As managing director, Gregory Chen is a member of BRAC International’s executive leadership team and oversees the Ultra-Poor Graduation Initiative, a global programme scaling the evidence-backed Graduation approach. This is a flagship programme that pursues scale by supporting the expansion of government-led programming. BRAC’s goals are ambitious: to expand high-quality, government-led Graduation to 5 million households and make a large dent in SDG1.

Chen has committed his career to, and is inspired by spreading high-impact solutions tested and developed with people living in poverty. Chen spent nearly two decades with the Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP), a global partnership housed at the World Bank that works to advance the lives of people in poverty through financial inclusion— focused on innovations in digital and microfinance services. Chen served in multiple capacities at CGAP: as the representative to South Asia, a specialist in technology and finance, and as a member of CGAP’s leadership team overseeing policy.

Chen is based in Washington, US. Chen has lived in South Asia for more than 25 years and has worked across more than a dozen countries in Africa. He is an occasional public speaker and has guest lectured at American University, the Boulder Institute for Microfinance, BRAC University, Johns Hopkins, Tufts, and Yale. He has a master’s degree from Harvard’s Kennedy School and a bachelor’s degree from Wesleyan University.