Grameen America Blog

Last Thursday (May 19, 2011) we had our first Spring Social event at the Trespa Design Centre hosted by Grameen America’s Young Professional (YP) committee. The event was organized to raise awareness about the great work that Grameen America is doing and also to fundraise for Grameen America borrowers. It was no doubt also a great networking event for young professionals who share a common mission of helping create a better world. Trespa Design Centre generously donated their space in Soho for the event and the cutting edge architecture and design was a big hit with our guests. We also had hors d’oeuvres and drinks supplied by Whole Foods and pizza from Harry’s Italian. Although this wasn’t the first YP event (each YP member takes turns organizing small events throughout the year such as the Bring Your Own Cause event at Delancey Lounge and presentations at Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank and YPFP), this was the first collaborative effort on the part of the whole committee. It was by far our biggest and most successful Young Professional event to date, as over 100 people came to support Grameen America and our mission of empowering impoverished entrepreneurs through microfinance.


The evening began with an address from Event Chairs Narmeen Azad of Goldman Sachs and Anita Hossain from Deutsche Bank followed by Grameen America’s Katherine Rosenberg, VP of Strategic Partnerships and Seema Gohil, VP of Finance who spoke about the success of our current programs. There was also a silent auction with many great items such as Mets tickets, US Open tickets, a football signed by the NY Jets, Nike items and football, Equinox Monthly passes and a class at Murray’s Cheese. There were also interesting raffle items like America Museum of Natural History Passes, Living Social Coupon, and Jewelry from Prismera. While the event was set for 6-9pm, many people stayed after to continue chatting and listening to the great music provided by DJ Max Wave.


We would like to acknowledge the key organizers from the YP Committee who helped make this event such a success: Narmeen Azad from Goldman Sachs, Anita Hossain from Deutsche Bank, Nahiyan Chowdhury from JP Morgan Chase, Tanzeer Khan from Corporate Partners LLC, Adeep Huq from Credit Suisse, Emaan Mahmood from Credit Suisse and Jane Kim from Morgan Stanley. A special thank you also goes to Ariq Azad for putting together our event website. Thanks to all for making the event such a success!


For more information or to join the Grameen America’s Young Professional Committee, please contact Mugdha Gangopadhyay (Director, Strategy & Development). Also, stay tuned to our Facebook and Twitter pages for more Young Professional Committee events in the near future!