Valeria Budinich

From 1986 to 1996, Valeria worked for Appropriate Technology International (ATI), a global non-profit foundation specializing in providing technical and financial assistance to small and medium-sized enterprises in rural areas. As its Chief Operating Officer, she assumed a leading role in the development field's thinking about small producers. From 1997 to 1998 sheserved as founding Vice-President for Latin America at Endeavor, a foundation specializing in linking entrepreneurs in emerging economies with venture capital investors in the US. Valerialaunched endeavor's first field operations in Chile and was part of the core team that designed endeavor's search and selection process to identify high yield investment opportunities.

From 1999 to 2001 sheserved as VP for New Initiatives at BDA, a California-based consulting firm specializing in business process redesign and technology innovations for private sector clients worldwide. At BDA, Valeria developed innovative services for small and medium scale entrepreneurs and launched the first seed capital fund in Chile financing exclusively enterprises at the start-up level. Since 1995, Valeria has also worked as an advisor to groups like Woman's World Banking, the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and UNIFEM. She was brought up in Chile and trained as an industrial engineer.

Valeria Budinich has worked for 20 years in the creation and expansion of business development programs in 22 countries worldwide. At Ashoka, as the Vice-President leading the Full Economic Citizenship Initiative, Valeria focuses on enabling commercial alliances between social entrepreneurs and private companies to deliver products and services to small producers and low-income families. Her main area of professional interest is finding ways to harness the collective power of social and business entrepreneurs.