Biographical note

Malcolm Harper is currently an independent consultant. He was educated at Oxford, Harvard and Nairobi Universities. He first worked in marketing in England, and then taught at the University of Nairobi. He was Professor of Enterprise Development at Cranfield School of Management, and since 1995 he has worked independently, mainly in India. His work has in general focused on the application of business management tools to the alleviation of poverty, and he has published extensively on enterprise development, micro-finance and inclusive livelihoods. He was Chairman of Basix Finance in India for 10 years, and is Chairman of M-CRIL, the international microfinance and social rating company. He is chair, trustee and board member of a number of institutions in the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, the United States and India, and has worked on poverty issues in Bangladesh and Pakistan, and in parts of Africa, Latin America etc. Lalitha Iyer is currently an independent researcher and social consultant. She began her career in the banking sector, joining SBI as an officer in 1976. She left SBI in 1998 to head Vidyaranya, a leading school in Hyderabad. Since 2001 she has been a researcher and consultant in the social development sector. She has been a board member in the Basix Livelihoods group across India, and is now the Chairperson of Sathi.