Giovanni Nicola Pes is the Director of the Planning and Research Department at the National Italian Agency for Microcredit. He is also a Member of the fi-compass expert group (European Commission) and President of the Credit and European Structural and Investment Funds (ESIF) Committee of the L'Associazione Nazionale per lo Studio dei Problemi del Credito (ANSPC), Italy. He collaborates with several Universities as a lecturer. He is the former Director of the European Capacity Building Project for the Public Administration, and previously held office in the capacity of Manager and Consultant with several international organizations. He was Chief Editor of the Microcredit and Development Policies Observatory for the journal Microfinanza, and contributes articles to various specialized journals. Pasqualina Porretta is Senior Lecturer of Banking and Finance at 'Sapienza' University of Rome, Italy, where she teaches risk management in banking and insurance, and derivatives. She is also a member of the academic board for the PhD in Management, Banking and Commodity Science at 'Sapienza' University of Rome. Her main research interests are risk measurement and management (credit risk, market risk, liquidity risk, counterparty risk), capital regulatory framework, financial derivatives, credit guarantee institutions and microcredit. She acts as a consultant and trainer for various financial intermediaries, microfinance institutions, public entities and consulting firms.