Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/56535
helps poor people build wealth?' Instead, we should ask, 'What are the limitations of what it can do?' Once she became part of ACCION, she held positions such as executive vice president and director of the Wash- ington, D.C., office before becoming CEO in 2000. It's an organization perfectly suited to her longtime commitment to social responsibility. ACCION, which began as a Latin American volunteer organization in 1961, became one of the world's first microfinance organizations in the early '70s. Today ACCION is a network of microfinance institutions (MFIs) that work in 25 countries throughout the world, including Latin America, the U.S., Asia, and Africa. Together these institutions manage a loan portfolio of $3.5 billion— with a cumulative repayment rate of better than 97 percent. The Web site www.accion.org details the organization's long history and recent initiatives. While ACCION's mission has become Otero's passion, her educational background is not in microfinance—or even finance. Among her degrees are a master's in English lit- erature from the University of Maryland and a master's in international studies from the Johns Hopkins Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, where she cur- rently is an adjunct professor. She considers these liberal arts studies crucial in her own line of work—and for anyone plan- ning to do business in the world today. "In my spare time, when I want to relax, I read poetry, especially Pablo Neruda," Otero says. "I draw on that a lot for making sense out of what I do. I would tell business stu- dents that, whether it's philosophy or anthropology or poet- ry, they should make an effort to develop a passion for the humanities and integrate it into their day-to-day lives." You've been with ACCION since 1986, when microfinance was still a young concept and it was hard to find institutions that would lend money to the very poor. In the intervening decades, the field has evolved We shouldn't ask, 'Is microfinance a strategy that Otero visits ACCION microfinance clients in Accra, Ghana. 20 BizEd JULY/AUGUST 2009 JOHN RAE