THERE'S NOTHING MICRO ABOUT A BILLION WOMEN

What if a single, simple solution could simultaneously double global economic growth, expand market share for companies in dozens of industries and improve the quality of health, education, food security and water around the world? Ensuring women's universal access to financial services can do exactly that.

Women are the world's largest emerging market, with greater potential to impact the global economy than India and China combined. Over one billion women remain completely unserved by the formal financial system, while another 2 billion have access to nothing more than a "no frills" bank account. On Maslow's hierarchy of needs, a bank account doesn't seem as essential as food or shelter, but as this book demonstrates, access to capital is game-changing; there is a profound relationship between a woman's financial independence and her sense of autonomy, physical security and self-esteema relationship that plays out in the lives of women in both developed and developing countries. Mary Ellen Iskenderian's THERE'S NOTHING MICRO ABOUT A BILLION WOMEN is the first book to incorporate both large macroeconomic themes and the more deeply personal ones into a single compelling narrative and call to action. A veteran of Wall Street and World Bank, author Mary Ellen Iskenderian is the CEO of Women's World Banking, the only global organization dedicated to women's financial empowerment in the developing world. In this timely, groundbreaking book, she illuminates the links between financial participation and power, and explores the transformation that is possible for families, communities and the world when women are full economic citizens. Iskenderian, who holds an MBA from Yale and BS from the Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service, is a permanent member of the Council on Foreign Relations. She has published in Forbes and the Wall Street Journal and is a regular contributor to Harvard Business Review, Council on Foreign Relations, and Huffington Post. In April 2018, she was recognized by Crain's New York as one of the 50 Most Notable Women in Finance. She speaks internationally on the subject of women's financial participation and has provided expert testimony to the European Commission, US House of Representatives, and the British and Australian parliaments.