Claudio González-Vega
Trustee, BBVA Microfinance Foundation
Claudio González-Vega has been a member of the Foundation's Board of Trustees since its creation. Professor Emeritus at Ohio State University, he is internationally known as one of the major authorities on finance and development and, in particular, for the analysis, promotion and regulation of microfinance. An economist and lawyer by training, González-Vega holds a master's degree in economics from the London School of Economics and a PhD in economics from Stanford University (California). He was dean of the Faculty of Economics at the University of Costa Rica and one of the founders of the Academia de Centroamérica. For three decades, he was professor of Economics as well as of Agricultural, Environmental and Development Economics and director of the Rural Finance Program at Ohio State University.
BBVA Microfinance Foundation
The BBVA Microfinance Foundation is a non-profit institution created by the BBVA Group in May 2007 as part of its corporate responsibility (CR) strategy, and it focuses its activity on financial inclusion. The Foundation is part of BBVA’s aim to link its community involvement projects with activity in the financial sector wherever possible, specifically in the fight against financial exclusion. The Foundation’s objective is to promote the inclusive and sustainable economic and social development of disadvantaged people by giving them access to Responsible Finance for productive activities, speciality and the methodology of the Foundation. With the backing of a banking institution that has been in the business for more than 150 years, the BBVA Microfinance Foundation is dedicated to helping disadvantaged communities in a completely philanthropic way. The BBVA Microfinance Foundation is completely autonomous, as much as in legal terms , corporate governance and management. It invests its endowment on the creation and consolidation of microfinance institutions in Latin America. Any profits made by them are reinvested in the Foundation’s own activity, and no money goes back to BBVA. This is expressly stated in the Foundation’s bylaws, which safeguards all the funds for the mission and the Foundation’s objectives, thus guaranteeing that the institution will always dedicate its activity to this end.
