FS Staff and Consultants
Each member of MEDA’s Financial Services team has extensive experience in various areas of the industry.
Staff at Headquarters
Julie Redfern
Vice President, Financial Services
Julie Redfern is a senior manager, advisor and strategy specialist with over 21 years of international experience with start-up, mature and commercial Microfinance Institutions around the world. Julie has been with MEDA since 1996 and currently serves as Vice President, Financial Services. She leads a team of 15 staff and associates in both North America and abroad, implementing both long-term projects and technical advisory services. She serves as a Trustee on the Women's World Banking Board (New York) and a Director on the Board of Sevis Finansye Fonkoze (Haiti). Previously, she was Vice-President of MiCredito's Board of Directors (Nicaragua) and served on the board of Microvest, a private investment fund for MFIs based in Washington D.C.
Prior to joining MEDA, Julie was a project manager for the SEEP Network, supporting the scale-up of microenterprise programs. From 1991-1995 she served in Lesotho, as manager of CARE International's Rural
Enterprise Promotion Project and as a small business volunteer in the U.S. Peace Corps. Previously, Julie had a five-year term as Branch Manager of Tucson Federal Credit Union. She holds a Masters in Business Administration,
Bachelor of Arts in Economics, two advanced certificates in credit union management and has advanced Spanish skills.
Jennifer Denomy
Director, Youth and Financial Services
Jennifer Denomy is the Director of Youth and Financial Services at MEDA. She is responsible for developing and leading strategy to promote increased financial access, entrepreneurship and employment for young people. MEDA's youth programming includes successful projects in Egypt, Morocco and Afghanistan, linking young people with appropriate financial products and non-financial services such as financial education. Jennifer has supported financial institutions on product development, client analysis and risk management in Uganda, Malawi, Egypt, Morocco and Afghanistan. From 2009 to 2012, she was facilitator of a 3-year action learning project that brought together four microfinance organizations to explore appropriate and accessible financial services for young people. In addition to journal articles on youth and financial services, she has created toolkits and training manuals on Hazard Assessment and Mitigation in Microenterprises, Computer Based Learning and Communication and Decision
Making Skills for Youth. Jennifer holds an M.Ed. in International Development and Education from the University of Toronto and an M.A. from McGill University in Montreal.
Nicole Pasricha
Director, Inclusive Rural Finance
Nicole Pasricha, of Toronto, Canada is the Director of Inclusive Rural Finance in MEDA's Financial Services Department, leading MEDA's programming in rural, agricultural, and value chain financing. Since joining MEDA in 2007, Nicole has overseen and delivered technical support to a variety of microfinance and agriculture value chain projects and MFI partners in Afghanistan, Nicaragua, Zambia, Ethiopia, Mozambique, Tajikistan, Ukraine, and Vietnam. She is a faculty member of the Boulder Microfinance Institute in Turin and Costa Rica, offering a course on "Agriculture Value Chain Financing for MFIs". Prior to joining MEDA, Nicole worked on microfinance industry issues such as technology and microfinance credit ratings at the Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP) in Washington, D.C., and supervised urban and rural credit operations as a credit supervisor at Banco ProCredit in El Salvador. Nicole holds an M.A. in International Affairs from the George Washington University and Bachelors' in Political Science and Business Administration from the University of Florida.
Kamran Abdullayev
Senior Consultant/Project Manager, Inclusive Rural Finance
Kamran Abdullayev, of Waterloo, Canada is a Senior Consultant / Project Manager in the Financial Services Department, specializing in the areas of rural, agriculture, and value chain financing. Kamran has over 16 years of experience in enterprise development, microfinance, and value chains, including in direct microenterprise service provision, market research, and in designing, managing and technical backstopping to economic development-focused field programs. Prior to joining MEDA in 2010, Kamran oversaw microfinance operations as COO of FINCA International in Azerbaijan. While at Mercy Corps Azerbaijan he also contributed to strategy design and implementation for a variety of programs in the Caucasus, Central Asia, Africa and South Asia, and gained experience in the needs of refugees and displaced persons. Kamran holds a Master's Degree in Development Economics from the University of East Anglia (UK) and an Engineering Degree from the Azerbaijan Civil Engineering University. He is a member of the UK Development Studies Association, and is fluent in English, Russian, and Azerbaijan.
Sashi Selvendran
Senior Consultant/Project Manager, Deposit MobilizationSashi Selvendran has ten years of experience in microfinance, credit guarantees, risk analysis, training, and project management. At MEDA, Sashi is responsible for managing grants and providing technical assistance to MFIs in the process of transformation and deposit taking product development. Prior to MEDA, Sashi worked at USAID in their Office of Development Credit and Office of Poverty Reduction in Washington, DC. She specialized in technical assistance to 15 USAID Missions with credit guarantees in SME finance, housing microfinance, and municipal finance. Sashi has worked on savings mobilization and investment at the Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP), project management at Grameen Foundation, and microfinance delivery channels in water and sanitation in Cambodia. As a consultant for the ADB, Sashi conducted due diligence of prospective partner banks in Central Asia and Asia. She obtained her MSc. in Local Economic Development from the London School of Economics and her BA in International Development from Vanderbilt University.
Chrissy Martin
Senior Consultant/Project Manager, Inclusive Rural Finance
Chrissy has several years of experience in technology solutions for development and a specialty in mobile and
branchless banking. Before MEDA, Chrissy was based in Haiti, working as the Product Manager for Mobile Financial Services at Digicel, the first carrier to launch a mobile money product in the country. Chrissy has a BA in Foreign
Affairs from the University of Virginia and an MA from The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, specialized in International Business and NGO Management. Her work at MEDA focuses on using technology to expand rural access to a range of financial services in countries including Zambia, Uganda, and Nicaragua.
Jennifer Gurbin Harley
Senior Consultant/ Project Manager, Youth and Financial Services
Jennifer has five years of experience in market research, proposal development, drafting and editing technical documents, and delivering short-term consulting services. She has managed product development processes with partner financial institutions in Nepal and Morocco, and undertaken market research initiatives in both West Bank/Gaza and Pakistan. She also facilitates the working group for youth and financial services with the SEEP Network in North America. From 2007-2008 she undertook a one-year research study to analyze the marketing strategies of four non-governmental organizations in Canada. She holds a Masters degree in International Development from the University of Ottawa. Jennifer is fluent in English and has working knowledge of French.
Mansur Mehdi
Senior Consultant/ Senior Project Manager, Deposit Mobilization
Mansur Mehdi is a development financial services specialist with around 16 years of professional experience in development finance, strategic financial management and auditing. By profession, Mansur is a Chartered
Accountant, however, his professional experience ranges beyond Assurance,Advisory, Accounting and Finance. In the last 8 years, he opted to make Development Finance his career. At MEDA, Mansur provides support to various developmental activities for MEDA partners. He has contributed towards the development of Technical Assistance approaches and manages one of MEDA's large-scale projects in Financial Services- ADEN, Yemen.
In the recent past, Mansur provided management services at a major development finance APEX institution where he was the Director of Finance and Development. Earlier, he directed transition activities at the same APEX which
resulted in the consolidation of six MicroFinance Institutions (MFIs), and the establishment of a new institution with a focus on serving women MSMEs. Before, Mansur was the Group Head/CFO of a leading Microfinance Bank for over 5 years. Mansur has experience at various governance levels, including the Board of Directors, Executive Committee and Asset/Liability Committee, Audit/Risk Committee and Credit Committee.
Nicki Post
Senior Consultant/Project Manager, Youth and Financial Services
Nicki has over 7 years of international development experience focusing on financial product development,
savings group methodologies, financial literacy, training and project management. With MEDA, Nicki is overseeing the YouthInvest project, a training and technical assistance program delivering financial and non-financial services for youth in Morocco and Egypt. She also managed and provided technical support to UNCDF's YouthStart initiative in Sub-Saharan Africa. Prior to MEDA, Nicki worked with Freedom from Hunger as a Technical Advisor, designing, developing and implementing financial education for MFIs and NGOs throughout West Africa and Southeast Asia. Nicki specialized on informal adult and youth savings groups, savings product development and utilizing mobile phones as alternate education delivery mechanisms. Nicki's work with the International Monetary Fund and as a United States Peace Corps volunteer in Cameroon award her an array of training and technical assistance experiences as well as overseas experience. She holds an M.S. from New York University in International Economics and Development and a B.A. from the University of Denver in International Studies. She is fluent in English (native) and French.
Sa-Eun Park
Consultant/ Project Manager
Sa-Eun has over 10 years of experience in financial services industry, including commercial retail banking, wealth management, and microfinance. At MEDA, Sa-Eun is responsible for managing projects and providing technical assistance to MFIs, applying MEDA's risk-based approaches in product development, MIS management and reporting, and transformation readiness into deposit-taking financial institutions.
Before starting at MEDA, she managed a portfolio of $115 million of high net-worth clients at Bank of America and Bank of America Investments, and received national recognition for her performance. Sa-Eun has also managed business strategy, planning, and expansion of a start-up console game company in Southern California and a medical import-export business in Saudi Arabia. Sa-Eun obtained a BS from Haas School of Business at University of California-Berkeley and an MS in Development Management from the American University, with a focus
in microfinance and accounting. Her recent master's research includes optimizing the operational efficiency of an MFI in Brazzaville, the Republic of Congo.
Meghan Denega
Project Coordinator/Junior Consultant
Meghan is the Project Coordinator/ Junior Consultant for MEDA's Financial Services department.
She has recently returned from a CIDA-sponsored internship with MEDA at their Ukraine Horticulture Development Project (UHDP), where she worked as an Impact Assessment Intern. Meghan holds a Master's Degree in International Development Studies from York University with a research focus on rural women's use of microfinancial services in Kabale, Uganda. As part of her degree, Meghan spent 4 months in Uganda collecting primary data for her thesis. Meghan has an undergraduate degree in Political Science from the University of Alberta with a French minor. During her undergraduate degree she spent a year abroad at the Universidad de Guadalajara in Mexico, and in total she lived in Mexico for nearly 5 years. Languages are a passion of hers and she speaks English (native tongue), Spanish (fluent), French (advanced), Russian (intermediate) and Ukrainian (basic).
International Staff
Adil Sadoq
Field Project Manager, Egypt/Morocco
Adil is the Field Project Manager for YouthInvest, a five year, multi-country project providing youth with access to financial and non-financial services. Duties include providing technical expertise to local partners on developing and assessing youth oriented products, including training, credit and savings as well as forming and maintaining partnerships with microfinance institutions, training providers and a range of public, private and not-for-profit stakeholders. In addition, he is a certified social auditor and seasoned microfinance practitioner. Since 2002, he has been sharing his expertise as a consultant with a range of microfinance institutions, donors and microfinance network organizations throughout Africa and the Middle East. Adil has significant experience as team leader designing and launching microfinance programs, including developing a branch network, designing, pilot-testing and rolling out new products, man resource strategy development and performance indicator monitoring. Adil is a solid trainer who has been providing training in numerous microfinance training modules. He holds an MA in French Literature, University of Fes, Morocco and is fluent in English, French and Arabic.
Magdy Moussa
Field Project Manager, Yemen
Mr. Moussa has over 20 years of international experience in development as a Financial and Management international advisor, fifteen of which are in the domain of Microfinance; building the institutional capacity of microfinance institutions (MFIs) in Egypt, the Middle East and the Horn of Africa, the provision of training to management and staff, and the development of a conducive legislative and informative infrastructure for Microfinance and Small Enterprise sector in the region. He has hands-on experience in the creation and
development of NGO MFIs, including governance, product development, business planning, internal control policies and procedures, and organizational management. Mr. Moussa is certified by CGAP as a lead trainer and resource person in providing training on Strategic, Operational planning and Financial Modeling, as well as in Product
Development. Mr. Moussa has designed and conducted training in Egypt, the Middle East, Africa, and the United States. Mr. Moussa has contributed with efforts and authored MFI's and projects' evaluation, as well as research papers in Arabic and English. Finally, and in a voluntary capacity Moussa is a Board member of Tadamun MF program and is providing assistance to international MF bodies in developing the sector such as Sanabel Network, CGAP Regulatory Resource Center, the African Development Bank, USAID and the World Bank.