Governance & Management

The Board of Directors (BoD) is the governing body of SAMN. Currently each SAMN member has representation as a Director on the SAMN BoD. Each member is represented by the Executive Head or the CEO. However, if a member does not have CEO or Executive Head, then President or Chairperson undertaking executive role will be member representative on SAMN BoD. The size of SAMN BoD can be expanded with new members.

At present, BoD has six directors and a full-time employee:

• Chairperson, Muhammad Abdul Awal – Executive Director, Credit Development Forum (CDF)
• Vice Chair, Mr. Anura Athapattu – Director, Lanka Microfinance Practitioners’ Association (LMFPA)
• Director, Dr. Alok Misra – CEO, Microfinance Institutions Network (MFIN)
• Director, Mohammad Akbar Sarwari – Executive Director, Afghanistan Microfinance Association (AMA)
• Director, Mr. Ganesh Bista – Executive Chairperson, Centre for Microfinance (CMF)
• Director & Honorary CEO, Syed Mohsin Ahmed – CEO, Pakistan Microfinance Network (PMN)
• Anum Shakoor – Network Coordinator, SAMN

The BoD is responsible for the overall policy and direction of SAMN and meets on a quarterly basis. It delegates responsibility of SAMN’s day-to-day operations to the SAMN Regional Manager. The BoD has following functions:

• Sets broad policy guidelines.
• Approves new membership and strategic partnerships.
• Approves business plans, budgets and key milestones for activities.
• Supports the work of the Regional Manager to increase visibility and raise funds and represents the SAMN with key microfinance stakeholders.
• Oversees and evaluates the work and performance of the Regional Manager.
• Serves as liaison between the SAMN, MFI partners and other microfinance stakeholders in their country.

Advisory Body
It is envisioned an Advisory Body may be constituted within SAMN governance structure to engage other microfinance stakeholders.