Kiva

Premal first began dreaming of “internet microfinance” while working at PayPal, the online payments company. In late 2004, Premal took a 3 month leave from PayPal to develop and test the internet microfinance concept in India. When he returned to Silicon Valley, he met other like-minded dreamers and quit his job at PayPal to help bring the Kiva concept to life and eventually to scale. Kiva today raises over $1 million each week for the working poor in +50 countries and was named a Top 50 Website by TIME Magazine in 2009. For his work as a social entrepreneur, Premal was named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum and selected to FORTUNE magazine's "Top 40 under 40" list in 2009. Premal began his career as a management consultant and graduated from Stanford University.

Austin has served as Kiva's General Counsel since July 2008 and brings over 10 years of legal experience working with global high technology companies. He has previously held positions in the legal departments of ArcSight, Inc., InVision Technologies, Inc./GE InVision, Inc., and the law firm of Fenwick & West LLP. He also served as a judicial law clerk at the United States Court of International Trade. Austin holds an A.B. in Economics from Harvard College, where he studied economic development issues, and a J.D. from Harvard Law School.

Lisa joins Kiva with 15 years of fundraising experience working for national and international non-profits. Prior to joining Kiva, Lisa was the Chief Development Officer at Room to Read overseeing a global team responsible for raising the $30MM annual fundraising goal, along with managing their global marketing and PR efforts. Over a five-year period she built the fundraising team from 2 to 26 staff located across 6 offices located throughout the world including Hong Kong, London, Tokyo and New Delhi. Prior to Room to Read, Lisa was the Director of Development for The Food Project, a Boston-based non-profit focused on youth development through sustainable agriculture. She also served as a Major Gifts Officer for The Nature Conservancy's Asia Pacific Program where she was responsible for raising funds to support the Conservancy's efforts to protect rainforests and coral reefs. Lisa holds a bachelor's degree in environmental studies and economics from Tufts University.

Sam leads Kiva’s engineering team and is responsible for the day-to-day operations and ongoing development of the website. He comes to Kiva with almost 10 years of experience working with over a half-dozen technology startups, ranging from self-service kiosks and enterprise systems integration to digital tickets and online video sharing. Sam has traveled extensively through Southern Africa, Southeast Asia, and Central America. Sam graduated with a B.S. in Computer Science from Stanford University.

Bennett comes to Kiva with a background in Social Enterprise, Technology, and Nonprofit Development & Fundraising. He has worked as a leader in community-based arts and education in San Francisco's Richmond district, a Web Developer at the Internet search engine LookSmart, and as a founding partner in an open source Web development & hosting company in San Francisco. Prior to joining Kiva, Bennett served as Director of Institutional Development for TechSoup Global where he earned a grand prize in the inaugural Yale School of Management-Goldman Sachs National Nonprofit Business Plan competition for TechSoup Stock, a self-sustaining online service that has distributed over $1 billion in technology product donations to NGOs in 24 countries. Bennett is a graduate of West Virginia University with a BA in History, Philosophy, and Foreign Languages. He is an avid musician, Tae Kwon Doist, yogi, snowboarder, and bicycle commuter.

Christina started her adventure at Kiva in 2007. She is responsible for managing the day to day operations of Kiva's Human Resources department - some of which includes developing and leading the new employee orientation and training program, managing Kiva's payroll and benefits, and driving various projects to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the overall program for staff.  She is also responsible for helping to guide the vision and strategy of the San Francisco Intern and Volunteer Program - a program that welcomes over 100 dedicated and passionate interns to the office each year.   Prior to Kiva, Christina was an Associate at Bernstein Global Wealth Management, managing the portfolios of high net worth individuals, foundations and endowments.    She graduated from the University of Denver with degrees in Spanish and International Relations, focusing on Conflict Resolution and Latin American studies.  A Bay Area native, Christina can be found sailing the San Francisco Bay, hiking the numerous trails nearby, and exploring her passion for good food and wine.

Stacey came to Kiva with a background in organizational and event management. Her breadth of experience spans many industries including hotels, feature film visual effects, film production, and hospitality and events - you name it and Stacey has probably organized it. Born and raised in Adelaide, Australia, Stacey attended the University of South Australia and also studied Tourism and Hospitality. She has always been curious about the world and experiencing as much of it as possible. Her first birthday was spent in Brazil, giving her a travel bug from an early age, and she also spent time studying abroad in both Japan and Paraguay. Now in the USA, Stacey is proud to be be part of this highly successful and motivated Kiva team.

Sam graduated from Stanford in 1998 with a BS in Computer Science. After working as a programmer and manager in several Silicon Valley software start-ups, he became interested in microfinance and joined Grameen Foundation as Engineering Manager of the Mifos initiative. Wanting to learn more about working in the field eventually led him to work at a Microfinance Institution in Lebanon for a year. After a wonderful experience there, he returned to San Francisco in late 2010 to begin the current chapter of his career at Kiva.

Gabriel worked 11 years as a field technician for AT&T, during which time he was involved with worker's rights and spent 5 years mobilizing and representing workers as Contractual Vice President with CWA in Oakland. After attaining a BS in Computer Science, and feeling the need for a new challenge, Gabriel left his job and backpacked across the US and Latin America for 18 months. During this time he took interest in various sustainable projects that were taking root in Central America, eventually deciding he wanted to take part in and learn more about microfinance, he applied for and was accepted to be a Kiva Fellow in Nicaragua. Gabriel's always had a passion for empowering the less fortunate, now, he's excited to pursue this passion by means of working with the Kiva engineering team and empowering Kiva's website.

Asher brings a decade of production experience to Kiva with stints at companies both big and small, from blogging and photo sharing startups to large scale search and banking operations. He's dedicated to keeping the Kiva website scalable and available. When not at Kiva, Asher enjoys listening to live music, art appreciation, technological tinkering, travel, and searching for various species of caudata in the wild.

Sid joined Kiva in 2008 to chew bubble gum, and kick ass, but is now out of bubble gum. Previously, he worked at Yahoo! for over six years on the Address Book, and Calendar teams leading both the growth of the products and the size of the teams. He was intimately involved in just about everything there. Most recently, he spent a year teaching math at Castlemont High School in Oakland. Education is very close to his heart and has a special place there for teachers and students fighting against the odds of an ofttimes broken system.

Kevin joins Kiva to work and promote Drupal, the open-source content management system that powers more than 1% of the web. His career has included stints for Americorps, developing for SF State University, maintaining a satellite receiver and computer systems on the high seas for CMA, and even saving the desert tortoise for the SCA. He started out studying computer programming, but soon realized that International Relations would be a whole lot of fun. He's passionate about opening everything, from borders to software. He joined Kiva in 2011 and will be helping deploy Drupal everywhere he can. When not working you may find him hiking in the mountains or visiting friends conveniently located in various countries around the world.

Jen brings both quality assurance and project management to her role at Kiva. She spent her early QA years with the ancient online giants CompuServe, AOL and Netscape. After Netscape's unfortunate demise, she found herself managing QA in the heavily regulated clinical trials software industry. To lighten things up, she left clinical trials to join the mobile & social games industry. Fate and good fortune led her to Kiva, allowing her to realize harmony in her personal and professional pursuits. She's a certified scrum master, a pretty good cook and generally speaking, likes the cut of your jib.

Amit Pansare joined Kiva on an interesting date - 08/09/10. Before joining Kiva, he has build custom Linux distributions, created and maintained some prime web properties and build a social network or two from start to finish. He loves building and improving things. And at times breaking them to make them better. His interests include music, photography, road trips, swimming, reading and philosophy. Amit graduated as an Electronics engineer and after three years got his M.S in Computer Science from University of Southern California. He is happy to be a part of Kiva team as it gets him awesome karma points and still get to do what he loves to do.

Chris has been programming professionally for over 12 years, building up a passion for solving real-world problems while maintaining his entrepreneurial spirit. Right before his graduation from the Univ. of Washington, he co-founded a telematics company that grew into a successful fleet services company that he sold six years later (with much help along the way from his family and friends)! With this experience under his belt, he felt challenged to do another startup in a different space and started an online interactive video company. This eventually led him to more professional settings where he worked for a few different companies and non-profits before landing on the doorstep of the good people of Yahoo for a couple years. Then realizing his calling lay elsewhere, Chris felt a strong social calling to lift up other entrepreneurs who were in need. Through much searching, this led him to Kiva and he joined in the first part of 2010. Chris now works on the Micro-finance engineering team at Kiva and couldn't be happier!

Joshua joins the Kiva team after recently completing his Bachelors of Science in Environmental Studies with a minor in Biology from Keene State College. In 2010 he relocated to San Francisco in search of a career in technology. He found the Quality Assurance Engineer role at Kiva and is happy to be working with a strong group of individuals motivated toward positive change. In his free time Joshua enjoys playing guitar, reading, riding his bike, skateboarding and being outside and active.

Bio coming soon!

Harry is a philosopher-programmer who has spent the last several years traveling the country and freelancing for clients in PHP and Javascript. He rangers at burning man, rock climbs, plays and designs board games, runs, brews beer, reads copious amounts of science fiction, and actively pursues both body and mind hacks.

Jim comes to Kiva after over a decade of work in technical operations and IT at several small and early stage technology companies. He is excited to be able to apply his expertise within such a wonderful organization that makes a real and meaningful contribution to the lives and well being of individuals and communities throughout the world. Jim's primary professional interest lies in scalable, highly available distributed computing systems. His other professional and educational interests include corporate information systems, rapid prototyping of computer controlled electromechanical systems, and satellite communication and data systems. As a computer systems lead at several early stage technology companies, he has designed and built several distributed server environments with 24x7 operational requirements and expectations for exponential growth in computational load. As a senior research and development engineer at a medical device company, he quickly prototyped small to medium scale electronic and electromechanical devices driven by computers and microcontrollers. During his graduate study, he designed and built communications systems for small satellites, one of which successfully launched and orbited the earth. Jim holds a patent on a graphical user interface for large data sets. He also holds an M.S. degree in Aeronautics and Astronautics and a B.S. degree in Electrical Engineering, both from Stanford University.

Maria is Kiva's Staff Accountant. She joined Kiva in May 2011 and brings with her several years of nonprofit accounting experience. Before Kiva, Maria worked as an Asset Manager for a nonprofit organization in San Francisco that develops low income housing as well as provide services for at risk youth and seniors. She is responsible for maintaining Kiva's financial records, coordinating the annual audit, as well as other day to day processes that make the Kiva run smoothly. Maria graduated from UC Santa Cruz with a Bachelor of Arts in Business Management Economics with an emphasis in Accounting.

Chelsa has been with Kiva from the beginning and was responsible for establishing Kiva's Microfinance Partnerships program where she managed a great deal of relationships with Kiva's Field Partners, primarily in Africa, and oversaw Kiva's Microfinance Operations programs; Inventory Management and Kiva's expansive Fellows Program. Chelsa is currently responsible for growing and further engaging Kiva's community through three channels: Kiva Lending Teams, Social Networks, and Events. Prior to Kiva, Chelsa was a Corporate Recruiter and Immigration Specialist with Barclays Global Investors. She returned to the U.S. following a period of extensive world travel and work abroad; including Social Work with HIV-positive children in South Africa and tsunami relief efforts in Thailand and Indonesia. Chelsa received her B.S. in Psychology from Santa Clara University, and has completed certifications in Social Performance Management, Framework for Reporting/Analysis/Monitoring/ Evaluation (FRAME), Behavioral Interviewing/Talent Selection, Risk Management Strategies, and Human Resources Management.

Ali came to Kiva with an entrepreneurial background and experience living in rural East Africa. As Kiva's Community Marketing Manager, she works to provide Kiva lenders with the best possible experience on Kiva and ensures that the thousands of emails and phone calls that come into Kiva every month get answered. Ali graduated from Wake Forest University with a B.A. in Communications and Studio Art.

Anne-Laure joined the Kiva team in the fall of 2008 as Partner Development Specialist for West Africa. She was previously the Chief Financial Officer of MicroCred Senegal in Dakar. She started working in the microfinance industry as Administrator of Planet Rating department (today Planet Rating SA), a rating agency specialised in Microfinance Institutions (MFI). Then she spent 2 years in Slovakia as Risk and Business Manager of the Renault network of car dealers. During her stay in Bratislava, she carried out small consulting assignments for Integra, a slovak MFI, and worked with the Microfinance Center in Warsaw and Planet Finance. After a mission in Afghanistan for a French medical NGO, Aide Medicale Internationale, where she was in charge of the finance and administration of the Afghan projects, she joined the MicroCred Group to take part in the creation of its first MFI in Veracruz, Mexico, where she took the Head of the Finance department of the institution. She was then appointed as the CFO of MicroCred Senegal. Anne-Laure hold a Master's degree from ESCP French Business School and speaks fluently English, French, German, Spanish and Polish.

As a partner development specialist for Anglophone Africa, David is responsible for driving Kiva's expansion and growth strategy in the East and Southern Africa Region; exploring new MFI relationships, working and strengthening the existing relationships and building Kiva's regional presence. David joins Kiva from Barclays Bank of Kenya Ltd where he worked as a Technical Advisor to the Microfinance Department and brings on board 8 years of progressive wealth of experience in microfinance both at operational and policy level. David has previously worked with the Association of Microfinance Institutions of Kenya as an Advisor and Acting Chief Executive where he led the turn around of the institution as well as the passage of the Microfinance Act 2006. He holds a three year Diploma from the Kenya Polytechnic University College and a Bachelors Degree in Business Administration.

Giovanna is responsible for overseeing Kiva's partnerships and regional teams throughout the world. As the Senior Director for Global Portfolio she helps to develop Kiva's strategy for growth and expansion with field partners. Giovanna joined Kiva in 2008 as a Partnerships Manager for Central and North America. In particular, Giovanna was responsible for driving Kiva's entry into the US microfinance market in 2009. She then moved on to become the Regional Director for the Americas where she managed the team and portfolio of the region and directed Kiva's strategy in that market. Prior to Kiva, Giovanna worked as a consultant in the technical assistance department at ACCION New York. In that role she was responsible for growing the department while providing one-on-one technical assistance services to entrepreneurs. Giovanna has been passionate about economic development, microfinance, and Latin America for many years. She has worked on community development projects in Mexico and Paraguay, and has done research on the interplay between eco-tourism and economic development in Costa Rica. Giovanna holds a B.A. in Economics from Yale University and an M.B.A from the Yale School of Management.

Newton brings on board hands-on experience in conducting due diligence as well as portfolio management of MFIs having served as the head of credit department at Jitegemee Trust Ltd, a leading wholesale lender to microfinance institutions and credit unions in Kenya. He also gained field experience in microfinance operations serving in various capacities in the microcredit department of Co-operative Bank, one of the largest banks in Kenya to pioneer and roll-out microfinance products across its branch network. Prior to joining Kiva, Newton most recently worked with a major microfinance MIS vendor providing core solutions to MFIs across parts of Africa. He holds a Bachelor of Commerce (Accounting) degree from University of Nairobi and is a Certified Public Accountant (Kenya).

Mazen is Kiva's Portfolio Manager for the MENA (Middle East & North Africa) region. He has more than ten years experience in micro and small lending operations with international humanitarian organizations in the Middle East & Afghanistan, and is skilled in microfinance, small business lending, loan portfolio evaluation, and staff training and development. Mazen has served as a Microfinance Technical Advisor for the USAID/IZDIHAR project in Baghdad, where he was responsible for providing technical assistance for local and international microfinance institutions, conducting field visits to evaluate the MFIs' operations and expansion plans, preparing training tools and supervising training of trainer courses abroad. In addition, he established an Iraqi microfinance institution in Baghdad known as Al-Bashaer MFI, where he was responsible for recruiting, training and setting the business plan for the institution. At Kiva, Mazen is responsible for overseeing our portfolio & helping to grow Kiva's reach in the Middle East.

As the Portfolio Manager for North America, Maika is responsible for developing and maintaining Kiva's growing portfolio in the US market. Prior to working in microfinance, Maika first gained her financial analysis skills while analyzing corporations under Piper Jaffray's Financial Restructuring Group. Working in-depth with companies in financial distress or bankruptcy has allowed Maika a strong eye towards recognizing both strengths and hidden weaknesses in non-traditional organizational settings. Maika also provides a unique familiarity with the US microfinance market. After leaving her investment banking post, she followed her interest in microfinance to begin working directly with US micro-entrepreneurs at ACCION USA. While at ACCION, Maika was charged with developing, servicing and maintaining a healthy portfolio of US entrepreneurs. Her experience at ACCION also led Maika to work extensively with technical assistance, partnership development, internal operational projects and training. Maika holds a B.S. in both Finance and International Business as well as a minor in Spanish from New York University.

As Portfolio Manager for South Asia, Saheba is responsible for managing relationships with existing field partners, growing Kiva’s presence in the region through due diligence on potential partners, and developing a strategy for Kiva to enter into India. Saheba joins Kiva after working at PlaNet Finance India, where she managed consulting and technical assistance projects for microfinance institutions and banks, microfinance plus initiatives in education and health, and sector development initiatives like the Microfinance Process Excellence Awards. Prior to PlaNet Finance India, Saheba worked at SKS Microfinance, where she focused on strategy and business analysis and piloted a deworming project through the SKS NGO in partnership with Deworm the World. Saheba holds a degree in International Studies with a minor in Theology from Boston College. She is fluent in Hindi and Urdu and is working on her Arabic.

The Associate Program Manager is responsible for recruiting, interviewing, training, and supporting Kiva Fellows through all stages of their fellowship. Eric served in the fourth Kiva Fellows class with Hattha Kaksekar Limited (HKL) in Cambodia, where he conducted training seminars for over 150 HKL staff and helped them adopt Kiva processes. Previously, he coordinated mobile history exhibits for the TRACES Center for History and Culture and was a member of UniversalGiving's NGO Services Team. Eric received a B.A. from Macalester College in St. Paul, MN, where he studied history and geography. He is an avid photographer and can often be found exploring abandoned and forgotten urban spaces.

From recruiting new Fellows to engaging program alumni, Dave shares in the responsibility of coordinating all phases of the Kiva Fellows Program. He comes to Kiva with broad experience working in the social sector. Previously, he completed Fellowships with the U.S. Department of State and the Coro Center for Civic Leadership, as well as a project supporting HIV/AIDS education initiatives with Grassroot Soccer in South Africa. Dave graduated from UC Berkeley with a degree in International Political Economy and Public Policy. When he'€™s not supporting Kiva Fellows around the world, you'€™ll probably find him playing/coaching soccer or hiking in the California outdoors.

Liz manages Kiva's Review and Translation Program, developing the online volunteer corps that provides pre-publication translation, editing, and review of Kiva loans. With volunteers around the globe, the program aims to create meaningful involvement among its community of translators and editors as they lend their support to Kiva's partnerships. Prior to joining Kiva Liz had a career in book publishing, working most recently as Senior Editor at Little, Brown and Company. Liz has taught English in Thailand, served as a Kiva Fellow in Armenia, and traveled extensively in Southeast Asia, Europe, and parts of the Middle East. She holds a Masters in English Literature from Stanford University.

As the Field Support Specialist for Eastern Europe and Central Asia, Max is responsible for developing collaborative relationships with new microfinance partners and providing operational support to existing field partners in the region. Max joins Kiva after having spent over two years at KPMG in Silicon Valley as a Senior Associate, where he provided financial due diligence assistance on mergers and acquisitions and advised U.S. and International corporate and private equity clients. Max previously served as a volunteer for Habitat for Humanity, where he helped rebuild homes affected by Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans and served on a family section committee in San Francisco. He graduated summa cum laude from University of Nevada with a degree in Business Administration and Accounting.

As the Portfolio Manager for North & Central America, Betsy is responsible for training new field partners in the region, and supporting existing partners in their Kiva operations to ensure a successful collaboration. Prior to joining Kiva, Betsy served as a Kiva Fellow in Juticalpa, Honduras with FAMA and in Medellin, Colombia with Interactuar. Having long cultivated an interest in international development and social justice, Betsy has previously worked with Guatemalan midwives and for a Bay Area health education non-profit. She graduated with a B.A. in Social Studies and a Spanish language citation from Harvard College.

As Knowledge Manager, Jomay is responsible for defining, documenting, and standardizing processes and policies for the Global Partner Operations and Global Partner Investments teams. Prior to joining Kiva, Jomay held several positions within Oracle’s corporate citizenship department, most recently as Senior Program Manager for the Oracle Education Foundation. Jomay first became a Kiva lender in 2007 after completing a round-the-world trip across five continents, and she is now thrilled to be a full-time member of the Kiva team. She graduated from Stanford University with a BA in International Relations.

Katherine fell in love with Kiva's mission, team, and innovative spirit when serving as a product advisor in 2010. She now manages the Product team, which makes sure Kiva technologies are usable and efficient -- including Kiva.org, tools for Microfinance and other partners, and the systems that support Kiva internal teams and volunteers. Katherine has 9 years of consumer web product experience gleaned from various roles at PayPal/eBay and co-founding a social dating startup. In her ancient history, she earned an MBA from Stanford, spent 4 years at Mercer Management Consulting, and got a BA Economics at Harvard.

Jackie's enthusiasm for meaningfully connecting people brought her to Kiva, where she product manages marketing and development initiatives. Prior to joining Kiva, Jackie worked as the lead product manager at Location Labs, launching products with Fortune 100 partners such as AT&T and Best Buy. Before serving as a product manager, Jackie was part of a team of engineers from Stanford's Mechanical Engineering Master's program which worked with students from Pontificia Universidad Javeriana School of Engineering, in Cali, Colombia, on a year-long Design & Innovation project funded by Kodak. She holds a B.S. from Stanford in Science, Technology & Society.

Sonali is responsible for increasing and engaging Kiva's lender base by designing new features and flows and collaborating with the Kiva team to bring these to life. She brings a passion for social entrepreneurship combined with 8 years of product management experience. Most recently, Sonali was the Director of Product Management at Transpera, a mobile video advertising company. She has also held senior product and operations roles at VideoEgg, Ripple TV, Google and Autobytel. She is currently on the board of the Mental Health Association of San Francisco (MHA-SF). Sonali graduated with a BA from UC Berkeley and completed her MBA at UCLA.