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Anne Marie van Swinderen

Founder and Managing Director

Anne Marie van Swinderen is the founder of L-IFT BV. She has been active in financial inclusion for over 30 years. She brings along experience in numerous projects: agricultural and cooperative finance in Zambia, microfinance outreach in Bolivia, financial diaries in Colombia, studies about demand for mobile financial services, product development for mobile financial services in Ethiopia and youth financial diaries in Togo and Ethiopia.

Jose Vahl

Country Director L-IFT Myanmar

Jose Vahl is currently directing L-IFT’s business growth in Myanmar from 1 project with 800 respondents and 40 researchers in 4 geographical areas to a country wide program. She has been more than 6 years in Myanmar now, arrived as country director for an INGO, and continued with consulting in numerous projects. She brings along years of experience in Local Economic Development and Business Development, Value Chain Analyses and Women Economic Empowerment and a Masters in Agriculture from Wageningen University in The Netherlands.

Marcienne Umubyeyi

Programme Manager

Marcienne Umubyeyi is L-IFT Programme Manager and was engaged as a coordinator of the Livelihood Diaries in Ghana and Uganda. She has 14 years’ experience in financial inclusion and entrepreneurship, youth training, project formulation and implementation.

 

Mahlet Alemayehu 

Programme Manager

Mahlet Alemayehu is a Programme Manager at L-IFT in charge of reporting, administration and data analysis. She has been with L-IFT since inception and has 8 years’ work experience in survey implementation and field work supervision. She is expert in data processing for financial diaries and data interpretation. She has a background in Economics and Human Resource (BSc and MSc). She has supervised five major high frequency studies (Ethiopia, 3 in Uganda, Nigeria).

Haimanot Yibeltal

Technology Manager

Haimanot Tiruneh is a technology manager with a passion for creating practical solutions. With a background in mathematics and physics during his undergraduate studies, he brings a strong foundation in analytical thinking and problem-solving to his work. As a technology manager, Haimanot has played a pivotal role in developing and delivering FINBIT, a multi-purpose financial monitoring system.His expertise has been instrumental in providing innovative products to help people get financial insights. Read More>>

    With a holistic view and meticulous attention to detail, he ensures that each aspect of the service meets the needs and expectations of users.Along with his team, they strive to provide comprehensive financial insights and tools that enable users to achieve their goals and improve their financial well-being.Driven by a commitment to continuous improvement, Haimanot is currently pursuing a part-time Master’s degree in Analytics at Georgia Institute of Technology which is helping further refine FINBIT.

Minh Dao 

Video Maker

Minh Deo has been working as a video maker for L-IFT since 2015. She holds a master’s degree in modern languages and discovered her passion for content creation while travelling the world.

Theresa Thin

Programme Officer

Theresa Thin is L-IFT’s Programme Officer in Myanmar. She is responsible for recruitment, training, coaching and supervising the field supervisors and promoters / data volunteers for the different L-IFT Myanmar projects. She liaises with the clients on logistics and is an expert in working with the different software tools (including our own Finbit App) that L-IFT uses. She holds a Bachelor of Science in Mathematics of Dagon University and a Diploma in Business Management from De La Salle of St. Benedict College. Read More>>

    Before coming to L-IFT she was a Marketing Executive in Export/Import of Golden Land Express Company.

Mekdes

Mekdes Hailegiorgis

Programme Manager

Mekdes Hailegiorgis has an MSC in Business Economics. She has been engaged as project management officer in charge of administrative tasks such as field supervision, reviewing financial reporting, assist on methodology implementation and data analysis.

  

John Kamau

Data Expert

John Kamau is currently working for L-IFT as a data expert. He has a degree in Economics from the University of Nairobi. He also has a certificate in CPA 2 and for Data Science in R and Python. He has over 5 years experience in Data: as an operations analyst in a transport Sacco, a market data analyst, an innovation analyst as well as a data scientist in the financial sector. He is experienced in Machine learning in both R and Python as well as SQL and big data analysis in Spark. Read More>>

    He can perform data analysis and visualizations in R and Python and create dashboards in R and Tableau. He is experienced in web development and creation of data related applications in Flask and Django.
Selamawit Alemayehu

Senior Finance officer and PA to Managing director

Selamawit Alemayehu has a Bachelor’s degree in accounting and finance at Addis Ababa University. She has 3 years’ experience in accounting and administrative works. She is L-IFT’s accountant and office assistant based in Ethiopia. She is in charge of coordinating the central finance system for the organization. She also assists in administrative tasks related to the organization and communication. 

 

Frehiwot Sinishaw

Programme Officer

Frehiwot Sinishaw has a master’s degree in public international law. She has 6+ years of work experience in L-IFT. She is responsible for recruitment, coaching, and monitoring field researchers and supervisors. She assists in giving training to field researchers, reports writing, proposal writing, and data processing. She contributes to communication including assisting in social media and website activities, in addition to document organization and facilitation of conferences and meetings.

 

Fireayehu Zekarias

Software Engineer

Fireayehu Zekaris is a graduating ambitious problem-solving software engineer studying at Addis Ababa institute of Technology, currently working at L-IFT as a Front End Engineer. He has a ReactJS Nanodegree Certificate from Google Udacity and  highly experienced with JavaScript/Typescript language and related frameworks. He is goal-oriented and  eager to work with personnel in all areas of work to help boost profits and improve opportunities.

 

Biruk Tsegaye

Android Developer

Biruk Tsegaye has a Bachelor’s degree in software engineering from Addis Ababa University with experience and extensive education in software Design and Application Development. He is responsible for implementing, and enhancing Finbit  Android mobile application alongside a cross-functional teams. He also have experience on web development and graphics design.
 

 

Mhlalisi Ncube

Project Manager

Mhlalisi Ncube is Programme Manager at L-IFT BV responsible for its activities in Southern Africa from his base in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe. His focus is on enabling people to self-report their financial diaries and themselves benefit from the reported data. He manages the IMBE work with 2000 ECD preschool entrepreneurs self-reporting in FINBIT, the Corner Shop project across 11 countries and recently started FINBIT work with Africa Foundation’s hustler programme. Before L-IFT, he has worked with development organizations in Zimbabwe and the United States of America Read More>>
    on projects focused on research, promoting effective philanthropy, rural and urban livelihood strengthening, improving access to education, and environmental conservation. Mhlalisi studied Sociology and Anthropology at Manhattanville College in New York, USA.
     

    Cosmas Biwott

    Data Expert

    Cosmas Biwott is currently working for L-IFT as a data expert. He has a degree in Applied Statistics With Computing from Moi University. Currently undertaking master’s degree at the University of Nairobi. He is innovative and motivated, hardworking and goal oriented with great team ethics, excellent communication skills and interpersonal skills. Ability to work independently under pressure with good clarity of thoughts and organizational skills. He has worked as a graduate statistician, logistics officer and voter registration assistant. Read More>>
      He has good skills and knowledge in data management, mathematical and statistical modeling and he can perform data analysis and visualizations in R and SPSS, MS Excel and STATA.
       
      Adonay Negash

      Communications Officer 

      Adonay is the Communications Officer at L-IFT, responsible for developing and implementing effective multi-channel communication in the organization. Adonay has experience in content creation while working for other social enterprises.
       
      Joshua Byenkya

      Senior Research Manager

      Joshua is Senior Research Manager at L-IFT leading the Solar Adoption RCT In Nakivale and Kiryandongo refugee settlements, in Uganda. He has 11 years of experience in managing research and evaluation studies in Uganda and South Sudan in various development domains. He has conducted 11 project/programme evaluations, and 12 research studies commissioned by ActionAid Uganda, Reproductive Health Uganda (RHU), USAID/RTI, Compassion International, Dan Church Aid (DCA) in South Sudan, CIVICUS, HelpAge International, Read More>>

        Uganda Reach the Aged Association (URAA), Makerere University Department of Population Studies, Centre for Health Human Rights and Development (CEHURD), The Social Innovation Academy (SINA), Action Against Hunger ACF USA-Uganda Mission, Restless Development among others. He is a graduate from the Institute of Development Policy (IOB), University of Antwerp, Belgium with an Advanced Masters in Development Evaluation and Management. Currently, he is also a long distance Commonwealth Scholar pursuing an MSc. in Global Ageing and Policy from the University of Southampton, UK.

       
      Nayad Mideksa

      Data Integrity Officer 

      Nayad is a Data Integrity Officer at L-IFT in charge of routinely going through each data point to signal errors and inconsistencies then work closely and follow up with the Project managers to provide correct data. He has an experience in testing the FINBIT application.

      Henok Biazin

      Project Manager

      Henok Biazin is currently managing RFDF project in Uganda and post SFD project activities in Ethiopia. He started working with L-IFT as a Field Supervisor for SFD Ethiopia in 2019, where he has been there since the inception phase up to the successful completion of the project. Henok has a BA degree in Sociology and Social Work from Jimma University and an MA degree in Sociology from Addis Ababa University. In addition to his five years’ experience of teaching at Ambo University, he has an excellent experience in research, survey coordination and Read More>>

        supervision with local and international consultancy firms for the past ten years.

       

      Faith Kabanda

      Junior Data Analyst and Project Assistant

      Faith Kabanda is a Junior Data Analyst and Project Assistant at L-IFT in charge of data cleaning, sorting, analysis, data visualization, and tracking the progress of various projects. Faith has nearly 4 years of post-undergraduate experience in statistics, data handling, and data analysis in Python and R, as well as experience in data visualization in R, Tableau, and Google Data Studio. Faith is currently part of the ECD, CornerShop Diaries, Credit Scoring, and L-IFT’s Youth Conference projects. Faith is currently undertaking a master’s degree at Zimbabwe Open University Read More>>

        gaining knowledge on how to apply data management skills in business administration and project management.

       

      Lynn Ajema

      Data Analyst

      Lynn Ajema is a talented data analyst with a Bachelor’s degree in statistics from Taita Taveta University, Kenya. She has a passion for transforming complex information into actionable insights. Lynn is proficient in R and Python, leveraging these powerful tools to extract valuable meaning from raw data. With expertise in data visualization techniques using Tableau, R, Python, and Power BI, Lynn excels at presenting data in a visually appealing and understandable manner, enabling stakeholders to make informed decisions.

       

      Norbert Onyango

      Data Analyst

      Motivated Data Analyst Norbert Onyango brings a strong economics background from The University of Nairobi, certifications in Data Analysis from the same institution, four years of diverse data analysis experience, and expertise in statistical tools, data mining, and econometric modeling. Dedicated to optimizing data-driven solutions, he delivers concise reports and contributes valuable insights to inform decision-making. He is committed to continuous learning and staying updated with emerging trends.