FinEquity Africa 2024 Speakers

Aude de Montesquiou, FinEquity Global Facilitator

Aude de Montesquiou is the FinEquity Community of Practice Facilitator at CGAP. She has close to 20 years of experience in poverty reduction and has published widely on social protection, livelihoods, and financial inclusion. Previously, Aude was the Senior Advisor at the BRAC Institute of Governance and Development and Social Protection specialist in the World Bank’s Social Protection and Jobs Global Practice where she co-created the Partnership for Economic Inclusion.

Sophie Mills, Lead, Gender- FSD Network

Sophie leads the FSD Network’s Collaborative Gender Programme, which works with FSDs to mainstream gender into their operations and support their capacity to deliver systemic gender impacts. She has over fifteen years’ experience in inclusive finance and gender in sub Saharan Africa and the Middle East. Prior to joining FSD Africa, Sophie worked on housing microfinance, gender and inclusive finance with a number of non-profit organisations. She holds a PhD from the London School of Economics and a bachelor’s degree from the University of Wales.   

Dr Tapiwa Uchizi Nyasulu-Rweyemamu, Head of Gender Policy and Development Division at the Women, Gender and Youth Directorate, African Union Commission

Dr. Tapiwa Uchizi Nyasulu-Rweyemamu is the Head of Gender Policy and Development Division at the Women, Gender and Youth Directorate of the African Union Commission. She has over 15 years of progressive and substantive knowledge and experience with key strengths in gender mainstreaming, anti-corruption, social development, democratic governance, policy analysis, training and conducting research. She worked for 7 years as the Africa Regional Advisor at Transparency International Secretariat in Berlin, Germany advancing the regional agenda on anti corruption. She holds a doctorate degree in Social Anthropology from the University of Cologne through the Centre for Development Research of the University of Bonn in Germany and a Master’s degree in Development Studies from the Institute of Socials Studies in The Hague, The Netherlands and a Bachelor of Arts Humanities from the University of Malawi. 

Tariro Nyimo, Head Stakeholder Engagement & Fundraising, Digital Frontiers

Tariro is the Head of Stakeholder Engagement & Fundraising at Digital Frontiers. She is a thought leader in the area of women’s financial inclusion, digital gender divide and women’s economic empowerment. Her experience combines fintech, financial regulation and policy (Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe) and banking projects within sub-Saharan Africa. She led the concept design of the Gender Equality Changemaker (GEC) Programme and is the secretariat for the GEC Advisory Board. 

Tariro is a Certified Gender Equality Changemaker, Certified Digital Finance Practitioner and holds an MBA from Nottingham Trent University, Bsc Mathematics and Statistics from University of Zimbabwe is currently completing an Mphil in Inclusive Innovation from University of Cape Town.

Dr Theopista Ntale Sekitto , Country Director – New Faces New Voices Uganda Chapter

Dr Theopista Ntale Sekitto  is a Ugandan banker, social entrepreneur and philanthropist who serves as the Uganda Country Director of New Faces New Voices, an initiative by the Graca Machel Trust, focused on women empowerment through financial inclusion.

A dedicated social innovator and advocate for an economically independent and socially empowered African woman, Theopista is the Africa Ambassador for Financial Alliance for Women charged with working with financial institutions across Africa to design products that suit women needs.

She is a recipient of numerous awards, including: Global Village Award (from North America), “100 Top Women in the World Making A difference” 2013, a Global Award by The International Alliance for Women (TIAW).  At a national level, she was a privileged recipient of the Presidential Gold Jubilee Medal in 2016. 

Rose Ronoh, FinEquity Africa Facilitator

Rose is a trade economist with over twenty years of work experience drawn from public, private and development sectors in Africa. Rose has been involved in negotiation, design and implementation of trade and gender equality initiatives supporting development partners such as UNECA, CBI Netherlands, GIZ, Expertise France, and USAID amongst many others.

Shiphra Chisha, Director of Programmes, Graça Machel Trust  

Shiphra is the President and Co-Founder of the African Women in Business (“AWIB”), a Pan-African organization representing the interests of all women entrepreneurs across industries. She is also the Director of MKT Investments, a 15-year old consultancy firm established to ensure sustainable socio-economic development (SED) through collaboration with mining companies, government, MSMEs (SMME) and other stakeholders. Shiphra is a member of the SADC Non-Tariff Barriers to Trade Steering Committee and Member of the Trade Forward Southern Africa (TFSA), an Advisory Board Member of the University of South African Graduate School of Business Leadership, Advisory Board Member of African Women in Power and Energy, and Pan-African Tech Foundation.  

Audrey Hove, Senior Policy Manager, Gender Inclusive Finance, AFI

Audrey leads the Gender Inclusive Finance (GIF) workstream at the Alliance for Financial Inclusion (AFI), the world’s leading organization on financial inclusion policy and regulation with 86 members (central banks and financial sector regulatory institutions) in 82 countries. Her role entails leading the conceptualization, coordination, and implementation of financial inclusion policies and initiatives to support AFI member institutions in their drive to promote gender inclusive finance. Prior to joining AFI, Audrey acquired extensive knowledge, skills and experience in financial sector regulation, supervision of banking institutions and policy development, having worked in the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe for close to two decades, leading various functions and portfolios. 

Sophie Mills, Lead, Gender- FSD Network

Sophie leads the FSD Network’s Collaborative Gender Programme, which works with FSDs to mainstream gender into their operations and support their capacity to deliver systemic gender impacts. She has over fifteen years’ experience in inclusive finance and gender in sub Saharan Africa and the Middle East. Prior to joining FSD Africa, Sophie worked on housing microfinance, gender and inclusive finance with a number of non-profit organisations. She holds a PhD from the London School of Economics and a bachelor’s degree from the University of Wales.   

Caroline Morrow, Senior Researcher and Program Manager, GRID Impact

Caroline Morrow an international development and research professional with 10+ years of experience working at the intersections of financial inclusion and financial health, digital economies, and women’s empowerment in research and project management functions. I build effective relationships both internally and externally, and enjoy working with diverse teams to promote evidence-based decision-making. I have conducted extensive field-based research and project/stakeholder management in Tanzania, as well as in Ethiopia, Malawi, and Rwanda.

Dr Silpah Owich, Associate Director Women and Youth, Equity Bank Limited  (TBC)

Dr Silpa Owich is the Associate Director Women and Youth at Equity Bank Limited. She is also the Head of Women Banking at Stanbic Bank Kenya. Dr Owich has championed several policies and initiatives designed to provide women and women-owned enterprises with access to products and services, that allow them to participate in economic opportunities in Kenya.

Anthea Paelo, Intervention Manager, Business Environment, FSD Uganda 

Anthea Paelo is the Intervention Manager, Business Environment at Financial Sector Deepening Uganda. She is an economist with expertise in competition and economic regulation in East and Southern Africa. Prior to joining FSD Uganda, Anthea worked as an economist at the Centre for Competition, Regulation and Economic Development (CCRED) in Johannesburg during which time she undertook a number of microeconomic studies on various sectors in a number of countries including Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe. She has also written a number of research papers and peer-reviewed material. 

Yasmin Bin-Humam, Financial Sector Specialist, CGAP

Yasmin Bin-Humam currently supports CGAP’s project on supply-side gender disaggregated data for financial sector regulators and supervisors. She also leads CGAP’s work stream on the nexus of gender norms and financial sector regulation and supervisory practices, and continues to support institutional change management for CGAP’s application of a gender lens across all CGAP work programs. 

Audrey Hove, Senior Policy Manager, Gender Inclusive Finance, AFI

Audrey leads the Gender Inclusive Finance (GIF) workstream at the Alliance for Financial Inclusion (AFI), the world’s leading organization on financial inclusion policy and regulation with 86 members (central banks and financial sector regulatory institutions) in 82 countries. Her role entails leading the conceptualization, coordination, and implementation of financial inclusion policies and initiatives to support AFI member institutions in their drive to promote gender inclusive finance. Prior to joining AFI, Audrey acquired extensive knowledge, skills and experience in financial sector regulation, supervision of banking institutions and policy development, having worked in the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe for close to two decades, leading various functions and portfolios. 

Brenda Mwanza, Assistant Director- Financial Sector Development, Bank of Zambia

Brenda Mwanza is a development economist with a wealth of experience in macroeconomic and financial sector analysis, policy development, survey implementation and data analytics, gained at the Bank of Zambia over a period of more than 28 years. Currently serving as Assistant Director- Financial Sector Development, her role entails coordinating financial inclusion and financial education initiatives. She is also a Board member of the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Micro Insurance Technical Advisory Group Association in Zambia.

Hana Alem, Program Director, Village Enterprise

As the Program Director at Village Enterprise Ethiopia, Hana leads their climate-smart poverty graduation program.  The award-winning program aims to empower vulnerable women, refugees, and youth to break free from the cycle of extreme poverty. Between Uganda and Ethiopia alone, the DREAMS graduation model will transform the lives of over 200,000 refugees, and has the potential to reach millions of other people living in extreme poverty as the program continues to grow, adapt for specific populations, and scale across Africa.

Tolulope Babajide, Gender Network Manager, FSD Network

Tolulope Babajide is a driven development professional with experience in gender programming, financial inclusion, management consulting, rural development, and strategic partnerships. She has extensive experience in developing partnerships for social impact that are rooted in core business practices; identifying barriers to financial services uptake by women and vulnerable groups and developing marketing systems solutions to address those barriers.

Before joining FSD Network, she worked at Sahel Consulting Agriculture and Nutrition Ltd as the Financial Inclusion and Gender Manager, where she provided strategic direction for the organization’s gender initiatives.

Lucy Kaaria, FinEquity Technical Advisor / CGAP

Lucy Kaaria is a technical advisor at FinEquity working at the intersection of climate change, gender in financial inclusion. Lucy Kaaria joined CGAP as a consultant in 2019 to research the potential of targeted financial services to maximize the benefits of the gig economy for the young and marginalized workers, especially women. She specializes in financial inclusion, women economic empowerment, climate and development research having worked in many markets since 2013. She is a co-author of research and technical guides.

Kevin Munjal, Director, Development Impact, FSD Africa

Kevin Munjal is FSD Africa’s Director, Development Impact (DI). He is responsible for overseeing the design and implementation of FSD Africa’s (including FSDAi) DI planning and management assets – systems, resources, tools and processes – ensuring that they generate evidence products that help visualise FSD Africa’s impact and inform internal adaptive management efforts. He represents Management on the Development Committee – a committee of the Board that is responsible for FSD Africa’s development impact.

Lilian Tan, Senior Program Officer, Women’s Economic Empowerment & Financial Inclusion, Inclusive Financial Systems, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

Lilian Tan is a Senior Program Officer and leads the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s work to increase, deepen, and improve the quality of women’s access and usage of digital financial services. She works in BMGF’s Inclusive Financial Systems team, which aims to expand access to digital financial services so that the poorest people around the globe can build security and prosperity for themselves, their families, and their communities. She supports the Foundation’s goal that through greater financial inclusion, women strengthen their economic power.

Lilian holds a Bachelor of Arts from The University of Texas at Austin, and a Master of Business Administration from New York University.