Rosa Wang is an author, strategist, and public communicator on transformative technologies.

As Global Director for Digital Financial Services for Opportunity International, a global network dedicated to microfinance, she led programs that subsequently opened over 6 million digital bank accounts for very low-income individuals around the world. The program also gained widespread recognition for providing services for persons of low literacy and for innovations in closing the digital gender gap. Prior to her work with OI, Rosa incubated social entrepreneurs in technology and social investment through the organization Ashoka.

A life-long learner and explorer of big ideas, Rosa leverages a background in investment banking, portfolio management, and public policy to focus on ways that technology can be harnessed for humanity. Her first book, Strong Connections: Stories of Resilience from the Far Reaches of the Mobile Phone will be published by River Grove Press in February 2022. After living on three continents, she currently resides in Oxford, England.

For the past 17 years, she has worked at the forefront of spreading digital and mobile technologies to those excluded from the digital revolution. When mobile services were in their infancy, she worked for Ashoka, the pioneering organization for social entrepreneurs, identifying and supporting the most successful entrepreneurs addressing issues like maternal health, environmental conservation and clean water. It was visiting these social entrepreneurs that she saw first-hand the power of digital technologies for the poor.

In 2012, Rosa was appointed Global Director of Mobile Money and Digital Financial Services (DFS) for Opportunity International, an organization that focuses on alleviating poverty through financial services and training.

Rosa’s work encompasses the efforts to bring the mobile-digital revolution and all of its associated benefits to the millions of poor village women that have been digitally excluded. In addition, she has served as Leader of the DFS peer group, where member organizations offer services to 60 million persons worldwide. Her fieldwork has taken her to many parts of the world where extreme poverty still persists, especially in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.

Rosa is a frequent public communicator on digital services for the poor. She speaks at industry and investor conferences and has been featured in publications such as The Financial Times. Her passionate empathy for those living in extreme poverty, subject-matter expertise and self-reflections serve as the source material for her forthcoming debut book, Strong Connections: Stories of Resilience from the Far Reaches of the Mobile Phone.

– Rosa Wang

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