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American businessman, Greg Casagrande, founder and president of the South Pacific Business Development Foundation (SPBD) in Samoa, has a decision to make, who should he hire to be the next general manager of SPBD, when the contract of his current general manager ends in January 2005. Should he hire a local Samoan or a palegi, a foreigner? Casagrande founded the SPBD, a microfinance institution (MFI) providing financial services to poor people, in January 2000. He hired a Samoan with an MBA from the US to be his general manager. Nine months later Casagrande discovered that the general manager was engaging in a variety of fraudulent activities, as were some of his staff. Casagrande was forced to leave his home in New Zealand to fly to Samoa to step in directly. He instituted a number of reforms, including the decision to lend to women only. Casagrande?s reforms put the SPBD back on track and, in 2002, he hired Minh Lai, a Vietnamese-Canadian investment banker, to become the general manager. Lai built on Casagrande?s reforms, expanded the client base, and introduced new products, including a savings product. But questions still remained. Was SPBD having its intended impact on the lives of its women clients? Would SPBD reach its goal of financial self-sufficiency by 2006? The case raises a number of questions: (1) what is the appropriate role of foreign social entrepreneurs in promoting projects in developing countries?; (2) why do MFI''s target women?; (3) what impact do they have?; and (4) what are the tensions inherent in the goal of creating a financially self-sufficient development project?