Global Banking Alliance for Women Names Inez Murray New CEO

-- Leadership change supports planned expansion, new strategic direction for global financial services organization

NEW YORK, Nov. 27, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- The governing board of directors of the Global Banking Alliance for Women, a global consortium of leading financial institutions driving women's business growth, announced today it has named Inez Murray as the organization's new chief executive officer. Ms. Murray succeeds Teri Cavanagh who had been serving GBA as interim executive director since 2010 and who will remain in an advisory capacity.

As executive vice president of Women's World Banking, the world's largest global microfinance network, Ms. Murray headed a team responsible for product design, delivery-channel innovations such as mobile phone-enabled banking, marketing, and all technical assistance for WWB's network of 39 member institutions. She also drove creation of the Center for Microfinance Leadership, an in-house WWB initiative to build skills of senior-level microfinance executives, and she led ground-breaking research projects that gave the microfinance industry some of its most important hard data around the actual financial behaviors and needs of low-income women in the developing world.

GBA's member institutions focus on providing women's businesses with the necessary access to capital, markets, networks, and business skills that are crucial to those businesses' success. GBA board chairman Chris Sullivan described Ms. Murray's appointment as part of a strategic decision to expand the Alliance's global presence. "Global Banking Alliance for Women members recognize the immense potential that the women's market represents," said Mr. Sullivan, chief executive officer of the corporate banking division for GBA member institution Royal Bank of Scotland. "Women are now creating small and medium enterprises at rates approaching or surpassing those of men in many markets. Under Inez's leadership, we look forward to increasing awareness about the business case for banks to focus on women, to expanding our membership, and as a result, to increasing opportunities for women in business worldwide."

Ms. Murray makes her first public appearance as the GBA's new chief executive on November 27, 2012 at a State Department briefing facilitated by the International Council on Women's Business Leadership. In an August 2012 letter to Secretary Clinton about strategies to engage the private sector around women's economic empowerment, ICWBL recommended that the State Department partner with GBA to leverage its members' expertise in delivering effective financial services to women business owners.

"Women are critical to economic progress at every level – the household, the community, the national, and the global," said Ms. Murray. "And being the bank of choice for the women's market is critical at the institutional level as well. The GBA has a major role to play in fueling women's economic opportunities, and I am honored to be leading its work."

ABOUT THE GLOBAL BANKING ALLIANCE FOR WOMEN
Founded in 2000, the Global Banking Alliance for Women is the leading organization of financial institutions driving women's wealth creation worldwide. Our 25 member institutions work in 135 countries to build innovative, comprehensive programs that provide women's business enterprises with vital access to capital, markets, education, and training. Membership in the Alliance in turn provides our member institutions with technical assistance and peer learning as well as a global clearinghouse for best practices. Along with building our members' capacity to serve their women customers, GBA uses its collective voice to advocate for the needs of women entrepreneurs. For more information, visit our website at www.gbaforwomen.org.