Women Wednesday With Briana Marbury
Meet Briana Marbury, CEO of the Interledger Foundation, a nonprofit organization committed to expanding digital financial inclusion to vulnerable populations.
The Interledger Foundation (ILF) is on a mission to invest in organizations, communities and entrepreneurs working towards the shared goal of enabling interoperable and frictionless payments around the globe.
As CEO, Briana leads the strategic vision of the organization and has grown ILF from a small team of three to a global workforce of changemakers. Bringing her own firsthand experience with navigating the challenges associated with the lack of equitable financial access, Briana brings her skills, values and lived experience to the crucial work of enabling communities to create and lead their own financial futures.
Before joining ILF, Briana consulted for 350.org and held financial leadership roles at Repair the World, Uncommon Schools, and the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation. At each organization, she built and grew the financial and operational systems that enabled significant progress towards achieving their mission. Additionally, Briana served as an Education Pioneer Graduate Fellow, exploring ways to increase positive educational outcomes in the nation’s most underserved schools.
Briana holds a B.A. in Accounting from the University of Michigan, an MBA from Wayne State University, and has completed post-graduate work in strategic leadership at Stanford University. Originally from Detroit, Briana has lived in many cities across the U.S. and has even spent a brief period as a digital nomad. When she’s not exploring new cities, she’s spending time with her pup, Seamus.
Do you have a personal quote or life's motto you live by?
“I try to live by two principles: be kind and remain humble. I was taught from an early age that no matter what someone’s station is in life, we are all human beings and deserve the dignity of being treated as such; being kind costs you nothing.”
What inspires you?
“I’m amazed and inspired by the ingenuity of people that find innovative solutions to seemingly insurmountable obstacles. Take the mobile money networks that have been created in various countries in Africa as an example. Millions of people were deliberately left out of participating in traditional banks for a plethora of reasons, including not having the correct documentation to open an account or the ability to maintain balances high enough to justify investment in their communities.
Seeing a gap that wasn’t addressed by conventional financial systems, innovators discovered a way for people to transact with their phones instead of following the traditional route, which spawned the explosion of mobile money providers in Africa. Now, those millions of people deemed unworthy of servicing account for 70% of the trillion-dollar mobile money industry.”
A fun fact about yourself:
“If I could get away with it, I would opt for dessert 90% of the time versus an actual meal!”
More about The Interledger Foundation