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.
Having worked in the energy and real estate sectors for several years, Federico decided to abandon the Italian corporate world to focus on sustainability and impact investing, with a special focus on fostering access to responsible financial services in emerging economies. As Partnerships Manager for Financial Access, Federico focuses on developing commercial and partnership relationships with a broad range of stakeholders, including donors, development finance NGOs, impact investors and strategic partners. He is also responsible for developing impact assessment methodologies to monitor and assess the environmental and social impact of Financial Access’ projects.
Prior to joining Financial Access, Federico worked at Triodos Investment Management, where he was responsible for the implementation of sustainability policies, reporting on the financial and impact performance of the financial inclusion funds and assessing ESG risks of investment transactions. He also worked as economic researcher for ING, where he performed research on the topic of financial technology and access to finance for small and medium companies in emerging markets.
Federico holds an MSc in International Development Economics from Wageningen University and a BA in Business Administration and Finance from John Cabot University. Federico speaks Italian, English, and Dutch. In his spare time, he practices classical piano and performs both alone and with fellow musicians.
I am passionate about digital transformation as a potent catalyst to economic growth, financial inclusion, eradication of poverty and sustainability in emerging markets. Working with Financial Access allows me to play a part in closing the global agriculture financing gap and solving the intractable problem of poverty amongst smallholder farmers by enabling access to finance through our digital solutions.
Prior to joining Financial Access, Valentine worked for Musoni Kenya where she held Transformation and Innovation roles delivering digital financial services geared towards improving customer experience and transforming the lives of low income individuals. Previously, she worked at World Fair Trade Organisation – Africa and Middle East region as a project management intern. She has over three years experience in digital product development and innovation, UX research, design thinking, proposal development and project management.
Valentine holds a Bachelor’s degree in International Business Administration, Finance from United States International University-Africa.
I am excited to be part of Financial Access as I believe financial inclusion is one of the most important ways to enable people to help themselves.
Remco focuses on our projects in Indonesia and Myanmar and he is based at our office in Jakarta. His main responsibilities include ensuring the quality of our data collection activities as well as data analysis and validation. Apart from that he is also heavily involved in the development of our IT tools, so that (M)FIs can integrate our credit scoring tools in their own systems.
Remco joined Financial Access right after completing an MPhil in Economics degree at the University of Oxford, where he gained the quantitative and qualitative skills that he now uses every day at FACS. Before that he obtained a Bachelor’s in Economics at Tilburg University, in the Netherlands. During his time at Oxford Remco also worked as a research assistant at the Refugee Studies Centre, where he contributed to two studies on a large Kenyan refugee camp. It was there that he realized that access to finance was an important barrier stopping people from creating a better life for their family and became determined to do something about it.
Dutch is his native language, with English being a close second. He is competent in German and he hopes to pick up Bahasa while he is in Indonesia.
The whole world is asking smallholder farmers to become more sustainable, while they have a hard time sustaining themselves. Solving access to finance is the first step towards a more sustainable agriculture. I am excited to be part of Financial Access to promote innovative financial solutions to farmers and stakeholders in South East Asia.
Her passion for the development sector in emerging markets brought her four years ago to Indonesia where she joined our Jakarta office in 2019. She is responsible for project management, as well as the business development and financial advisory. In addition, she is involved in the roll-out of our credit scoring tools. Taking a data-driven approach in development work is what interests her and drives her to make a change. Prior to Financial Access, Renée gained experience at an Indonesian agri-tech start-up, a community development program focused on street children in Lombok and the Dutch Embassy. After working with various stakeholders, like Banks, NGO’s, Corporates and start-ups, she has extreme on the ground knowledge about Indonesia, while becoming fluent in the language Bahasa Indonesia.
Renée holds a MSc in Business Administration from Amsterdam Business School. In her spare time she enjoys Jiu Jitsu, running and loves to escape the city to discover the real Indonesia.
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 farmers.
Dennis joined Financial Access in 2019 based in Amsterdam. He 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 administration. Dennis previously worked for Cargill in Ghana and Zambia in their cocoa, cotton, maize and soyabean businesses.
Dennis holds an MBA from Hanze University of Applied Sciences, Netherlands and a Bachelor’s degree in Accounting and Finance from the University of the West of England, UK.
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 am proud to be part of the FA family and I fully share the vision to improve the lives of the rural poor and to help improve the welfare of society.
Stephen is the COO of Kreditek Financial Access where he runs the day to day operations required to make that company a leading fintech in the microfinance space.
Previously he was the COO of fintech lending company PT ATBK financial Solutions, which he helped build from scratch. The company provides cash loans to the wider community through it applications. He was also a General Manager and one of the people who helped build one of the largest online travel agencies in Indonesia, pegipegi.com.
Stephen hold a Magister management and bachelor in Finance Management.
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.
“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 Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from Kenya Methodist University and is also an ACCA Affiliate. He is currently pursuing a Master of Science Degree (Finance and Investments Option) at the University of Nairobi.
Emilie has over 4 years’ experience in designing, building and deploying digital business models for companies across industries and countries. She is passionate about understanding the needs of customers from different walks of life and translating that into a digital product that adds value to their lives – especially in emerging markets where there is a large opportunity for businesses that have a positive social impact.
Emilie is supporting FACS in expanding the LendXS business, from both a business & governance as well as a product perspective. She combines her experience in business strategy with a deep understanding of IT and product development to develop a roadmap for LendXS to become a standalone business.
Emilie holds an MSc Political Sociology from the London School of Economics, and a BA Liberal Arts & Sciences from University College Maastricht and UC Berkeley. In her spare time, she enjoys kickboxing, portrait drawing, snowboarding and travelling.
“It as been a second to none experience seeing how Financial Access builds innovative and data-driven solutions while creating opportunities in agri value chains”.
Mumtaz is part of our ASIA team, where he works form our office in Jakarta. He supports the team with a wide set of skills, from research to data analytics to reporting and design. His biggest motivation to join Financial Access was the opportunity to bring his passion for agriculture, finance and development together into one job.
Mumtaz holds a bachelor’s in economics from the University of Indonesia (UI). Besides Financial Access, he is also working on climate-smart emission sequestration investment projects for the World Resource Institute (WRI). Previously, Mumtaz was part of several research projects for the Indonesian National Development Plan 2020 – 2024 from Bappenas, the ANU Greater Jakarta Transition to Adulthood Study and the Indonesian SMEs e-Commerce survey by the Worldbank of Indonesia.
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 am passionate about economic theory and data analytics, especially when the two are combined to bring about policy changes that lead to real economic development for those living in developing and least developed countries. I believe that it is our collective duty to offer our time and talent to create shared prosperity that ultimately ends extreme poverty.”
Kyle has attained a highly successful academic background in economics and risk management, with a cum laude honours degree in international trade. Furthermore, he has passed both the level I and level II exam of the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) Program. Kyle has also recently completed his MSc in Economics at Vrije University Amsterdam, which focussed on relevant economic policy challenges faced by society today and tomorrow.
Born and raised in South Africa, Kyle’s main interests centre around the economic development challenges faced by the developing world. This is evident from his research papers written on the determinants of foreign direct investment into Africa and the impact that the East African regional trade agreement has on its member states. His love for development, therefore, ties in perfectly with Financial Access’ goal of improving the lives of smallholders in developing countries, by providing them with access to the financial tools necessary for economic inclusion.
