Rockflower is delighted to welcome Pablo Freund to the Board of Directors. Pablo brings to Rockflower a deep understanding of the current global financial systems and practices and how they have contributed to gender inequality and inequity. He understands the fundamental core paradigm shifts that need to occur in order for change to happen at the local level.
Pablo Freund is a Senior Advisor with the Criterion Institute, a non profit think tank that works with social change makers to demystify finance and broaden their perspective on how to engage with and shift financial systems. He is an experienced financial services professional focusing on women’s financial inclusion and the development of gender lens financial services. He is the founder of Bare Maximum, a boutique advisory firm helping international financial institutions, nonprofits, and start-ups advance the emergence of an equitable, ethical, and sustainable global economy. He is also the co-founder of Be Girl, a social enterprise focused on making high-performance menstrual hygiene products radically accessible for women and girls globally.
Pablo is the Gender Financial Inclusion technical expert for Inter-American Development Bank’s technical assistance program supporting Public National Development Banks’ effort to collect and report sex-disaggregated data and the UN Foundation’s Data2x Women’s Financial Inclusion Partnership, leading their sex-disaggregated data harmonization efforts. He also serves as the Financial Alliance for Women’s data science lead, managing the largest global private sector gender lens supply-side sex-disaggregated financial services survey for the publication of the annual “Economics of Banking on Women” report.
In addition to Pablo’s work in the financial inclusion space, he has extensive experience at the intersection of gender and energy access. Over the past several years, he has worked with organizations on the development of gender mainstreaming policies to increase women’s participation in the energy sector as well as access to electricity programs across Sub-Saharan Africa.
He started his career in financial services with UBS in New York, prior to which he received Bachelor of Arts degrees in Economics and History of Art and Architecture from Brown University, and a Master of Science in Sustainability Management from Columbia University’s Earth Institute.
“ I could not be more excited to welcome Pablo to the Rockflower Board of Directors. He brings a unique perspective and insight into the work of getting more money into the hands of women and girls on the global margins. His knowledge and expertise will deepen our capacity to get to the root of the problems Rockflower is seeking to address, primarily, how to ensure that those with the best ideas have the capacity and capability to see those ideas come to fruition. Thank you so much Pablo for really understanding the work we do at Rockflower and being willing to throw your hat in the ring to help us do so much more.” Tine Ward, Founder and CEO, Rockflower Partners Inc.
“Given the interrelated nature of everything happening in our world, a whole systems perspective is more important now than ever before if we are going to resolve humanity’s most pressing challenges. Rockflower’s “Seed to Canopy” vision demonstrates a unique commitment and integrity of purpose to the future of our world that I believe is the antidote to despair and essential to manifesting the equitable and just world we hope for. It is my honor to support Rockflower’s work towards this end.” -Pablo Freund