About Us
Team
Nicola Armacost
Niki Armacost is the Managing Director of Arc Finance. She has 20 years of experience in development throughout Africa, Asia, Latin America and Eastern Europe.
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From 1993 to 2008, Niki worked at Women’s World Banking (WWB), a global microfinance organization. In her last position at WWB, Niki was the Director of Linkages and Learning and served as part of the senior management team. She was responsible for overseeing the network’s learning and knowledge agenda, for promoting the leadership role of members, and for building and leveraging strategic alliances. Prior to this position, Niki held leadership roles at WWB in the areas of knowledge management, market development, policy, and communications. Niki has has strong relationships with top MFIs, banks and investors globally as well as players in remittances and energy product companies. She has been a speaker on microfinance, impact investing, remittances, and sustainable energy at numerous international fora.
Currently Niki serves as an advisor to several organizations including Distributed Capital (financial services, USA), Frontier Markets (distribution systems, USA), SIMPA Networks (payment systems, USA), Stima Systems (micro-leasing, USA) and Ecozoom (cookstoves, USA). She also serves on the Board of Global Exchange (a human rights organization based in California) and on the Board of the Microfinance Investment Support Facility for Afghanistan (Misfa).
Niki holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in international relations from the University of Toronto, Canada, an LLB from Queen’s University, Canada and an LLM from the Osgoode Hall Law School, Canada. She is both a British and American citizen and speaks English, French, Spanish and Italian.
Yara Akkari
Yara is Arc’s Project Coordinator, managing the implementation of a business model to promote the use of remittances as a means to purchase clean energy in Haiti.
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Yara has spent her career in the development sector in a range of different capacities including governance, social development, microfinance, renewable energy and culture. Most recently, she worked at Eko Green, a company based in Nigeria, as a consultant. Her research and work at Eko Green contributed to the implementation of innovative organic farming and low cost ecological housing in Africa. Before joining Eko Green, Yara served as a project management and research consultant for various UN agencies. She worked for the UNDP in strategy development and institutional building for the Lebanese Ministry of Finance and the Investment Development Authority of Lebanon (IDAL) and in the promotion of cultural diversity in least advanced countries through management of projects at the International Fund for Cultural Diversity (IFCD) at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris.
She also consulted for Women’s World Banking (WWB), a network of microfinance institutions, contributing to their research and communication initiatives. Yara began her career at Ashoka, an NGO that supports social entrepreneurship worldwide, where she managed fundraising, developed a newsletter on innovative solutions for social change, and supported Ashoka’s fellows in their efforts.
Yara received an MS in Development Studies from the London School of Economics and a BA in International Economics from ASSAS University in Paris, both with merit. A native of Lebanon, Yara is fluent in English, French and Arabic.
Sreyamsa Bairiganjan
Srey serves as one of Arc’s Project Mangers for India, bringing extensive experience in the social and cleantech enterprise engagement space with a special focus on Base of the Pyramid markets.
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Prior to joining Arc Finance, Srey was the Head of Enterprise Engagement and Research at New Ventures India, a program founded by the World Resources Institute.
At New Ventures, Srey used a triple bottom line approach to mentor, support and estimate market potential for small-scale enterprises across Asia, Africa and South America. Srey forged partnerships with leading donors, clients, investors and NGOs globally, including UNDP, WWF, SEED, ADB, GIZ, to support promising environmental entrepreneurs with both financing and technical assistance. As Head of Enterprise Engagement at New Ventures, Srey worked with over 30 environmental entrepreneurs, helping his team to facilitate investments of close to US$49.43 million.
Srey has authored multiple reports focused on emerging markets, inclusive growth and entrepreneurship. His research highlights the investment and operational needs across Base of Pyramid markets with special focus on inclusive business models. Srey has presented his research at a range of universities including John Hopkins University, New York University, Duke University, Columbia University and University of North Carolina. Srey has also participated as an expert at various global fora, including the G20 Inclusive Business Forum in Germany, Rio +20 Corporate Sustainability Forum in Brazil, the International Business Forum in South Africa and the UNDP-UNESCAP Pro-Poor Public-Private-Partnerships (5Ps) workshop in Thailand. He has served as an expert on UNDP’s panel on investments and mentoring for small-scale energy enterprises across Laos and Cambodia and has juried the prestigious, international SEED Awards in London.
Prior to joining New Ventures India, Srey worked as a senior researcher at the Centre for Development Finance at the Institute for Financial Management and Research, a major Indian think tank focused on Base of the Pyramid issues. Srey completed a program in Investment Management at the Aspen Network of Development Entrepreneurs (ANDE) of the Aspen Institute (USA) and graduated with a degree in Qualitative Research Techniques from the Institute of Rural Management (India).
Aashish Chalise
Aashish is Arc’s Project Associate based out of Delhi, India. He brings extensive experience in financial planning and analysis to the team.
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Prior to joining Arc, Aashish worked as an Operations Manager for Smart Data Solutions in Kathmandu. He managed more than 25 BPOs across India and managed nearly 100 customer accounts. In the United States, Aashish worked for Bank of New York Mellon as a Financial Analyst in its Mutual Fund division in New York. Aashish also worked for Legg Mason Asset Management as a middle office analyst.
Rebekah Chew
Bek is Arc’s Research Analyst. She contributes over seven years of international project and policy expertise from a diverse range of fields, including migration, health, and social policy.
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Before joining Arc, Bek supported the work of the Economic and Social Council at United Nations Headquarters in New York and assisted with the 2014 Partnerships Forum, Youth Forum and the inaugural Integration Segment on Sustainable Urbanization. Prior to this, Bek worked with the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade in Guangzhou, China and led Australia’s Permanent Migration Programme in south China. From 2009 to 2010, Bek resided in Paris and completed her graduate studies at Sciences Po.
Bek started her career in Melbourne, Australia with the Victorian Department of Health as a Policy Advisor, where she advocated for improved health benefits and stronger social inclusion policies for marginalized groups. Bek has also held positions with GE Money and AC Nielsen Research.
Bek holds a Bachelor of International Business with a major in Chinese (Mandarin) from La Trobe University, Australia, and a Master of International Politics from the University of Melbourne, Australia.
Chikako Fujita
Chika brings over 12 years of deep and diverse experiences from the energy development sector. Before joining Arc, Chika was a Business Development Fellow in Afghanistan for d.light design, a U.S. based social enterprise providing affordable solar lighting solutions.
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Prior to this, Chika was an Acumen Fund Global Fellow Class of 2011. During her fellowship, she supported Ziqitza Health Care, an Acumen Fund investee based in Mumbai, India. She contributed to Ziqitza’s operation expansion, providing project management, process design and training, and the introduction of a new technology platform. From 2007 to 2010, Chika served as Executive Director at an environmental NGO, Gaia Initiative, in Tokyo, Japan, where she advocated and fund-raised for the promotion of renewable energy for the world’s poor, especially for solar lanterns.
Chika started her career as a management consultant at PricewaterhouseCoopers in Tokyo, working on supply chain management, business process design, and IT solutions. She also worked with Sanyo Electric, where she was responsible for the strategic communication of corporate vision and clean/green tech products.
Chika holds a BA in International Studies from International Christian University, Tokyo, Japan, and a Master of Environmental Management from Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. A native of Japan, she is fluent in English and Japanese.
Saiful Islam
Saiful is Arc’s Microfinance Operations Specialist, and brings over 20 years of experience in the microfinance industry.
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Prior to joining Arc, Saiful was at Women’s World Banking (WWB) where he spent over 15 years working closely with some of the largest MFIs in Asia and Africa, providing strategic advice and technical assistance. His prior experience includes several years with the Shakti Foundation, a retail MFI in Bangladesh that he co-founded as well as at UNICEF, Bangladesh where he served as a consultant in the Field Operations section.
Saiful has spent his career supporting MFIs to improve and expand their operations, refining existing products and introduce new ones. Saiful is recognized as an expert on the group lending methodology and has successfully introduced individual lending to traditional group lending MFIs. He has also assisted several MFIs—CARD Bank (Philippines), ADOPEM (Dominican Republic), U-Trust (Uganda), KMB (Pakistan) and KWFT (Kenya)—to introduce voluntary savings. Saiful has authored several publications on savings and portfolio quality management, including a book called Introducing Voluntary Savings – A WWB How-To Guide.
Saiful holds Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Finance from Dhaka University. He is Bangladeshi-American, is fluent in English and Bangla, understands Hindi and can read Arabic.
Cyrielle Jean
Cyrielle Jean is Arc’s Digital and Social Media Associate. In this role, she directs the digital dissemination of Arc’s work and coordinates Arc’s knowledge creation process.
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Cyrielle has several years of domestic and international community-based experience in fundraising, digital marketing, financial literacy, microfinance, youth development and workforce development. Most recently, Cyrielle was a consultant for the Inter-American Development Bank, where she worked with its Small Business Trade and Integration team to develop a new strategic digital plan for regional small businesses. Cyrielle has also worked with Fonkoze Microfinance Bank, the largest microfinance bank in Haiti, to launch its Youth Microfinance program, a combined community and workforce development initiative.
Cyrielle holds a Master of Public Administration in Urban Economic Development degree from Columbia University and a Bachelor of Arts in International Relations degree from Tufts University. Cyrielle is Haitian-American and speaks English, French and Haitian Creole.
Guadalupe Lopez de Llergo
Guadalupe is the Co-Founder and Co-Partner of Mercaei, SA de CV, a leading market research firm based in Mexico City that has extensive experience conducting quantitative and qualitative research studies with a broad range of populations all over the world.
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For the quantitative projects, Guadalupe is responsible for the methodological design, field-work supervision, statistical, graphic and written analysis and report presentation.
For the qualitative studies Guadalupe serves as a moderator, and is responsible for the methodological design, recruitment and logistics supervision, analysis and report presentation. Guadalupe has extensive experience training researchers, moderators and observers (qualitative studies), and supervisors, interviewers and personnel for data-entry and creation of catalogues (quantitative studies). Her projects include the following: social (client satisfaction and behaviour, design of new products, positioning and promotion campaigns); public (government evaluation, communication campaigns appraisal, programs and demand assessment); private (client satisfaction, image positioning and price architecture).
Guadalupe has consulted with a range of clients including Arc Finance, the Observatory for Decentralized Cooperation between the European Union and Latin America, Women’s World Banking, Catholic Relief Services, as well as government agencies, market research and consultancy firms, and NGOs in Mexico. Prior to founding Mercaei in 2001, Guadalupe worked in microfinance for several years. Most recently, Guadalupe was part of the Arc teams that conducted remittance market research in Haiti and the Dominican Republic and investigated strategies for sustainable water infrastructure in Afghanistan. Guadalupe is proficient in Harvard Graphics and SPSS. She holds two master’s degrees from Columbia University in New York, in Public Policy Administration and International Affairs, a Bachelor’s in International Relations from Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, and a certification in microfinance market research from Micro-Save Africa. Guadalupe is a Mexican citizen, and is fluent in Spanish, English and French.
Sam Mendelson
Sam Mendelson is Arc’s Knowledge Specialist, working with project partners to gather impact data. Sam is also the 2012-13 DFID/Citi Development Fellow, a position which seeks to engage the private financial services sector in best practice in financial inclusion.
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Since 2009, Sam has been the co-author of Microfinance Banana Skins, an annual report that ranks the risk perceptions of more than 350 practitioners and close observers of the microfinance scene in 79 countries. He is also the co-founder of SPA - a small Social Performance consultancy offering bespoke SPM audit, analysis and advisory services to Tier 2 and 3 MFIs. Prior to this, Sam was a Senior Consultant in the Emerging Markets practice at ESL & Network (UK) for four years, before which he was Programme Director at the Centre for the Study of Financial Education, a London-based economics think-tank.
Sam has been widely published, including dozens of articles in Financial World magazine, as well as Prospect, Ambassador, the Guardian, Africa Investor, In-Debate and many times in the Gulf broadsheet press. He is the Consulting Editor to Microfinance Focus, and was nominated in 2011 for a Foreign Press Association award in the Feature of the Year category, for a Prospect feature on Qatar. He has a forthcoming chapter on hurdles and issues in a book on microfinance and has written briefing papers for institutions such as Chatham House and CINI-UK.
Sam has undergraduate degrees in Psychology and Law from University of Western Australia, and a Master of Laws (in Public International Law) from University College London.
Laura Sundblad
Laura is Arc Finance’s Capacity Building Specialist. In this role, she leads Arc’s capacity-building efforts at partner institutions and beyond. Laura oversees staff training and consumer education efforts related to energy financing, and leads Arc’s sector-building activities, including Arc’s annual conference on innovations in financing small-scale off-grid clean energy. Laura is also engaged in building Arc’s expertise on gender equality issues in energy access.
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Laura has several years of diverse experience in international development. She joined Arc in June 2014 as a Project Associate, providing research support and leading stakeholder engagement events. During her graduate studies at Columbia, Laura was a pro bono consultant for Zara Solar, a Tanzanian solar energy business, developing a new strategic plan for its expansion. In 2013, Laura conducted research on climate change, gender equality and conflict in the Horn of Africa for the Bureau of Crisis Prevention and Recovery of the United Nations Development Programme. Prior to her graduate studies, Laura served as Assistant Field Director in the Marshall Islands for the educational non-profit organization WorldTeach. Laura has held internships with the Permanent Mission of Finland to the United Nations as well as the Department for Development of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland.
Laura holds a Master of Public Administration degree from Columbia University as well as a Master of Arts degree in International Relations from the University of St Andrews. A native of Finland, Laura is fluent in English and Finnish, and speaks French, Spanish, Swedish and Marshallese at an intermediate level.
Bishal Thapa
Bishal Thapa is Arc’s Microgrid Specialist, serving as a senior advisor for Arc’s MFI partners that are developing microgrids. Bishal also serves as the Managing Director of Lotus Energy, one of Nepal’s oldest solar companies.
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At Lotus, he is developing microgrids and micro‐utilities. Bishal has consulted on energy and environment projects for over 13 years around the world. Between 2005 and 2011, he served as the Managing Director of ICF International, India, and subsequently as ICF’s Vice President in Delhi.
Bishal brings strong technical expertise across the entire energy supply chain, both on demand and supply sides. His analyses have integrated across fuels (coal, gas, renewables), generation, transmission, emissions, energy efficiency, and regulatory and structural issues. With a background in energy economics and financing, he has provided advisory support for financing of renewable and energy projects, acquisitions, asset valuations, energy efficiency and emissions markets in several countries globally.
Board
Nicola Armacost
Niki Armacost is the Managing Director of Arc Finance. She has 20 years of experience in development throughout Africa, Asia, Latin America and Eastern Europe.
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From 1993 to 2008, Niki worked at Women’s World Banking (WWB), a global microfinance organization. In her last position at WWB, Niki was the Director of Linkages and Learning and served as part of the senior management team. She was responsible for overseeing the network’s learning and knowledge agenda, for promoting the leadership role of members, and for building and leveraging strategic alliances. Prior to this position, Niki held leadership roles at WWB in the areas of knowledge management, market development, policy, and communications. Niki has has strong relationships with top MFIs, banks and investors globally as well as players in remittances and energy product companies. She has been a speaker on microfinance, impact investing, remittances, and sustainable energy at numerous international fora.
Currently Niki serves as an advisor to several organizations including Distributed Capital (financial services, USA), Frontier Markets (distribution systems, USA), SIMPA Networks (payment systems, USA), Stima Systems (micro-leasing, USA) and Ecozoom (cookstoves, USA). She also serves on the Board of Global Exchange (a human rights organization based in California) and on the Board of the Microfinance Investment Support Facility for Afghanistan (Misfa).
Niki holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in international relations from the University of Toronto, Canada, an LLB from Queen’s University, Canada and an LLM from the Osgoode Hall Law School, Canada. She is both a British and American citizen and speaks English, French, Spanish and Italian.
Nancy Barry (Chair)
Nancy Barry launched Enterprise Solutions to Poverty (ESP) in 2006. ESP works with major corporations, emerging entrepreneurs, and leading business schools to build business models that engage low-income producers as suppliers, distributors, and consumers of products that build income and assets.
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Nancy is recognized as a global leader in building finance and enterprise systems that work for the majority. She was President of Women’s World Banking from 1990 to 2006, expanding the WWB network to reach over 20 million low-income entrepreneurs and shaping microfinance worldwide. From 1975 to 1990, Nancy worked at the World Bank, pioneering small-enterprise programs and leading work on industry, trade, and finance. Nancy has a Bachelor of Arts degree in economics from Stanford University and an MBA from Harvard Business School. She has received various awards, including recognition as one of Forbes magazine’s 100 Most Powerful Women in the World in 2004 and 2005. She was also named in U.S. News and World Report‘s “America’s 20 Best Leaders” in 2006.
Bhakti Mirchandani (Treasurer)
Bhakti Mirchandani is a Senior Vice President at One William Street Capital Management. Most recently, Bhakti served as Global Relationship Director at Barclays for multilaterals, non-profits, and government agencies focused on international development. Prior to joining Barclays, Bhakti served as Vice President of Unitus Capital, a firm that seeks to open global capital markets for the poor.
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Her work at Unitus included developing market entry strategies for Philippine microfinance and Indian affordable housing. Before joining Unitus, Bhakti worked in Corporate Strategy and Investment Management at Barclays Capital/Lehman Brothers, where she was also the firm’s Microfinance Specialist. Her work included one of the first microfinance CLOs. Bhakti co-founded the Global Microentrepreneurship Awards (later incorporated into Citi, for which the U.N. presented her with an innovation award) and worked in Homebuilding Equity Research at Salomon Smith Barney. Bhakti holds a B.A. in Chemistry (cum laude) from Harvard College, an MPA from Harvard Kennedy School and an MBA from Harvard Business School, where she received the Dean’s Award. Bhakti has co-chaired five microfinance investor and social enterprise conferences with an aggregate 1,700 participants and published numerous microfinance articles.
Ron Kastner
Ron Kastner is the founder and CEO of Future Spectrum Ltd., a UK company set up to develop and operate renewable energy sites throughout the UK. Future Spectrum currently has five wind farm sites in various stages of development in Central and Eastern Scotland, with a total of 75MW in planned generation.
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Prior to launching Future Spectrum, Ron was the founder and CEO of Capital Printing Systems, Inc., a New York-based financial printing company that supported the financial and legal community on financial transactions, printing and logistics. Ron built Capital Printing Systems into a $75 million per-year company and sold it in 2008. Ron is also actively involved in not-for-profit theater and has been a working producer of theater and film for over 20 years, with credits including productions of Gypsy, True West, and The Real Thing. Ron is a partner in three successful New York City restaurants, including Five Points, Cookshop and Hundred Acres. Ron has also been on the board of Karen Horney Clinic, a low cost mental health clinic in NYC for over 20 years.