Speaker Bio
Jamie M. Zimmerman is Deputy Director of Digital Connectivity at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. As part of the Gender Impact Accelerators team within the Gender Equality Division, Jamie M. Zimmerman is driving a new learning agenda and strategy around tools, platforms, and business models to accelerate the closure of the gender digital divide and enhance meaningful digital connectivity to improve the lives and livelihoods of women and girls.
Jamie joined the Foundation’s Gender Equality division after 5 years in the Global Growth and Opportunity Division where she has led Foundation’s work to increase low-income women’s economic empowerment through access to and usage of digital financial services. She joined the Foundation in 2017 as a Senior Program Officer on the Inclusive Financial Systems team.
Prior to joining the Foundation, Jamie spent several years as an independent global advisor to several partners, including the World Bank, CGAP, IFC, USAID, UNCDF, G20 presidency, World Food Program and the International Rescue Committee. From 2006 to 2013, she directed the Global Assets Program at New America, a Washington DC based think tank, and was previously deputy director of Globalization Studies at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise, where she authored, with Dr. Susan Aaronson, Trade Imbalance: The Struggle to Weigh Human Rights Concerns in Trade Policymaking.
Jamie holds a B.A. in Foreign Languages and International Economics, and a Master's in International Political Economic and Development, both from the University of Kentucky.
You can follow her on twitter @jamiemzimmerman.