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So many people wished to salute Monique Cohen that we wanted to give them more room, and so here are two more colleagues expressing their appreciation for her work. 

Heather Clark is an independent consultant who, among her appointments, previously managed CFI’s now-completed Beyond Codes project. Robyn Robertson is currently Director of Financial Education at Opportunity International. Of course, more comments are always welcome.

Recently someone asked me “who do you consider a hero?”

I thought about this for a long time. For me a hero has to have vision, determination, and the wherewithal to make the vision something important, valuable to society, and lasting. It’s much better if the vision battles the current wisdom, as there is nothing like challenging the way the world works.

Implementing Monique’s vision was not easy in the early days. No one wanted to hear about clients, when the focus was on organizational sustainability. Monique battled the early days of impact assessment and continued, amazingly undaunted. She found the vision — “it’s about understanding clients,” she said.

Perhaps it sounds so simple now. But without Monique, without Microfinance Opportunities, we would never have had such a clear path for the future.

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