference, to be held October 22-26, 2007 in Washington, DC. The Small Enterprise Education and Promotion (SEEP) Network is a trade association for microfinance organizations which has undertaken an increasingly international focus. While also a generalist conference, this past year the Omidyar Network (eBay fortune) piggy-backed, adding on an investor roundtable. While the SEEP conference is open to the public, the investor roundtable is by invitation only.
