Christine VIOLAGO

Christine Violago is the acting Country Director and Lead for Partner Development & Management at Grameen Foundation (GF) in the Philippines. She is responsible for strengthening the pipeline for strategic collaborations for programs on mobile agriculture and financial services, including the WomenLink initiative. In 2018, WomenLink drives the usage and awareness of digital channels by registering 20,000 women as recipients of an SMS based extension for financial and digital literacy. In 2016, Christine also managed GF’s Community Agent Network (CAN) Program with the goal of establishing a shared agent network that allowed end-users to receive financial services or conduct transactions within their villages. As of January 2018, CAN was able to onboard 1,896 agents, 75% of which are women, catering to 423 barangays (villages) nationwide. Part of her role is to provide insight and inputs for program theory and analyse project data to develop human-centred recommendations for the overall improvement of processes and service offerings.

Prior to GF, Christine spent 2 years working as the Vice President of Operations for their family-owned rice mill in Nueva Ecija. Here, she honed her entrepreneurial skills and had day-to-day touch points with small holder rice farmers as well as local business agents. Her passion for regional integration was further strengthened through her participation as Executive Director of the working committee for the APEC Voices of the Future 2015 Program in Manila. After graduation, she worked for World Youth Alliance as Regional Director for Asia Pacific focusing on promoting human dignity though policy, educational programs and cultural events. Christine holds a Master's Degree in Development Economics from the University of the Philippines Diliman and a Bachelor of Arts majoring in Development Studies from De La Salle University Manila.

‍