Graham Wright

Graham established the MicroSave program and pioneered much of the core of its market-led approach. He has over two decades of experience developing innovative products and delivery systems to serve the low income market, underpinned by five years of experience in management consultancy, training and audit with a leading accounting firm in Europe. He is a reformed Chartered Accountant.  Graham has provided training and technical assistance to a variety of banks and microfinance institutions in Bangladesh, Philippines, India, the Philippines and throughout Africa. He has been at the forefront of efforts to develop and market client responsive savings, credit, remittance and insurance products for the poor. In Africa, he sat on the steering committee that oversaw the design and testing of M-Pesa and in Asia he heads several teams working on e- and m-banking solutions for banks and MFIs.

Product design, marketing strategy, market research, small deposit mobilization strategy, branchless banking strategy, product rollout, training on same

Firm

David Porteous

David has substantial experience in strategy and product development through his time as Executive responsible for Strategy and Innovation in an emerging market banking group; and in a range of consulting engagements with financial providers around the world in his current capacity as Managing Director of Bankable Frontier Associates. Among many other engagements, he was recently responsible for review and advising on proposed approach to the development of a new mobile-enabled channel for low income access on the part of an Asian bank. Previously, he led a team responsible for developing the business case for a retail card payment product (including channel strategy) for a South African bank.

Branchless banking strategy, business case development, regulatory issues affecting branchless/ mobile banking

Firm

Marguerite Robinson

Marguerite received her B.A. and Ph.D. degrees from Harvard University and served as Professor of Anthropology and Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Brandeis University before becoming an Institute Fellow at the Harvard Institute for International Development (1978-2000). Now retired from Harvard, she is an independent consultant in international development, with a specialty in commercial microfinance. She has advised several banks on savings product development.  She has worked extensively in developing countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America and is the author of Volumes 1 and 2 of the Mircofinance Revolution; a third volume is in progress. Dr. Robinson is a member of the Board of Directors of the MasterCard Foundation and the Boulder Institute of Microfinance.

Market research, product design, product rollout, small deposit mobilization strategy, marketing strategy, staff incentives, policy advising and strategic planning

Independent

Colin Donian

Colin established a specialist consulting & advisory enterprise in 2005, which focuses on solution design for instances of market failure.  Previously, he served as Managing Director of an investment company, and head of transactional and investment products at a large South African bank.  As executive director of the Mzansi Initiative, Colin collaborated with five South African banks, including the four largest private banks and the government-owned Postbank, to promote financial inclusion (namely, transactional and savings products).  Colin has graduate & post-graduate degrees in Economics and Strategy.

Product design, marketing strategy, business case development

Independent

Daryl Collins

Daryl is co-author of Portfolios of the Poor and Senior Associate at Bankable Frontier Associates.  Her field of specialty is researching and analyzing financial management strategies in poor households (including assessing their financial capability), via the design of random controlled, quasi-experimental and qualitative research, and related data analysis.  She was the principal investigator of the South African Financial Diaries, details found on www.financialdiaries.com.  She holds bachelors and masters degrees in economics from the London School of Economics, and is completing doctoral work at NYU.

Market research

Firm

James Hokans

James has over 30 years of international development experience managing housing finance, economic development and urban management programs. He has designed a range of both wholesale and retail loan and savings products for commercial banks, NBFCs and MFIs. James has also been instrumental in researching branchless banking models for promoting domestic payments. He received his M.Sc. in Economics and Public Policy from the London School of Economics and his B.A. in history from Dartmouth College.

Market research, product design, marketing strategy, business case development

Firm

David Cracknell

David is MicroSave’s Program Director for Africa.  He has nearly two decades experience helping commercial banks and MFIs in Asia and 14 African countries to move onto a market-led approach to microfinance. He has played a key role in the development of MicroSave's training toolkits and authored many papers on topics including e-banking, delivering savings services, costing and pricing. He has particular interest in client focused product development and the institutional changes necessary to achieve this, as well as e-banking. David previously had a career in accountancy.

Product design, business case development, small deposit mobilization strategy, product costing, product rollout, risk analysis, staff incentives, training on same

Firm

Johann Bezuidenhoudt

Johann is a Senior Associate of Bankable Frontier Associates and has substantial experience in consulting internationally in strategies and technology deployment in financial services.  He has training in economics and engineering.  He has led projects in establishing mobile banking operations, electricity and airtime pre-paid sales and mobile value added services.  He has published papers and speaks at conferences on mobile banking and payments, and related security risks.  He has also sat on the board of Radicchio (now part of Liberty Alliance) and has a wide international network among m-banking providers, mobile operators and telecommunication and security technology suppliers. He has worked in the private sector in an electricity utility, the mobile telecommunications industry, consulting and banking.

Branchless banking strategy, marketing strategy, market research, business case development, risk analysis

Firm

Eric Cimon

Eric is an independent consultant with 18 years experience in financial services.  He has led many projects for several large financial institutions, focusing on market research, segmentation, business case development, product design and rollout of financial products (mostly insurance and mutual funds).  He has led global financial product innovation forums in the context of international teams and across different functional areas (product development, sales and marketing). 

Market research, product design, product rollout, business case development, marketing strategy

Independent

Chris Linder

Chris has over 13 years experience in commercial banking, microfinance and community development finance. His expertise includes product development, m-banking, and providing technical assistance to practitioners in Africa and Asia.  Chris focuses on improving financial inclusion and the quality of services provided to the poor. He currently works with a wide range of institutions including banks, MFIs, cooperatives, technology platform providers and MNOs on strategy and operations of e-/m-banking systems. Chris previously worked as a Senior Financial Analyst for Fleet Bank’s (now Bank of America) non-profit lending group for two years and spent three years as a U.S. Peace Corps volunteer in Mali, West Africa, acting as advisor to several individual entrepreneurs, credit unions, and microfinance institutions.

Business case development, small deposit mobilization strategy, branchless banking strategy, product design, product rollout, training on same

Firm

Manoj Sharma

Manoj is a development finance and SME specialist with nearly two decades of experience, and now coordinates the MicroSave India operations. He is involved in projects for downscaling commercial banks to develop sustainable savings products for the low end market and building institutional capacity of MFIs. He has led a wide variety of assignments on market research, strategic business planning, product development for savings and credit, and pilot-testing in countries across Asia. He is an accomplished trainer and team leader. Manoj has also conducted extensive work on strategic business planning for MFIs in India and the Philippines as well as process mapping/ analysis to improve the efficiency and decrease the risk of their operations. His areas of interest include product development, market research and urban microfinance.

Product design, market research, business case development, small deposit mobilization strategy, product rollout, risk analysis, training on same

Firm

Mukesh Sakana

Building on an accomplished career at ICICI Bank and Amul Cooperative, at MicroSave, Mukesh specializes in e-/m-banking, product costing/ financial projection analyses and branchless banking strategy/operations. He is currently leading a team of 25 to implement a large deposit-mobilisation mapping and product/pilot-test development for India, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. At MicroSave, he has worked in India, Bangladesh and Indonesia. Mukesh Sadana has a decade and a half of experience in sales and marketing, primarily in rural areas. At ICICI Bank he was part of the team which set up the rural and micro banking network in two states. He has worked in some pioneering projects like the launch of Business Correspondent channel for ICICI Bank, and use of biometric cards for unbanked segments of the society for various banking products. His areas of interest include e-/m-banking, savings mobilisation, process mapping, loan portfolio audit, strategic business planning and individual lending.

Business case development, small deposit mobilization strategy, branchless banking strategy, product costing, risk analysis and internal audit & controls, training on same

Firm