Ololade Adesola
Senior Banker, Edufinance
Ms. Ololade Adesola is a chartered management consultant with vast experience in finance, micro-lending and edufinance. Before going into consulting, she worked in financial institutions serving all levels of the economy from microentrepreneurs to large corporates. Since 2019, she has worked in various aspects of edufinance, including appraising financial institutions’ readiness to enter the education sector, developing strategic plans for building impactful and profitable edufinance portfolios, designing edufinance products and overseeing pilot tests, training FSP staff in effective delivery of edufinance products, and monitoring edufinance portfolios.
Augustine Akowuah
Senior Banker
Mr. Augustine Akowuah has more than 15 years’ experience in MSME banking and microfinance, including senior management positions in Ghana, Kenya, Tanzania and Nigeria. He has served as Chief Executive Officer, Managing Director and Chief Operating Officer in various MSME institutions. His focus areas include institutional strengthening in MSME banking, risk management, business development, personnel development and operational efficiency and the management of institutions. He held a number of positions at ProCredit Ghana/Fidelity Bank where he worked for nine years.
Benjamin Ofosu Agyemang
Senior Banker
Mr. Benjamin Ofosu Agyemang brings a breadth of experience to CapPlus, from creating and advising microfinance institutions on investment opportunities, process mapping, corporate finance serving as a Senior Investment Officer, as well as advising companies on governance, strategic planning, operations and serving as general manager. In CapPlus’ FIRST+ project, he assesses financial institutions’ investment readiness and recommends strategies to become more attractive to investors who can contribute more capital. He has a Bachelor’s degree in Actuarial Science, a Masters in Marketing, and is a Certified Private Equity Specialist.
Dominic Owusu Ansah
Senior Banker
Mr. Dominic Owusu Ansah is a senior financial services and product development expert with over 15 years of progressively responsible experience in financial services and product development for Ghanaian financial institutions. He has designed and developed financial services focused on youth; education; agricultural value chains; renewable energy; water, sanitation and hygiene; and auto loans. He supported the design and implementation of pay-for-performance incentive grants for financial institutions to address barriers preventing them from increasing agricultural loans. Much of his career has focused on increasing finance and other services to agribusinesses.
Paa Kwesi Awuku-Darko
Senior Banker
Mr. Paa Kwesi Awuku-Darko is a development finance professional with over fourteen years of experience in project management and technical assistance services in agricultural finance, enterprise development, and digital financial services. His areas of expertise include agricultural value chain development, rural and agricultural finance, impact investment, blended finance, digital financial services, and other inclusive finance approaches such as value chain finance and community-based microfinance models such as self help groups and village savings and loans associations. Mr. Awuku-Darko’s previous roles include serving as Branch Manager in charge of agricultural lending at ProCredit Ghana; Regional Coordinator, Upper East Region for ACDI/VOCA on the USAID ADVANCE program in Ghana; and Associate Program Officer on the Financial Inclusion for Smallholder Farmers in Africa Project (FISFAP)-Mastercard Foundation and AGRA partnership. He holds professional certificates in digital finance, SME finance, and financial inclusion policy, as well as an academic background in development finance and agriculture.
Sumit Bagchi
Development Finance IT Specialist
Mr. Sumit Bagchi has worked with CapPlus over the past decade to deliver information technology solutions to our clients and other development organizations, including embedding impact measurement into financial institutions’ MIS. His 18 years’ experience in the financial sector gives him a strategic understanding of technology and its application and delivery for achieving overall business objectives. Mr. Bagchi designs and implements IT systems ranging from simple to complex, transitions organizations to digital operations, and develops IT strategies and manages their implementation. Financial institution clients include microfinance institutions, banks, and leasing companies in Africa, India, East Asia and the Pacific.
Howard Brady
Inclusive Finance Data Analyst
Mr. Howard Brady is a highly skilled data analyst specializing in the inclusive finance sector, especially microfinance institutions. He creates databases using data from multiple sources to create models, analyze trends, and provide information to management to improve financial performance and operations. For example, he led a team to correct a serious delinquency management issue by analyzing a pool of 25,000 loans made by 100 loan officers to identify trends that would explain 50%PAR>30 at a Philippine MFI. Similarly, he created a 1,052 branch reporting master database from separate reporting systems for an MFI to analyze branches on key metrics, including longitudinal analysis of trends at an MFI. In addition to analyzing data, Howard enhances and trains microfinance professionals on Microfin, the leading Microfinance projection and budgeting tool, and conducts frequent trainings on strategic management and financial analysis for microfinance practitioners.
Christopher Engelhardt
Senior Banker
Mr. Christopher Engelhardt is an agricultural economist by profession – and a finance, banking and MSME/agricultural/rural finance expert with more than 18 years of experience in financial institution management and banking operations as well as consulting and policy advice in over 15 sub-Saharan countries. He held several senior management positions in SME banks and MFIs in Western and Southern Africa. He served as Senior Policy Advisor to the Directorate of Economic Policy Advisory Services (EPAS) at the Ministry of Finance in Namibia focussing on regulatory frameworks for non-bank financial institutions, financial sector stability and market conduct, financial inclusion – including microfinance, micro-insurance as well as on financial capability and education. Over the last years, he managed various expert teams as team leader in agricultural finance, biodiversity finance, digital finance and economic development projects in various Sub-Saharan African countries for an array of donors, including KfW, GIZ and MCF. In addition to the team leadership, he also contributes as subject-matter senior expert in areas like good institutional governance, institutional stability, ESMS and general risk management frameworks.
Craig Feinberg
Senior Banker
Mr. Craig Feinberg has over 25 years of international microfinance and small enterprise development experience, much of it in sub-Saharan Africa. He has initiated, developed and managed a complex multi-donor nationwide microfinance sector development project, and was a long-term resident technical advisor for three microfinance institutions, two non-bank financial institutions and two commercial banks. He also served as a long-term intermittent SME lending expert for two large commercial banks in East and West Africa. He has extensive experience with rural and urban individual and group lending methodologies; small and medium enterprise lending; product design and management; training and technical assistance; market research and writing policy and procedure manuals, reports and proposals.
John Guzowski
Senior Banker
Mr. John Guzowski has over 30 years’ experience in working with financial cooperatives, micro finance institutions and banks around the world in MSME and Ag sector product development, loan appraisal, internal control, risk and delinquency management, governance, and strategic planning. He is a specialist in applying the value chain approach to financing, and in creating tailor-made tools to facilitate implementation.
Dr. Joanna Härmä
Senior Advisor
Dr. Joanna Härmä has researched low-fee private schooling for the poor in sub-Saharan Africa and India since 2004 and leads CapPlus’ education markets research across Africa, as well as serving as an advisor to the EMII team. She is an Honorary Fellow at the Centre of African Studies, University of Edinburgh, and Visiting Research Fellow at the Centre for International Education, University of Sussex. Dr. Härmä’s work is published in the Oxford Review of Education, the International Journal of Educational Development, and the Handbook of International Development and Education, among other academic journals and edited volumes. She has designed and conducted studies for DfID, developed reports for UNESCO, and served as a Visiting Scholar at Columbia University.
Ahmad Jazayeri
Development Finance
Mr. Ahmad Jazayeri has 35 years’ experience in proposal writing, design, feasibility studies, implementation and evaluation of development projects and programs focused on private sector promotion and market systems development. His particular areas of expertise are in development finance, impact evaluation of SMEs and MFIs, financial literacy capacity building, MSME and agricultural finance product development and market research, value chain analysis and support programs, smallholder agriculture, the informal sector, cooperatives, private sector export promotion and women economic empowerment. He has worked as Team Leader in Ghana, Uganda, Tanzania, Afghanistan and Niger.
Roger Keighley
Senior Banker
Mr. Roger Keighley is a key member of CapPlus’ Education Markets Impact Initiative, where he is responsible for sourcing deals, conducting due diligence, structuring transactions and implementing/ managing capacity building. He has over 30 years’ experience in SME finance, corporate, and investment banking, and was previously Norfund’s Investment Director, Financial Institutions, where he identified equity and debt investment opportunities in financial institutions and conducted due diligence on potential investees. Mr. Keighley has strengthened SME finance at multiple financial institutions, primarily in Africa. In his various investment capacities he has monitored the implementation of transactions, managed investment portfolios and advised an international banking consortium bidding to purchase a microfinance bank through privatization. He has held bank and insurance company directorships in Lesotho, Botswana, Zimbabwe and Tanzania and serves as chair of a bank board’s risk committee.
Mawuena Kofi Abba
Senior Banker, Agriculture Finance
Mr. Mawuena Kofi Abba is a rural and agricultural finance professional with a rich experience in agronomy, financial inclusion, MSME and agricultural finance. He has worked in various roles within agricultural finance in Ghana for 12 years with an emphasis on capacity building, credit management and product development. He previously worked with ProCredit SLS, Fidelity Bank, Advans SLC and with IPC GmbH, a German financial sector consulting firm as a Senior Agric Finance Expert.
Andrew Lake
Digital Financial Services
Andrew Lake is CapPlus’ digital financial services consultant, including digital finance strategy and institutional assessments as well as design and delivery of digital finance solutions. With 20 years in emerging markets and deep experience in digital financial services, his core strengths are strategy design and execution around novel, customer-oriented digital products. He previously worked as the Principal Operations Specialist on IFC’s Global Digital Financial Services team, as well as with Risk Frontier Associates UK, MTN Group and CmO MTN Banking, and CompuServe Africa.
Terry Lennon
Marketing, Sales and Customer Service
Mr. Terry Lennon is an experienced international training consultant in marketing, sales, leadership, change management, customer service and strategy for the financial services sector. He has worked extensively in East Africa over the last 9 years and has trained over 3,000 personnel and has expanded his focus to include Ghana. Terry has also worked as a marketing and communications consultant with the microfinance sector in Jordan and with the financial sector in Iraq, Serbia and Egypt. He has a strong focus on understanding the marketing mix (product, price, place and promotion), segmentation, negotiation skills and meeting the strategic goals of financial institutions. Terry worked in Bank of Ireland as Head of Sales and Marketing for their Credit Card Division in the UK and Ireland. He was also managing director of a company in Ireland for 10 years.
Maya Margie
Senior Banker, Gender Finance
Ms. Maya Margie led and implemented BLC Bank’s We Initiative, the first program in the MENA region dedicated to the economic empowerment of women. During her tenure, the program’s IRR reached 33%. Maya has over 25 years’ expertise in the financial sector, pioneering digital transformations, women empowerment programs, financial and nonfinancial products and services development, brand marketing and strategy.
Mary Miller
Senior Banker
Ms. Miller is a commercial banker and financial consultant with over 30 years of banking and international development experience. She has conducted SME diagnostics, developed market segmentation strategies, SME banking strategies, created financial products and cross-selling strategies, revised operating procedures, and developed case studies, including on affordable private primary school finance models. She also applies her expertise to value chains, developing new sources of credit, structuring appropriate financial instruments and procedures, identifying alternative collateral and increasing access to finance for SMEs, agricultural producers and agribusinesses. She has extensive experience in designing, using, and evaluating credit enhancements, as well as host government, provincial, and donor guarantee programs. Additionally she is an experienced training developer.
Steve Orlesky
Senior Banker, Edufinance
Mr. Orlesky is a seasoned micro- and SME banker with over 30 years’ global experience both as a banker and consultant, including his role as CEO of two European banks over a six year period. His in-depth experience as a “bank operator” makes him well qualified to advise bank partners on many aspects of their operations. Recently, Mr. Orlesky has been actively involved in consulting financial institutions in sub-Saharan Africa on education finance and various aspects of banking, including lending policies, processes and workflows and appropriate corporate governance structures.
Ian Paddick
Senior Banker
Mr. Ian Paddick is an SME credit specialist with over 30 years of experience in commercial banking, half of it in Africa. He is an expert in credit risk analysis, credit process review and re-engineering and portfolio management. He is also an accredited trainer and skills coach. Previously, he served as Credit Director and in other senior credit positions for Barclays Africa in Botswana, Ghana, Mozambique, South Africa and Uganda. His responsibilities included portfolio management and monitoring, building lenders’ credit capability through training and coaching, designing early warning procedures and re-engineering credit processes. He has served on various country executive and credit committees. Prior to his credit responsibilities, he worked as Head of Local Business and as Corporate Relationship Manager for Barclays in the UK, among other banking roles.
Neeraj Sharma
Education Finance Expert
Mr. Neeraj Sharma is the former CEO of Indian School Finance Company (ISFC). During his seven-year tenure, ISFC opened 150 more branches and grew assets under management 20-fold to fund loans to more than 10,000 schools across India, most of them LCPSs. He acquired deep knowledge of education financing by meeting school management and also by observing their loan repayment behavior. He also designed various policies on governance, compliance, operations, treasury, ALM management, and introduced technology in the company, developing customized software which made decisioning uniform across the branches for extending loans and also helped in charging risk-based pricing. He is a certified Chartered Accountant and Cost Accountant with diverse experience of 25 years in companies across various sectors such as ACC, Bridgestone, BILT, AIG and Fullerton India.
Funmi Sodipo
Senior Banker, Edufinance
Ms.Sodipo is a banking professional with 28 years’ experience spanning a broad range of financial sector roles, accrued in a successful career in retail, microfinance and SME banking, and international development consulting. She applies her small business banking experience in conducting CapPlus’ Small Business Banking Diagnostics and contributing to implementation teams for MSME and affordable education initiatives. Her in-depth knowledge of relationship management, marketing financial products, and a diversity of banking principles and practices are shared with CapPlus’ clients. She is an MBA from the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria, and an MSc in Finance and Management from Cranfield University in the UK.
Stephen Strauss
Senior Banker, Leasing
Mr. Stephen Strauss is a senior financial professional with over 30 years’ experience in the financial sector, with a focus on bank credit, leasing, and other forms of credit to MSMEs. He has managed banks and leasing companies, and has provided technical assistance on credit, risk management and leasing to banks, leasing companies and other non-bank credit institutions in developing countries of Southeast Europe, North and Sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia. His financial sector management and advisory experience includes senior management positions with banks in credit and in risk management, and technical assistance to banks and to NBFIs in lending and providing leasing to MSMEs. He has provided financial sector expertise for donor-funded projects including USAID, the World Bank, DFID and KfW.
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
Sandy Vaci
Senior Banker
Mr. Vaci has a 35-year international career with experience in 50+ countries across four continents. He is an expert in customer relationship management, executive management, business development, marketing and sales. He has built eleven SME/retail banks in Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States and is former Director of CRM for 26 EMEA countries at Citibank. He has served in senior management positions to CEO / Board Chairman level, and is an internationally recognized presenter, author, trainer and MBA lecturer.
www.sandyvaci.com
Terry Wyer
Senior Banker
Mr. Wyer is a results oriented professional with over 20 years of global experience in leadership and consulting roles in banking and development finance. He is a strategic leader that approaches problem solving with a hands-on, entrepreneurial attitude that delivers results that are effective and profitable. He has successfully built and run impact development funds in Sub-Saharan Africa and has designed and implemented bank development programs for IFC in Africa and Asia. Mr. Wyer has experience working and living in North America, Europe, Asia, Africa and Russia and has the proven ability to diplomatically and effectively work across various sectors with all levels of international/local business leaders and governments.
