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Mary Houghton, President of ShoreBank Corporation, is one of the four co-founders of ShoreBank, the nation’s first community development and environmental bank holding company. Since its inception in 1973, ShoreBank has been providing financial services and information to fuel the growth and rebirth of Chicago’s underserved South and West Side neighborhoods.
With $2.1 billion in assets, the bank has financed more than $3 billion for the renovation and purchase of nearly 50,000 units of new affordable housing. Under Mary’s leadership, ShoreBank consists of two commercial banks: the original bank in Chicago and ShoreBank Pacific.
After Mary led a team in the 1980s to Bangladesh and advised Muhammad Yunus, a 2006 Nobel Peace Prize winner and founder of the Grameen Bank, ShoreBank International was started. ShoreBank International helps financial institutions, governments and communities around the world provide credit for micro-enterprise, small and medium size businesses and housing.
In 1988, at the request of then-Governor Bill Clinton, Mary was instrumental in the launch of the Southern Development Bancorporation in Arkansas, an undertaking that ultimately led President Clinton to establish the Community Development Financial Institutions Fund. Later, Mary was instrumental in ShoreBank becoming an investor in the K-REP Bank in Nairobi, Kenya where she serves on the board of a bank where a $70 loan creates a new business that feeds and supports entire families.
Mary also serves as the chair of ShoreCap International. It invests capital in locally regulated financial institutions and provides loans to help develop small businesses in transitional and emerging economies.
Mary was a founder of the Women’s Self Employment Project, a leading U.S. microfinance organization and serves on the board of the Calvert Foundation. In 2004, Mary was named Community Banker of the Year by American Banker in recognition of being a pioneer in the community development banking field.
In 2006,The Gleitsman Foundation, which honors those who challenged social injustice, presented her with a Citizen Activist Award at Harvard John F. Kennedy School of Government. In 2007, Mary was named a member of the Ashoka Global Academy for Social Entrepreneurship and one of America’s Best Leaders by U.S. News & World Report. Mary earned her B.A. cum laude from Marquette University and an M.A. in international studies from Johns Hopkins University.
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