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.
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).
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.
[1] In 2009, Houghton served as one of six selection committee members for the Rudy Bruner Award for Urban Excellence.