Sarah Forster, Executive Director began her career in Peshawar working for an NGO providing aid to Afghanistan. After obtaining a Masters Degree from Columbia University, she joined the World Bank in 1991. During nine years at the World Bank, Sarah worked on Africa, Asia and Eastern Europe as a project manager and policy analyst on poverty alleviation initiatives. She spent four years based in Bosnia-Herzegovina where she led the design and supervision of a $50 million microfinance investment fund which successfully supported the start-up of eight microfinance institutions now providing loans to over 100,000 low-income microentrepreneurs with positive financial and social returns.

From 2001-2004, Sarah was a Director at the New Economics Foundation (NEF), leading the Enterprising Communities team, which carried out research and advocacy work on access to finance, local enterprise and social return on investment. She was also Director of the Inner City 100, supported by The Royal Bank of Scotland Group, Financial Times and HM Treasury, which championed entrepreneurship in the inner city.

In 2005, Sarah established herself as an independent consultant providing consulting services for a range of UK and international clients. In 2006, she founded a research-based strategy consultancy business, Geoeconomics, with her husband, Mark Hepworth.

Sarah has served on the boards of several microfinance and social venture organisations.

She was educated at Cambridge University and Columbia University, New York.