My passion for innovative development finance brought me to Financial Access in 2010. Having been involved in numerous capital raising and financial advisory assignments across emerging markets over the last 30 years, I became increasingly fascinated by the challenge to improve financial inclusion in agricultural supply chains. At Financial Access we have developed this as our key focus area, with particular expertise in creating innovative, low-cost and practical solutions for financial institutions to provide sustainable financing to smallholder farmers at scale
Eelko is Managing Director of Financial Consulting Services and Chairman of the Board of the Advans Group, an international microfinance investment firm. Eelko has extensive experience in international, commercial and development finance and in building businesses in the financial sector. At Financial Access his focus areas include agrifinance, supply chain finance and MSME finance. Eelko has particular expertise in developing and implementing technology-led access to finance solutions in the agriculture sector.
More recently, his activities at Financial Access concentrate on the design and delivery of innovative, sustainable and scalable financing models for farmers tied to large commodity supply chains.
Before joining Financial Access, Eelko was the CEO of the Orangefield Group, following its management buy-out from ING Group in 2007. Until 2007 Eelko worked for ABN Amro Bank for 20 years in a variety of commercial and senior management roles in The United States, Asia and Europe.
Eelko holds a Masters of International Law Degree from the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands and has completed the Advanced Management Programme at INSEAD, France.
Paul is a passionate, cross-functional and commercially driven professional with over 7 years of business analyst experience across manufacturing, agriculture, IT, EdTech and ESG investment advisory. Being Dutch and Kenyan, his dual nationality has enabled him to take a balanced empathetic approach to the cross-cultural issues that arise in undertaking in the two regions. Paul believes strongly in the need for food security and its importance in poverty alleviation through financial inclusion and effective capacity building. He has experience and a deep interest in rapidly building new businesses by commercializing technologies across dynamic and evolving markets, with a focus upon data-driven analytical models and rigorous financial risk mapping. Has a MSc in Financial Economics and BSc in International Economics and Business Economics from Erasmus University in Rotterdam, Netherlands. In his free time, he is an avid regenerative farmer, aspirational home chef and enjoys basketball.
“I cherish being part of such a culturally diverse team. Each day spent at Financial Access positively impacts smallholder farmers who play a critical role in addressing the challenges of food insecurity, poverty and climate change. It’s wonderful feeling knowing that my efforts have the potential to change someone else’s life for the better.”
William previously worked at Futures First Kenya as a Financial Market Analyst where he traded agricultural commodity derivatives. He holds a Master of Science in Finance degree from the University of Nairobi and is also an ACCA Affiliate.
Being part of the Financial Access team allows me to help bring the technological solutions needed to enable the financial sector to reach out to those who need it most.
Irianto Kusumadjaja is Managing Director of Kreditek Financial Access, our Fintech company established in Indonesia in 2017. He is also the CEO of Exlayer Teknologi Indonesia as well as commissioner at BPR SRI Lestari bank. At Financial Access he focusses on providing our clients with the IT infrastructure they need to reliably and efficiently onboard and monitor smallholders in their loan portfolio. The flexible design of the IT tools ensures that they can easily be scaled to the needs of our clients.
Before joining Financial Access, he was COO & CIO at Bank Andara for 7 years and held numerous executive positions in the financial sector before that. He has extensive experience in banking business development, with a focus on micro lending and the development of Value Chain Financing models.
Irianto holds a Bachelor’s in Information Systems and is fluent in both Bahasa Indonesia and English.
I love working at Financial Access as I can use my skills to improve the lives of smallholders across Indonesia.
Ranto Lim is Senior Developer at Kreditek Financial Access, our Fintech company established in Indonesia in 2017. He works on the IT tools that are used in our projects throughout Indonesia. He has developed expertise across programming platforms and therefore ensures that our clients’ needs are addressed in an integrated and holistic way.
Ranto holds a bachelor’s degree from Buddhi Dharma University in Jakarta. Before joining Financial Access, he designed numerous commercial websites. He is fluent in Bahasa Indonesia.
Financial Access brings a different approach to agribusiness financing through employing technology to minimize the risk and costs challenges for financial institutions.
John Ssali is currently an Advisor to FACS and is based in Kampala, Uganda. His main focus is in value chain mapping, research and training. With over to 14 years of Agricultural finance sector experience, he worked for Centenary Bank in various roles as an Agricultural Credit Officer, Commercial Loans Officer and Senior Credit Analyst and at Pride Microfinance (MDI) as Manager Credit Agricultural Lending. He started the Agricultural lending unit, developed an Agricultural lending manual, brought on board several development partners and managed the quality growth of the Agricultural loan book.
He joined Financial Access under the F4A programme which was designed and developed to bridge the gap between financial institutions and the agricultural sector. The aim was to increase agricultural finance to MSME agri-businesses and to agricultural producer organizations. Heworked as a Manager, Agrifinance Solutions for Financial Access (East Africa) Ltd during which time he executed various capacity building projects for various financial institutions in Uganda, Kenya, Rwanda, Malawi, Zambia and South Sudan. The activities included Agribusiness Strategy Development, Agriculture Value Chain Studies, Agriculture Loan Product Development, Training for financial institutions based on their training needs.
John holds a bachelor’s degree in Agriculture (Economics) from Makerere University, Kampala, a Certificate in Agricultural Finance from Kenya School of Monetary Studies and a Certificate from School of Applied Microfinance Kenya.
Growing up in the Philippines, Indonesia and Russia, Frederik has a strong relationship with emerging markets. Frederik is responsible for Business Development and Marketing from our Amsterdam HQ. Prior to Financial Access and SEAF AS, Frederik worked in marketing and communication strategies for the BiD Network, a Dutch impact investment advisory firm active in SME development in frontier markets. These professional interests have been developed alongside a 15-year career as an elite athlete.
Frederik has an MSc in Business Administration with a specialization in Strategy & Organization from the Vrije Universiteit (VU) Amsterdam and a B.A from the McColl School of Business at Queens University of Charlotte, North Carolina, USA. His (master’s) thesis research was with AFC Ajax football club, where his work on learning alliance networks in sports management helped set the foundation for the newly established Ajax Coaching Academy and its focus on community enhancement between professional and amateur clubs in youth development.
Christopher is an international development enthusiast with a keen interest in innovative models that link finance to smallholder communities. He believes sustainable finance mechanisms are key triggers for transformation in developing economies, and the nexus between investment and agriculture is where this happens; and this is what Financial Access does!
Based in Accra, his work with Financial Access enables him to leverage skills in value chain analysis, farming systems and livelihood assessment, and his experience in agrifinance, in developing and delivering sustainable smallholder financing programmes.
He holds an MSc in Environment and Development from the London School of Economics and Political Science where his master thesis focused on exploring microfinance as a tool for smallholder adaptation to climate change. He is currently pursuing a PhD on the use of digital tools for smallholder credit access with Wageningen University and Research.
Mr. Charles Bélanger has over 15 years of experience in the financial sector and a track record in microfinance consultancies and senior management positions of MFIs in West and East Africa, including three recent assignments in Kenya (2017-2019-2019). His areas of expertise include MSME- and agri-finance, value chain, product development, operations digitization, operational efficiency, due diligence and risk management, and the related training and capacity building.
Mr. Bélanger has extensive experience in coaching MFIs to develop risk management, business strategies and risk profiles of agri-clients in function of their agricultural activity. He has conducted on-site market research for greenfield projects at a Microfinance Bank in Uganda (2011-2012); a feasibility and rural strategy study (2018) in Kenya; and modelled MFI network improvements for 3 affiliates of the First Microfinance Bank of West Africa (Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, and Mali, 2018-2019) by identifying gaps in operational efficiency of loan officers in credit appraisal, credit assessment and credit decisions while also coaching the senior management team to develop risk management and business strategies, particularly in relation to seasonal/non-seasonal risk assessments, input financing, and risk profiles of smallholders in loose value chains in function of their agricultural activity.
Mr. Bélanger is proficient in database management and digital financial technologies such as mobile money and agency banking, including in developing new products, such as credit rating using alternative data and USSD based lending (Kenya, 2017-2018; Haiti, 2019), as well as with social performance management, client protection principles, environmental and social management systems, and SMART principles.
“Financial inclusion is an important component of social inclusion, as it helps to combat poverty and income inequality. Being part of the Financial Access team allows me to contribute to the efforts by providing the solutions for smallholder farmers and small agricultural enterprises by facilitating financial services through the digital platform.”
Anastasia previously worked as a lecturer in Economics at Parahyangan Catholic University where she taught Economic Development, Agricultural Economics, and Capita Selecta Economic. During her graduate study, she worked as a research assistant in the Georg-August University of Göttingen in the Department of Agricultural Economics and Rural Development in a project entitled “Role of Local Traders on Rubber and Palm Oil Market in the Jambi Province, Indonesia”.
Anastasia won a scholarship from the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) to study MSc Joint-Degree Program majoring in Sustainable International Agriculture with a profile of International Agribusiness and Rural Development in IPB University and the Georg-August University of Göttingen.
Whitney is passionate about humankind wellness and that has a lot to do with financial inclusion. She is privileged to work with Financial Access where we aim at eradicating poverty by equipping small-scale farmers with the financial muscle to improve their livelihoods and in return there is food security. That way we make the world a little bit better for everyone.
Prior to joining Financial Access, Whitney worked for Zamara Actuaries Administrators and Consultants Ltd for four years where she held the position of a Business Analyst.
Whitney holds a bachelor’s degree in Economics from Daystar University and a Project Management certification from Computer Pride College.
Being part of Financial Access means being part of the onset of each smallholder’s business potential. Simeon is passionate about financial inclusion through digital transformation, and believes that with the right data-driven approach we can rapidly close the gap between investors and smallholder farmers, thereby strengthening the global agricultural supply chains and ultimately contributing to food security and poverty alleviation.
Prior to FACS, Simeon worked in grant finance and grant management for an international NGO, managing an EU-funded programme and contributing to the financial and operational soundness of the overall grant portfolio. His interest for the developing context and his enthusiasm for financial data sparked during his time at university.
Simeon attained a BSc in development economics and a MSc in political science focusing on financial decision-making in a complex political environment.
Kripa Pandurangan is from southern part of India with 9 years of work experience, where she has worked as a Relationship Manager for financial institutions like bank and housing finance for 5 years and for the rest years as business development and marketing professional in digital and media firms.
Throughout her career, she developed expertise in time management, customer relationship management, business development, creative problem solving, and being a proactive team player. Travelling, meeting deadlines, and achieving organisational goals were part of her job profile. While growing these skills, she stood out due to her self-motivation and interpersonal communication skills.
At FACS, she is obsessed being organised and making everyone’s life easier. Kripa takes immense pride to work for FACS which supports agricultural institutes, small agri-businesses that positively impacts the lives of farmers, boosts her morale.
She holds an MBA degree from one of the leading universities in India
Dennis is passionate about agribusiness specifically smallholder farmers in Africa to improve their productivity and standard of living. He provides support for the team in financial management and project finance. He believes it is a great feeling to be part of Financial Access because everyday, three times a day, you need a farmer and what makes it exciting is helping to mobilize finance to smallholder farmers. Dennis previously worked for Cargill in Ghana and Zambia in their cocoa, cotton, maize and soyabean businesses.
Dennis holds an MBA from Hanze University and a Bachelor’s degree in Accounting and Finance from the University of the West of England.
Wilson is a problem solver and passionate about financial inclusion and food security through innovative solutions. He desires to be a true servant to humanity by improving and scaling impactful and commercially viable digital solutions for smallholder farmers in developing countries. These solutions have the potential to address some of the challenges experienced by different players in the agricultural value chain by making procurement more transparent and operations more efficient, while also improving communication channels and performance monitoring.
Prior to joining Financial Access, Wilson worked for Crowe Infrastructure Africa and Tactive Consulting where he held the positions of Business Strategist and Project Assistant across numerous projects targeting development in Africa
Wilson holds a bachelor’s degree in Finance from The Co-operative University of Kenya. He likes pioneering social change across the world by having a visionary mindset. Wilson loves working with like-minded people, but most importantly, people who have a sense of empathy for the current state of humanity.
John van Vliet supports Financial Access with the writing of news updates and social media posts as well as creating marketing materials. John enjoys creating content for a company that does great good for rural families and communities across the globe. Having grown up on a dairy farm in southern Idaho, John understands the important role that farmers have in local and global economies.
John studied journalism at Idaho State University, where he also was a member of the Idaho State Bengals (American) football team. He later earned his Master of Arts in International Relations (European focus) from Durham University in Durham, England. He moved to Wroclaw, Poland in 2015, where he played and coached American football whilst teaching English to business professionals and university students. In Poland, he started his professional career as a writer and editor.
