Anne Folan & Associates

• % Craft strategy – define clear communications objectives and chart the course to get there
  
• % Manage press and public relations
  
• % Write – speeches, op/eds, columns, blog posts, white papers, policy briefs
  
• % Edit technical writing
  
• % Transform complex data and research findings into clear prose
  
• % Teach public speaking and presentation skills
  
• % Mentor in-house communications teams
  
• % Write & produce annual reports
  
• % Manage book-length publications
  
• % Create websites
  
• % Manage rebrandings and other complex communications projects
  

• P  AZMJ/Chemonics
  
• P  Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
  
• P  Colleague Consulting
  
• P  FINCA
  
• P  Global Banking Alliance for Women
  
• P  Mercy Corps
  
• P  Microfinance Opportunities
  
• P  SEEP Network
  
• P  Social Performance Task Force
  
• P  Women for Women International
  
• P  Women’s World Banking
  
• P  World Bank/CGAP
  

	ANNE FOLAN Principal Anne Folan is an independent consultant focused on strategic communications, project communications, public relations, and knowledge management for a multinational clientele. Her clients include the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Mercy Corps, FINCA International, World Bank/CGAP, AZMJ/Chemonics, the Global Banking Alliance for Women, the Social Performance Task Force, Microfinance Opportunities, MICRA Indonesia and MICRA Philippines, the SEEP network, JMR Portfolio Management, the Haiti Democracy Project, the YouthSave Consortium, Women’s World Banking, and many others. Before launching her own practice, Anne worked in-house at FINCA as a fundraising and communications manager. She began her career at Island Press, the only nonprofit publishing house exclusively devoted to environmental issues. In addition to her professional practice, Anne serves on numerous nonprofit boards and is a co-founder and past president of WAM International, the only global network for women professionals in the microfinance industry. WAM-sponsored scholarships have provided vital training opportunities for women professionals at leading programs such as Boulder-at-Turin, the AMIDA academy in Indonesia, SEEP, and the Women’s World Banking trainings. A graduate of the College of William and Mary, Anne lives in Washington, DC and Savannah, Georgia.
	VIVIANA BARRIONUEVO Strategic & Technical Counsel Viviana Barrionuevo brings more than 20 years of project experience as a senior consultant in business process reengineering, organizational restructuring, information systems implementations, and change management. She specializes in complex projects for high profile clients. As one of the team leaders of a major consulting project for the Mexican social security agency, Viviana led the team responsible for modernizing the treasury function, implementing the new system and training the agency’s staff. She has led restructuring and reengineering projects for multinational corporations including IBM, the Ahold Group, Duracell, and Credit Lyonnais. Viviana has specialized expertise in PeopleSoft implementations, leading mid- and large-scale roll-outs of that system throughout Latin America. Viviana’s experience encompasses multiple sectors including government, financial services, telecommunications, healthcare, and engineering. She holds degrees in both law and in business from Buenos Aires University, and has taught courses in accounting, management, and strategic planning at the university level. Viviana has business proficiency in English and speaks Portuguese fluently along with her native Spanish.
	DAWN SHEPHERD Website Design & Development Dawn Shepherd has provided quality professional web design and production services since 1995. Her clients include the Microfinance Gateway, World Bank, Pacific Coast Canola, Satellite Users Interference Reduction Group, Look.Net LLC, South Fairfax Chamber of Commerce, Microfinance Management Institute, and many others. Her websites combine high aesthetic value with functional precision, even for highly complex database-driven sites, and she is a recognized expert in search engine optimization.

Over the years Women’s World Banking has hired Anne and her team for multiple projects: communications strategic planning, project management, writing and editing, advisory services. Anne knows our industry and its players so well that we avoid the usual “learning curve” time and costs associated with most consultancies. She works really well across all departments in our organization. I admire Anne’s talent. And as president of the world’s largest network of woman-focused microfinance institutions, I also greatly appreciate Anne’s commitment to women’s economic advancement.

Mary Ellen Iskenderian
CEO
Women’s World Banking

My senior team and I came to think of Anne Folan as our secret weapon. Her combination of creativity and business sense is rare, and valuable. She is proof that investing in communications pays off. Thanks to Anne’s work, MFO’s research got much greater exposure and had a bigger impact. I also admire people who keep their word, follow through, and “under-promise, over-deliver.”

Monique Cohen PhD
Founder and past president, Microfinance Opportunities

Anne worked for us on assignments in Indonesia and Philippines, designing communications strategies for multiple business units. She also recruited new staff, trained the teams in presentation and public-speaking skills, and perhaps most important, instituted internal communications that significantly improved efficiency. Anne works well cross-culturally and brings out the best in team members at all levels.

Leesa Shrader
MAXIS Program Director for Mercy Corps
2007-2011

I’ve had the pleasure of collaborating with Anne on many high-profile publications. She brings subject-matter expertise to the table and I especially appreciated her skill at working with our team to shape our ideas. She possesses a gift for turning research findings into clear and compelling narratives and getting them in front of the right audiences through the right channels. Most of our projects had tight deadlines and multiple authors, and Anne’s collegiality and sense of humor were real assets that helped keep the team on track. She is one of the most talented writers I know and she greatly improved the look of our publications. I highly recommend her.

Elizabeth McGuinness
Former Director of Consumer Research
Microfinance Opportunities

Anne handled communications, public relations, and change management for the acquisition and re-branding of our bank by an international investor. I was amazed by her ability to spend six months on the ground in Pakistan and immediately immerse herself in the project. Not only was she able to learn the local context of marketing & PR very quickly in a completely new environment, she also delivered by working round the clock under very tight timelines. The acquisition, re-branding and integration all went very smoothly. It really was an incredible achievement and could not have happened without Anne.

M. Mudassar Aqil
CEO
FINCA Microfinance Bank Ltd.
Formerly Kashf Microfinance Bank Ltd.

Anne worked closely with me and my team in Kabul to build our communications strategy from scratch. It was a complex project with a lot of stakeholders, local and international. She grasped our business and its needs immediately, worked really well with everyone, and produced a strategic plan, tactical plan, and budget that our team could implement and that produced the desired results. Anne also created beautiful, effective marketing collateral. I appreciated her work and recommend her highly.

Mahir Momand
Founder
The IIFC Group
Afghanistan

Anne brings an unusual combination of creativity and analytical skill to the challenge of turning data into story. The publications her team produces beautifully capture what FINCA is all about.

Brigitte Herschensohn
Director of Communications & Engagement
FINCA

Anne has provided writing and editorial services  to several YouthSave publications. She has a real talent for sifting through a mass of research findings to spot what is genuinely compelling. and for structuring narratives so those gems are highlighted.  Even  when things are “down to the wire,”  Anne always delivers  clear-eyed and supremely capable input.

Rani Deshpande
Director
YouthSave Consortium

• [size=30],[/size]116 Sixth Street NE #205
         Washington, DC 20002 USA
  
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• [size=30]@[/size] anne@annefolan.com