Peggy Clark

Peggy Clark is the Vice President of Policy Programs, Executive Director of Aspen Global Health and Development, and Co-Director of Artisan Partners @Aspen and the Alliance for Artisan Enterprise. Peggy has had a 30 year career working on issues of poverty alleviation, global health, social enterprise and development finance. Serving in founding and leadership roles at the Aspen Institute, the Ford Foundation, Save the Children, Realizing Rights, and on numerous boards, Peggy has been a leading figure in identifying and building industries, movements, and creative advocacy on key issues of our times. Currently, Peggy provides strategic oversight and guidance to the Institute’s 28 policy programs and directs programs promoting breakthrough solutions to global development including artisan enterprise, reproductive health, new voices leadership development, health workforce sustainability, and food security. Previously, Peggy served as founding Managing Director of Realizing Rights: The Ethical Globalization Initiative, as the Executive Vice President for Programs of the Aspen Institute.

Peggy founded the Self-Employment Learning Project at the Aspen Institute, later named the Economic Opportunities Program in 1991 and in this role, Peggy helped to establish the field of sectoral workforce development with the publication Jobs and the Urban Poor and crafted new legislation to support industry led workforce development, and led efforts to establish the field of microenterprise development in the US. Prior to that, Peggy was a Program Officer at the Ford Foundation and the first Director of Small Scale Enterprise and Credit at Save the Children. Peggy was a leader in founding and shaping the microfinance field internationally, helping to draft the first microenterprise legislation for USAID and serving on the first Microenterprise Advisory Council to the Administrator of USAID. Peggy also is a nationally recognized leader in establishing the microfinance field domestically leading the first national evaluation of the microenterprise field and helping to develop the first Small Business Administration legislation to support microenterprise in the US. In 1995 Peggy received the Presidential Award for Excellence in Microenterprise Development from President Bill Clinton.