We are thrilled to announce the Keynote Speak­ers for the 20th IDC:

His Excel­lency Fred­er­ick Tluway Sumaye

His Excel­lency Fred­er­ick Tluway Sumaye was born on May 29, 1950 in Arusha, Tan­za­nia. He served as a mem­ber of Par­lia­ment from Octo­ber 1985 until Decem­ber 2005. His Excel­lency also served as Deputy Min­is­ter and Min­is­ter, con­sec­u­tively, of Agri­cul­ture, Live­stock and Coop­er­a­tives. He served as the Prime Min­is­ter of the United Repub­lic of Tan­za­nia from Novem­ber 1995 to Decem­ber 2005, dur­ing which time he acted as the prin­ci­pal advi­sor to the Pres­i­dent and led the imple­men­ta­tion of poli­cies and pro­grams within all min­istry, regional, and gov­ern­men­tal agen­cies. His Excel­lency has chaired var­i­ous com­mit­tees, includ­ing the National Invest­ment Steer­ing Com­mit­tee, Fast Track Pri­va­ti­za­tion Com­mit­tee, and the Dis­as­ter Man­age­ment Com­mit­tee. Fol­low­ing his time as Prime Min­is­ter, he served as a Good­will Ambas­sador for the United Nations Indus­trial Devel­op­ment Orga­ni­za­tion (UNIDO) from 2005 to 2006. His Excel­lency Sumaye received his diploma from Egerton Uni­ver­sity, in Kenya, Africa. The mis­sion of Egerton Uni­ver­sity is to gen­er­ate and dis­sem­i­nate sig­nif­i­cant knowl­edge and offer exem­plary edu­ca­tion to con­tribute to, and inno­v­a­tively influ­ence, national and global devel­op­ment. After leav­ing office in 2005, he enrolled in Har­vard Uni­ver­sity in 2006 for a one year pro­gram where he received a Mas­ters Degree in Pub­lic Admin­is­tra­tion. n the board of the Bureau for Research and Eco­nomic Analy­sis of Devel­op­ment (BREAD), is Direc­tor of the Cen­ter of Eco­nomic Pol­icy Research’s devel­op­ment eco­nom­ics pro­gram and is a mem­ber of the President’s Global Devel­op­ment Coun­cil. She serves as the found­ing edi­tor of the Amer­i­can Eco­nomic Jour­nal: Applied Economics.

Esther Duflo, Co-Founder and Direc­tor, Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab and Pro­fes­sor of Poverty Alle­vi­a­tion and Devel­op­ment Eco­nom­ics, MIT

Esther Duflo is the Abdul Latif Jameel Pro­fes­sor of Poverty Alle­vi­a­tion and Devel­op­ment Eco­nom­ics in the Depart­ment of Eco­nom­ics at the Mass­a­chu­setts Insti­tute of Tech­nol­ogy and a founder and direc­tor of the Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL). Her research focuses on micro­eco­nomic issues in devel­op­ing coun­tries, includ­ing house­hold behav­ior, edu­ca­tion, access to finance, health and pol­icy eval­u­a­tion. Duflo has received numer­ous aca­d­e­mic hon­ors and prizes includ­ing The Dan David Award (Lau­re­ate in Future Dimen­sion, 2013), the Finan­cial Times and Gold­man Sachs Busi­ness Book of the Year Award (with Abhi­jit Baner­jee) for “Poor Eco­nom­ics: A Rad­i­cal Rethink­ing of the Way to Fight Global Poverty” (2011), the David N. Ker­shaw Award from the Asso­ci­a­tion for Pub­lic Pol­icy Analy­sis and Man­age­ment (2011), a John Bates Clark Medal for the best econ­o­mist under 40 (2010), a MacArthur Fel­low­ship (2009) and the Amer­i­can Eco­nomic Association’s Elaine Ben­nett Prize for Research (2003). Duflo is an NBER Research Asso­ciate, serves on the board of the Bureau for Research and Eco­nomic Analy­sis of Devel­op­ment (BREAD), is Direc­tor of the Cen­ter of Eco­nomic Pol­icy Research’s devel­op­ment eco­nom­ics pro­gram and is a mem­ber of the President’s Global Devel­op­ment Coun­cil. She serves as the found­ing edi­tor of the Amer­i­can Eco­nomic Jour­nal: Applied Economics.

Kris Balder­ston, Senior Vice Pres­i­dent & Senior Part­ner, Fleishman-Hillard and For­mer Spe­cial Rep­re­sen­ta­tive, U.S. Sec­re­tary of State’s Global Partnerships

Kris Balder­ston is Gen­eral Man­ager of the Fleish­man Hillard Wash­ing­ton office. His 30 year career in Wash­ing­ton includes lead­er­ship posi­tions deal­ing with state, fed­eral and inter­na­tional Most recently, he served as Spe­cial Rep­re­sen­ta­tive for Global Part­ner­ships under Sec­re­tary of State Hillary Rod­ham Clin­ton. In that posi­tion, Kris helped to cre­ate the Global Part­ner­ship Ini­tia­tive and launched a num­ber of inno­v­a­tive public-private part­ner­ships to address global prob­lems. He spe­cial­ized in form­ing market-driven col­lab­o­ra­tions involv­ing pri­vate com­pa­nies, NGOs and gov­ern­ments that achieved suc­cess by cre­atively lever­ag­ing the inter­ests of mul­ti­ple orga­ni­za­tions toward a com­mon goal. Under his lead­er­ship, the Global Part­ner­ship Ini­tia­tive bro­kered alliances and rela­tion­ships with more than 300 part­ners and secured more than $350 mil­lion in cap­i­tal from pri­vate investors, invest­ment banks, NGOs foun­da­tions, and gov­ern­ments around the world to fund early stage projects. Kris also served as Sen­a­tor Clinton’s first Leg­isla­tive Direc­tor and then as Deputy Chief of Staff dur­ing her term as Sen­a­tor from New York. He pro­vided advice and coun­sel on a wide array of polit­i­cal and pol­icy mat­ters dur­ing the Senator’s eight years in office. He also pro­moted eco­nomic devel­op­ment in New York State, ini­ti­at­ing and imple­ment­ing dozens of high impact Before join­ing Sen­a­tor Clin­ton, he served Pres­i­dent Bill Clin­ton in the White House as the Deputy Sec­re­tary of the Cab­i­net and the Deputy Assis­tant to the Pres­i­dent where he acted as liai­son between the White House and the Cab­i­net on a wide array of pol­icy mat­ters. He was also respon­si­ble for devel­op­ing multi-agency solu­tions to imme­di­ate prob­lems and coor­di­nat­ing com­mu­ni­ca­tion between the pol­icy coun­cils and the Cab­i­net agen­cies. His Sen­ate expe­ri­ence also included a stint as Senior Pol­icy Advi­sor to Major­ity Leader George Mitchell. And he served as Deputy Chief of State at the Labor Depart­ment for Sec­re­tary Robert At the state level, Kris worked for the National Gov­er­nors’ Asso­ci­a­tion in the 1980’s and ran the Mass­a­chu­setts State Office in Wash­ing­ton on behalf of Gov­er­nor Michael Dukakis. Kris holds his BA in Polit­i­cal Sci­ence from LeMoyne Col­lege and his MA in Gov­ern­ment from George­town University.

Michael Schlein, Pres­i­dent and CEO, Accion

Michael Schlein is the pres­i­dent and CEO of Accion, a global non­profit ded­i­cated to build­ing a finan­cially inclu­sive world. A world pio­neer in micro­fi­nance, Accion has helped build 63 micro­fi­nance insti­tu­tions in 32 coun­tries, which cur­rently reach mil­lions of clients and pro­vide them with the finan­cial tools that can help improve their lives. Today, Accion has oper­a­tions and invest­ments through­out much of Latin Amer­ica, Africa, India, China and the Philip­pines. Schlein brings nearly 30 years of exten­sive inter­na­tional bank­ing, man­age­ment and pub­lic ser­vice expe­ri­ence to his role as pres­i­dent and CEO of Accion. As pres­i­dent of Citigroup’s Inter­na­tional Fran­chise Man­age­ment, Schlein man­aged the bank’s net­work of 100 Chief Coun­try Offi­cers. Before that, Michael ran com­mu­ni­ca­tions, phil­an­thropy, gov­ern­ment rela­tions, brand­ing, and human resources for Cit­i­group. He served as chief of staff at the U.S. Secu­ri­ties and Exchange Com­mis­sion in the Clin­ton Admin­is­tra­tion and in New York’s City Hall in the Dink­ins and Koch Admin­is­tra­tions. He began his career in invest­ment bank­ing. Schlein has been involved with micro­fi­nance for many years, serv­ing on the board and Exec­u­tive Com­mit­tee of Accion before becom­ing CEO and pres­i­dent, and play­ing a lead­er­ship role at the Citi Foun­da­tion, which has a long his­tory of fund­ing micro­fi­nance ini­tia­tives. He is also a mem­ber of the Coun­cil on For­eign Rela­tions. Schlein has grad­u­ate and under­grad­u­ate degrees from the Mass­a­chu­setts Insti­tute of Tech­nol­ogy where he grad­u­ated Phi Beta Kappa.

Along with rep­re­sen­ta­tives from many other lead­ing devel­op­ment institutions