Some of the world's most innovative banks have no travertine lobbies, no ballpoint pens with chains and no lollipops.
Oomen, 40, earned an MBA from Long Island University-Westchester Graduate Campus in Purchase in 2006. Her microfinance bona fides include an initial seminar a year ago that sparked a just-completed four months in rural Sri Lanka. She worked in conjunction with the Women's Development Federation, which determined she would go to the former Ceylon. She was tagged the Wl)F's guinea pig, she said, owing to how little organizational work had been done where she was going. She is perhaps the only person from these parts now living in Yonkers - to teach essentially business administration on such an immediate and life-altering level.Oomen's graduate business studies focused on finance and management. She was an analyst at MBIA, which Oomen credits with supporting her efforts by maintaining her medical coverage while she took her four-month unpaid furlough in Sri Lanka."This is a banking-customer relationship in its simplest form," said Harriet Oomen, a practitioner of microfinance. "Here is a loan. Here is the interest rate. You are paying me back. It's a simple, basic way of doing business. But there has to be trust." And, she said, having walked the walk last year, "It can work. It depends on the institution, but by and large the loan repayment rates are 98 percent. The microfinance industry has done very well."It is high praise to have one's college appeal to the media to tell a recent graduate's story. Take the praise a notch higher when you learn the student is unemployed, which, even though Oomen is a victim of the downturn, schools tend not to advertise.Oomen fronted $10,000 of her own money to bring management training to rnicrofinance business people in Sri Lanka. Between September and December 2008, she instructed microfinanciers in the business regimens of finance and financial reporting, basic business skills, interviewing techniques, human resources and e-mail training. She worked in southern, rural Sri Lanka alongside Sriyani Mangalika, CEO of the Women's Development Federation. She stays in touch with her program clients there, a nod to the fact she also taught English.Oomen's gift - business planning, management, hiring, reviews, interviewing techniques, better e-mails - should pay back with better programs into the future. "What I low is accountability and the small-scale building of economies," she said.After attending a Women's World Banking Organization microfinance conference in February 2008, Oomen set in motion gears that would take her to Sri Lanka with the business model that states big things can come from little investments. The model is not new - it won Muhammad Yunus the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006. In an article on what it terms microlending, Business Week magazine said the idea in the U.S. dates to the early days of the women's movement in the 1960s as a way to promote female-owned businesses. Oomen called it "back to basic finance, without all the mechanisms no one understands."MBIA reported Sept. 30 it was managing $60.4 billion in assets. Oomen stepped from that world into,, one where $60 can mean the difference between make or break; funds for a cistern to ease the strain of the dry season and for papaya plants were typical loans.Sri Lanka generally makes the American news cycle for its protracted war and Oomen was not spared. Saffran reported: "Even in the more peaceful south, where Oomen worked, bombs exploded several times near her residence in the resort town of Mount Lavinia. 'But no people were killed,' she said."Oomen lost her job at financial services firm MBIA in Armonk Jan. 6.Her story came to light because Helen Saffran, who works as associate director of public relations at Ws Brooklyn Campus began reading Omen's Nog from Sri Lanka. She still has not met Oomen face to face, although they have spoken on the phone.According to BusinessWeek, micro lenders distribute an average of $7,000 to up to 20,000 entrepreneurs a year in the U.S. Oomen said Muhammad Yunus' Grameen Bank has plans to open 20 inner-city branches in the U.S. where the loan range would be $3,000 to $10,000.Oomen was interviewing for a new job as of press time. Her dream job: "To manage a portfolio of microfinance institutions on behalf of a large fund or bank."Saffran, associate director of public relations at LIU-Brooklyn, banged out two pages of good reasons to tell Oomen's story. She enlisted Lynn Johnson, director of the fast-track MBA program at LIU's Westchester Graduate Campus to weigh in on Oomen: "She is a dynamic business professional whose skills and vision are valuable anywhere in the world."
Oomen was interviewing for a new job as of press time. Her dream job: "To manage a portfolio of microfinance institutions on behalf of a large fund or bank."
