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Advisors

1

Sibel Kusimba

Sibel Kusimba is an Africanist anthropologist whose research in Kenya has examined the archaeology of hunter-gatherers, the origins of urbanism on the Kenya Coast, and the ethnohistory of leadership in the Tsavo region and in Western Kenya. Her current research project, funded by the Institute for Money, Technology, and Financial Inclusion at the University of California at Irvine, examines the use of mobile money remittances by communities in Western Kenya. Dr. Kusimba’s social network analysis approach examines remittance flows both within Kenya and by international migrants in the USA and Britain to home communities in Western Kenya. Her research seeks to understand the role of mobile money and cellular phone technologies on the cultural and economic practices of transnational families in Kenya and in the West.

2

Dave Kim

Dave Kim is a Program Officer on the Financial Services for the Poor team at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. He leads the team’s work on product innovation and FSP’s grants in Kenya.

Previously, Dave was a Lead Commercial Inventor at ?What If! Innovation, an innovation consulting firm in New York. At ?What If!, Dave partnered with Fortune 500 companies to help crack their innovation challenges by designing and launching new products, services, brands, experiences, and companies. He also helped large organizations develop a culture and capability of innovation by developing and teaching a global curriculum on innovation and experimentation.

Prior to joining What If! Innovation, Dave was a management and strategy consultant with Opera Solutions in their New York and London offices. Dave earned a BA in Anthropology from Cornell University.

3

Igancio Mas

Ignacio has been a Senior Advisor in the Financial Services for the Poor program at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and at the Technology Program at CGAP. And prior to that Director of Global Business Strategy at Vodafone Group, Executive Vice President of Marketing and Account Management at DoCoMo interTouch, and Senior Manager responsible for telecoms investments in Europe for Intel Capital. Ignacio holds undergraduate degrees in math and economics from MIT and a PhD in economics from Harvard University.

Ignacio is currently a Senior Fellow at the Fletcher School's Council on Emerging Market Enterprises at Tufts University, a Senior Research Fellow at the Saïd Business School at the University of Oxford, a Research Fellow at Singapore Management University´s Sim Kee Boon Institute for Financial Economics, and an Associate with Bankable Frontier.

4

Carrie Ngongo

Carrie has applied her training in international health systems to design and implement a range of development projects in ten countries over the past fourteen years. She has worked alongside service providers, policymakers, nonprofits, community-based organizations, and social enterprises on health systems strengthening, sexual and reproductive health, infection prevention, quality improvement, community engagement, health financing, and leveraging technology for health.

​A thoughtful communicator, Carrie has authored numerous technical publications and testified about global maternal health inequalities at a U.S. congressional briefing. She has worked with the Grameen Foundation, EngenderHealth, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Peace Corps. Carrie holds an undergraduate degree in biology from Duke University and a master's degree in international health systems from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Principals

1

David Mark, President

David is a serial entrepreneur, mobile strategist and speaker on financial inclusion/disruptive technologies. In 2012 he co-founded M-Changa, Africa’s largest crowdfunding platform by volume. He is the President of Changa Labs, a USA-based organization dedicated to financial inclusion research, as well as leadership in mobile and digital philanthropy. Prior to co-founding M-Changa, David developed the first crowd-sourced street parking application for New York City. His contributions in Africa and India include support to randomized controlled trials; including the development of innovative mobile health systems--and in particular--techniques which have enabled studies to happen in areas previously thought unsuitable for clinical science.

David has taught courses on rapid prototyping and project management at Kenya’s mLab, is a certified Project Management Professional (PMP), and a previous mentor and judge for the Pivot East competition. In February 2015, David completed an Executive Program in Social Entrepreneurship (EPSE) at the Stanford University Graduate School of Business. 

2

Marie Engelsson, Director 

Marie Englesson is an entrepreneur who started her career with a global telecom operator in Sub-Saharan Africa in 2006. In 2012, Marie founded Atsoko, which became Tanzania's leading beauty chain. She sold the business in 2018 to a group of private investors.
Marie has a MSc in Business and Economics from the Stockholm School of Economics. Throughout her career she has gained insider knowledge on setting up businesses and overseeing projects in emerging and high-risk markets. In 2020, Marie published a book, Among Friends and Fraudsters: Building an Honest Business in a High-risk Market, sharing some of her experience.
Marie Englesson is currently the Chairperson of BeautyClick, Kenya's leading beauty e-commerce platform and works with Dave on new projects under Changa Labs using her combined experiences from telecom and the consumer industry in East Africa.

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