Michaela L. Walsh (born in Kansas City, Missouri),[1] financier, banker, founder and first president of Women's World Banking.
Walsh was one a handful of women working on Wall Street in the 1950s[2] when she became the first female manager to represent Merrill Lynch in its Beirut, Lebanon office in 1960.
[3] In 1970, Walsh became the first woman to make partner at the Wall Street brokerage firm Boettcher and Company.
[4] In 1972, Walsh joined the Rockefeller Brothers Fund as a program associate, which led to her attending the 1975 World Conference on Women held in Mexico City, where the idea of Women’s World Banking emerged.
[7] Walsh attended Manhattanville College for one year before finishing her education at Kansas City University (now UMKC).