Maria Nowak, Chairwoman, Adie International
A graduate of Sciences Po Paris (1956) and postgraduate of the London School of Economics (1959), Maria Nowak who passed away in 2022 pursued a career in the development field working for the Agence Française de Développement. As Director of Policies and Research, she transferred in the eighties the Grameen Bank approach from Bangladesh to West Africa.
Seconded to the World Bank in Washington in 1991, she started the first microlending programmes in Central Europe while at the same time initiating a similar programme in France in the framework of Association à l’Initiative Economique (ADIE) which she founded and of which she was Chairwoman until 2011 on a voluntary basis. She co-founded and was the first president of two resource centres: the Microfinance Center for Central and Eastern Europe and the NIS countries (1996) and the European Microfinance Network(2003). Between 2000 and 2002 she was Special Adviser to the French Minister of the Economy, Finance and Industry, Laurent Fabius.
She was Chairwoman of Adie International, board member of MicroStart and Taysir (Tunisia). She is the author of three books, “La banquière de l’espoir” (1994), “On ne prête (pas) qu’aux riches” (2005) and “L’espoir économique: du microcrédit à l’entrepreneuriat social, les ferments du renouveau” (2010). She was Doctor Honoris Causa of the University of Leuwen (Belgium); Commandeur de la Légion d’Honneur; and Commandeur de l’Ordre du Mérite.
