For over a decade, CapPlus has partnered with financial institutions to promote financial inclusion for small businesses, including women entrepreneurs and social enterprises.

Lynn Pikholz

President & CEO

Ms. Pikholz is a small business finance expert and specialist who has led CapPlus from its startup to its current place in the global SME finance community. She brings nearly 30 years’ experience in MSME finance, nonprofit management, consulting, impact investing and low-income housing in emerging markets. She has published articles, training manuals and papers on small business and microfinance, risk management, business development services and low-income housing.

Previously, Ms. Pikholz was Senior Managing Director at ShoreBank Advisory Services where she headed the Africa practice and managed multi-year capacity building assignments with downscaling banks and MFIs in the MENA region, South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. Prior to that, she was an advisor to the Independent Electoral Commission in 1994 for South Africa’s first democratic elections.

lpikholz@capplus.org

Dr. Peter Colenso

Director, Education Outcomes

Rula Dababneh

Vice President

Ms. Dababneh is an international development specialist, practitioner and program manager with over 20 years of professional experience in banking, private sector development, economic growth, and programmatic and financial management.

During her years as a Regional Director at CGAP and a Senior Financial Services Advisor at Development Innovations Group (DIG), Ms. Dababneh managed capacity building programs to financial institutions in North, East, and South Africa, the Middle East, Central and Eastern Europe, and Central and Southeast Asia. She has extensive technical experience in leading public and private sector financial and economic development programs, with comprehensive management skills in all aspects of operations, including strategic planning and budgeting.

rdababneh@capplus.org

Emilio Ghersi

Director of Investments

Ellen Har

Senior Manager

Ms. Har manages capacity building relationships with microfinance institutions, NBFIs, and banks. She is also responsible for CapPlus’s grant funding, and has managed the publication of toolkits focused on performance management, human capital, and benchmarks for small business banking.

Prior to joining CapPlus Ms. Har worked as an organizer and teacher in South Korea’s TaLK Program where she developed her expertise as a program manager and project manager.

ehar@capplus.org

Peter Hinton

Senior Banker

Mr. Hinton has over 25 years of commercial experience including 22 years on boards in emerging markets, private equity, banking, development and increasing access to finance for SMEs in Africa. He has extensive experience in developing and strengthening governance at FIs, with experience in strategy and business development. He is now applying his experience to developing a sectoral approach to increasing finance to affordable private primary schools in Africa and South Asia. Peter is an associate fellow at Said Business School, University of Oxford teaching on the MBA and Impact Investment programmes. He is a director of Bean There Coffee Company, S Africa, the UK charity Send A Cow supporting rural livelihoods in Africa and the Hugh Pilkington Charitable Trust a UK educational charity operating in Africa.

phinton@capplus.org

Gerry Monteiro

Senior Banker

Mr. Monteiro is a technology-oriented banker with over 40 years of experience and strong strategic, business and credit expertise with well-developed negotiation and management skills. He has led or advised start-up and turn-around projects in an array of banks and non-bank financial institutions in Sub-Saharan Africa, MENA region and South Asia. He is skilled in diagnostics, marketing and business development; corporate, SME, microfinance and consumer lending; risk and compliance management; e-commerce; business consultancy and project management and conceptualizing and building infrastructure systems.

gmonteiro@capplus.org

Lynn Railsback

Vice President

Ms. Railsback has more than 25 years’ experience in development finance, many of them at ShoreBank Corporation where she led implementation of major strategic initiatives, including strategies to serve new customer segments as well as marketing, IT and human resources strategies. She also has extensive experience in corporate communications and events management.

lrailsback@capplus.org

Geoff Renk

Chief Financial Officer

Mr. Renk is a licensed CPA with over 25 years of experience, including more than 15 years as controller at a bank holding company. He has expertise in accounting, finance, regulatory reporting, income taxes, reporting systems, and risk management, and has participated in microfinance technical assistance projects in Bangladesh and Uganda.

Mr. Renk has worked in national and international accounting firms, and provided accounting and consulting services to a broad range of clients, including financial institutions, real estate firms, and nonprofit organizations.

grenk@capplus.org

David Sheffieck

Manager

Mr. Sheffieck leads execution of peer learning events, in-person and web-based, along with company-wide communications and marketing. He manages CapPlus’s web channels, and headed member outreach for the Small Business Banking Network. He supports grant proposals and reporting, as well as leading other initiatives to strengthen the company.

dsheffieck@capplus.org

Alkis Theodhori

Senior Associate

Ms. Theodhori plays a key supporting role in the capacity building business, working closely on management of all capacity building projects and pipeline projects. She also supports in the development and writing of grant proposals and reports, as well as other projects such as CapPlus’s peer learning events.

Prior to CapPlus, Ms. Theodhori supported the formulation, management, and implementation of all youth employment project activities for the International Labour Organization in the West Bank and worked with entrepreneurs at Alpha Bank, a commercial bank in Albania.

atheodhori@capplus.org

Frances Toomey-Mys

Senior Advisor

Ms. Toomey-Mys is a development finance expert with over 25 years’ experience building and growing financial institutions’ financial and business development services to micro, small and medium-sized enterprises.

Risk management, product development, market analysis, program design, fund management and institutional assessments are some of Ms. Toomey-Mys’ key areas of expertise. In addition, she established and managed a women entrepreneurship development program in Ethiopia, assessed and prepared human resource policies, procedures and guideline manuals for a microfinance bank in Papua New Guinea and transformed microfinance institutions into for profit operations. She has created SME, commercial, agriculture and rural lending units, established microfinance institutions, and provided a wide variety of capacity building within financial institutions in Africa and the Middle East, South and Central Asia, the South Pacific and Eastern Europe. Her experience includes implementing projects funded by DFID, the WorldBank/IFC, USAID, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

ftoomey-mys@capplus.org