Gregory Chen

Managing Director

Strategy

Gregory Chen is the Managing Director of Ultra-Poor Graduation Initiative, a global program of BRAC International.

Greg was raised in India and Bangladesh in a family working on development and has centered his career on spreading the most promising solutions to poverty emerging from the Global South. His early career focused on microfinance in South Asia and later shifted to supporting the emergence of digital finance. Today, Greg leads the Ultra Poor Graduation Initiative for BRAC International, where he works to scale the Graduation approach with governments across Africa and Asia. 

Prior to joining BRAC International, Greg was the Policy Lead in Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP), a global partnership of more than 30 development organizations that work to advance the lives of people in poverty through financial inclusion. He also worked for the Aga Khan Rural Support Programme and for ShoreBank. 

Greg serves on BRAC International’s Executive Leadership Team, is a Director for bKash, the largest digital payments provider in Bangladesh, and is Chair of the Board for BRAC’s new Microfinance Savings and Loan in Ghana.

Greg holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Economics from Wesleyan University and a Masters in Public Policy from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.