GLOBAL  IMPACT  SPEAKER  SERIES

Laté Lawson is Director of the Economic Development Unit for CARE USA and has over 12 years of experience in the microenterprise development sector including work in Rural Finance, Institutional Microfinance, community based savings and loans, Market Development, and Program Design, Implementation and Measurement. 

In his current position, he coordinates the development of CARE’s global policy and strategy for market and enterprise development using Value Chain approach, oversight CARE’s Microfinance spin-offs in Asia and Latin America and provides support to country offices in fund raising and strategic technical assistance to economic development programs.

Prior to becoming Director of the Economic Development Unit of CARE USA, Laté Lawson worked as Chief of Party of a USAID funded Project for the Institutional Reinforcement of the Microfinance Sector in Benin, as Microfinance Program Coordinator for Togo, Ghana and Benin, Country Coordinator for Benin and most recently as Senior Technical Advisor for CARE’s global economic development programs at CARE USA in Atlanta.

Laté Lawson is trained in financial management, micro insurance, sub-sector analysis and value chain, project management, monitoring and evaluation. He holds a Masters Degree in Economics, with Major in Business Management in Togo and a second Master in Rural Social Development from Reading University in the UK. He also holds a Postgraduate Certificate in Project Planning, Appraisal & Financing from Bradford University in the UK.  Laté is fluent in French and English.

Marcos Neto was CARE Central America Program Director from February 2006 until September 2008.  Marcos is moving on to lead CARE’s effort to establish alliances to advance our work on climate change, in particular the alliance with WWF.  Prior to 2006, he served for three years as Deputy Regional Director for Latin America, focusing on resource mobilization, knowledge management and constituency building.

Marcos joined CARE USA in 2000 to lead the process of establishing CARE’s presence in Brazil.  The following year, he became CARE Brasil’s first National Director, working to build the organization’s first Board of Directors, articulating its strategic vision, and building its first programs and its first marketing, fundraising and communications strategy.  From 1995 to 2000, Marcos was Regional Manager for Asia and Latin America at CARE UK, focusing in resource mobilization, program design, monitoring and evaluation and supporting country offices with strategic plan development.  Marcos is a lawyer by training, with an LLM in Law and Development from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) at the University of London.

CARE is a leading humanitarian organization fighting global poverty. We place special focus on working alongside poor women because, equipped with the proper resources, women have the power to help whole families and entire communities escape poverty. Women are at the heart of CARE's community-based efforts to improve basic education, prevent the spread of HIV, increase access to clean water and sanitation, expand economic opportunity and protect natural resources. CARE also delivers emergency aid to survivors of war and natural disasters, and helps people rebuild their lives.

For more information about the Global Impact Speaker Series, contact wdi-spss@umich.edu.