Serena Thomson works at the Secretariat of the Finance Alliance for Sustainable Trade (FAST), an organization that provides services to increase the number of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) that have access to the finance they need for sustainable, long-term growth of their businesses. FAST focuses on agriculture and forestry sectors and key services include financial management training for SMEs to improve their credit-readiness, matchmaking between SMEs and appropriate lenders, and analytics on investment and impact. Recently Serena has managed an access-to-finance project for SMEs in the coffee and fruit/vegetable sectors in Central America, and has laid the groundwork for similar projects in El Salvador and the Caribbean. She is based in Montreal, Canada.