www.grameenfoundation.org

  www.grameen-info.org

  www.fonkoze.org

  www.brac.net

  www.microcreditsummit.org

Paul Mitchell is CEO of Sea Change, a dynamic, new non-profit foundation that is based in Ireland and is creating a global network of microfinance partners throughout the world.

Paul became Sea Change foundation’s first Executive director in 2005 after 20 years in banking and a further 4 years honing his skills and vision in the charity business in a voluntary capacity.

A 2004 University of Leicester graduate, with a master’s degree in business, Paul’s commitment to poverty eradication deepened during the time he spent in India, Nepal and Tibet and subsequently in Thailand in 2005 after witnessing first hand the devastation of the tsunami.  This inspired him to help survivors rebuild their shattered lives through microfinance.  On his return to Ireland he decided that more could be done to help these people and contacted a number of likeminded friends and Sea Change was set up.

After he left a banking career in 2002 after 23 years, a member of his rugby club Mick O’Connell broke his neck and was permanently paralysed from the chest down.  He decided to take 12 months out in a voluntary capacity to set up and coordinate the appeal, which raised €1.2million.

Since he set up Sea Change Paul has worked in a voluntary capacity, and travelled travelled extensively to Haiti, Kenya, Bangladesh, Canada and the USA  to broaden  his knowledge of best practice in the industry. Fonkoze in Haiti is seen as a role model for what can be achieved through microfinance in an unstable political environment in the poorest country in the western hemisphere.