Microfinance Alliance

Biography of Robert Scarlett

Rob Scarlett has spent more than 40 years working in the field and volunteering, for Acción International, a private self-help program that made the first micro-loan, in Recife, Brazil, in 1973.

Acción International emerged to become a leader in the field of micro-lending in Latin American, the U.S. and then Africa and Asia; and, through its - now worldwide - network of affiliates and partners, serves 2.4 million tiny micro-enterprises and has an active micro-loan portfolio of US$ 2 billion.

After graduating from Carleton College in 1966 – Rob went to work for Acción predecessor, ACCION en Venezuela, for several years; then joined a start-up team to help establish Ação Comunitária do Brasil and, later, Acción Comunitária del Perú – which is, in turn, the predecessor to Peru’s MiBanco (which serves 154,541 clients and has an active portfolio of US$ 206,729,372). In the field, he acquired his fluency in Spanish and Portuguese.

After returning to Minnesota to get married and start a family, Rob never lost contact with Acción and continued to advise them and, occasionally, go into the field for them (in Jamaica, in Paraguay, and, again, in Venezuela) to raise funds, train staff and help organize local boards of directors. He currently serves as a member of Acción’s President’s Council and is a member of its Recife Society – commemorating the granting of the first micro-loan.

In more recent decades, Acción led the way in creating and transforming the field of “micro-finance” by demonstrating that local micro-lending programs could operate in a highly disciplined way and, ultimately, securitize their high-quality micro-loan portfolios and sell them in the world financial markets. This proved that, by applying sound business principles, micro-lending programs could become operationally and financially self-sufficient. Availability of lending capital ceased to be a constraint on the growth of the micro-finance movement.

Here in the Twin Cities, in the mid-1980s, Rob persuaded the then Dayton-Hudson Foundation (now Target Foundation) to enlist Acción’s assistance with research on the existence of an “informal economy” on St. Paul’s Lower West Side. This study has often been cited as one of the foundations for initiating micro-lending programming in this region.

Since his “day job” includes helping companies improve their position in Latin American markets, Rob is able to maintain contact with Acción affiliates as he travels from country-to-country. He is a frequent speaker and advisor on the origins and sequential transformations of what is now, truly, a micro-finance industry.