Ruth Goodwin-Groen is a nonresident senior fellow with the Atlantic Council’s GeoEconomics Center. Goodwin-Groen brings thirty years of strategic and technical leadership in financial sector development and financial inclusion in emerging markets to her current consulting practice, Goodwin-Groen Consulting. Her focus is on responsible digital payments and equality in financial services for women.

Goodwin-Groen is best known as the founding managing director of the United Nations⁠–hosted Better Than Cash Alliance. Starting in 2012, she and her team created a global movement from cash to responsible digital payments to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. Alliance members and partners include over 113 governments, 229 companies, and most of the UN—accounting for over 90 percent of global gross domestic product. Key partners included the African Continental Free Trade Area Secretariat, the Climate Vulnerable Forum/Vulnerable 20 at the UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties, and the World Food Programme. Goodwin-Groen also served on the reference group of the UN secretary general’s special advocate for inclusive finance for development (Queen Máxima of the Netherlands) and on the International Monetary Fund’s External Gender Advisory Committee.

Goodwin-Groen has led financial sector development initiatives within the Group of Twenty and with the Australian, UK, and German governments, as well as with the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, the Consultative Group to Assist the Poor, the Financial Sector Deepening Trust of Ethiopia, and others.  

Goodwin-Groen has a PhD in financial sector development from the University of Bath, an MBA with distinction from Harvard Business School, and a Bachelor of Science with Honours from the University of Western Australia.