Greta Bull

Director of Women's Economic Empowerment, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

Greta Bull is Director, Women’s Economic Empowerment at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, where she oversees a portfolio of investments in gender data and evidence, women’s economic collectives, and livelihoods development for poor women. Greta has more than 20 years of experience in development finance, focusing on small and medium enterprise finance, microfinance, digital financial services, payments, and livelihoods, and has previously served as CEO of CGAP (through July 2021), manager of the Financial Institutions Advisory Services at IFC, and as Director of Banking and Finance at DAI Europe.

Greta has a Master’s degree in Public Policy from Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government and an undergraduate degree in International Studies from the University of Washington.

By Greta Bull

Blog

We Need to Talk About Credit

Digital credit is a testament to the ways in which technology and new business models can assist in the expansion of financial services to low-income households. But it also points to potential hazards of letting a market develop unchecked.
Blog

Great Expectations: Fintech and the Poor

Fintech has attracted off-the-charts hype in the development community. But lost in all the excitement is a cool-headed assessment of what these shiny new things are really delivering for poor people. Greta Bull, in the first in a series of CGAP leadership essays, takes stock.
Blog

Financial Inclusion: Is the Glass Half Empty or Half Full? (Pt 2)

The number of people with financial accounts has grown rapidly, but account dormancy remains a problem, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa and India.
Blog

Financial Inclusion: Is the Glass Half Empty or Half Full? (Pt 1)

The rate of access to new accounts has slowed in recent years, but there are reasons to be optimistic about the future of financial inclusion.
Blog

Blockchain: A Solution in Search of a Problem?

Blockchain may be capable of expanding poor people's access to financial services, but does it work better than other existing technologies?