Mary Houghton

Mary Houghton is co-founder of ShoreBank, the largest and oldest community development bank. Houghton, along with Milton Davis, James Fletcher, and Ron Grzywinski purchased in 1973 what was then South Shore Bank to fight redlining in the Chicago neighborhood. She retired as president in May 2010. Biography In the early 1980s, Houghton and Grzywinski worked with Muhammad Yunus of the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh (Yunus and Grameen Bank received the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize). From 1986 to 2001, Houghton served on the Board of Directors of Accion International. Houghton serves as a director of Vancity Community Investment Bank in Toronto and served as a director of the Calvert Foundation and Women's World Banking. She is a member of the Ashoka Global Academy for Social Entrepreneurship.