Jamie Zimmerman

Gender Lead, Financial Services for the Poor, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

Jamie M. Zimmerman leads the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s work to increase low-income women’s economic empowerment through access to and usage of digital financial services. Prior to this appointment, Jamie led the team’s efforts to drive global scale of digital financial inclusion by cultivating partnerships which accelerate and maximize collective impact. Jamie joined the foundation in 2017 after several years as an independent global advisor to several partners, including the World Bank, CGAP, IFC, USAID, UNCDF, BFA Global, World Food Program and the International Rescue Committee.

From 2006 to 2013, Jamie directed the Global Assets Program at New America, a Washington DC based think tank, and was previously deputy director of Globalization Studies at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise, where she authored, with Dr. Susan Aaronson, Trade Imbalance: The Struggle to Weigh Human Rights Concerns in Trade Policymaking.

Jamie holds a B.A. in Foreign Languages and International Economics, and a Master's in International Political Economic and Development, both from the University of Kentucky.  

By Jamie Zimmerman

Blog

Do Mobile Money Clients Need More Protection?

On this year’s World Consumer Rights Day, Consumers International has chosen a timely target: mobile phones. We take a look at some critical questions that must be asked to ensure the poor are being adequately protected.
Blog

E-Payments in Low-Income Settings: Cutting-Edge or High Risk?

Seen as having great potential for advancing the effectiveness of social and foreign assistance, e-payments can increase efficiency in a variety of ways. Four case studies take a closer look at programs in Haiti, Kenya, The Philippines and Uganda.
Blog

From Protection to Inclusion: Shifting to Cashless Payments

All around the world, social protection is evolving into much more than a safety net for the poor. It is becoming a tool for financial inclusion and economic opportunity. Interestingly, stories like these, and the trends behind them, were barely on the radar of the global financial inclusion field three years ago when CGAP published the first official estimate of financially-inclusive G2P payments. Since then, government, donor and NGO efforts to link financial access to government payments has become a swiftly growing movement.