Who We Are

DAVID PORTEOUS
Managing Director

David Porteous is the founder and director of Bankable Frontier Associates, a niche consulting firm based in Boston, Massachusetts USA. He has undertaken consultancy assignments in the areas of financial strategy and policy for a wide range of clients including public clients such as DFID, the World Bank, CGAP and private clients including a banking group and telco group.

Prior to relocating to Boston in 2004, he was active in executive leadership roles in the development finance sector of South Africa with private and public financial institutions as well as FinMark Trust, an NGO involved in promoting financial inclusion policies and projects, and a public-private partnership which sought to promote low income housing securitization.

He has written several books including Banking on Change, a book which chronicles and analyses changes in the retail financial sector of South Africa in the decade since democracy.

David has a B.Comm (UCT), M.Phil (Cambridge) and Ph.D (economics) (Yale).

He is married to Rebecca and has three sons.

JEFF ABRAMS

Since joining BFA in January 2008, Jeff Abrams’s work has focused on two areas within the developing world: business models and product design for affordable housing (and related basic infrastructure) finance in urban informal settlements, and strategic planning and analysis of market-based initiatives to extend the “bankable frontier” of effective savings accounts.

Currently, Jeff’s primary focus is managing the GAFIS (Gateway to Financial Innovations for Savings) program. This multi-year program promotes effective delivery of useful savings products to the poor. Jeff has established strong working relationships with five leading banks—from five countries across three continents—that are involved in the program; his principal research role is analyzing the related supply-side dynamics in terms of business models and the levers that improve them.

Jeff also works in BFA’s housing finance practice, where he provides strategies for enabling, designing, and delivering effective housing finance products for low-income segments. Currently, he is finding creative, contract-based ways to use dwellers’ informal property rights in housing assets to make improvements or otherwise increase value.

He is a licensed attorney and lives in the greater Boston area.

CHIOMA ACHEBE

Chioma Achebe is an associate at BFA. She works primarily within the demand side practice, with a focus on the Financial Diaries project. Before joining BFA, Chioma performed research on health policy and disparities in the U.S. and Nigeria. She authored an econometric analysis on the effects of maternal wealth, literacy, and health knowledge on child health outcomes in Nigeria. Currently, Chioma is a JD/MBA student at Harvard Law School and Harvard Business School. She holds a B.A. in Economics and a Secondary Field in Health Policy from Harvard College.

BRENDAN AHERN

Brendan Ahern is an associate at BFA working within the financial inclusion and housing finance parts of the practice. His work at BFA involves working with commercial financial institutions to deliver financial services further down-market through the creation of innovative products and delivery channels designed to enhance financial access for low-income individuals. Brendan also specializes in the analysis of microfinance markets.

Before joining BFA, Brendan performed econometric research on housing microfinance markets and authored a global comparative analysis of the potential market for this type of finance in developing countries. In a related role, he also served as a regional planning consultant to the municipal government of Casablanca, Morocco to assist in the development of its long-term infrastructure planning.

Brendan holds a Masters of City Planning from the University of Pennsylvania and a Masters in Teaching from Pace University in New York City.

JOHANN BEZUIDENHOUDT

Johann Bezuidenhoudt is an Associate of BFA and has substantial experience in consulting internationally in strategies and technology deployment in financial services.  He has training in economics and engineering.  He has worked in the private sector in an electricity utility, the mobile telecommunications industry, consulting and banking.  He has led projects in establishing mobile banking operations, electricity and airtime pre-paid sales and mobile value added services.  He has published papers on pre-payment and security and speaks at conferences on mobile banking and payments.  He has also sat on the board of Radicchio (now part of Liberty Alliance) and has a wide international network among m-banking providers, mobile operators and telecommunication and security technology suppliers.

KRISTY BOHLING

Kristy Bohling is an associate at BFA supporting the firm’s strategy and special projects practices. Kristy brings to the team more than five years of development research, policy, and program implementation experience in Africa. Prior to joining BFA, Kristy consulted on a pilot project implementing mobile phone literacy in rural areas in West Africa and researched mobile money agent networks in Niger. She also worked with Management Systems International on a cross-country meta-evaluation of USAID’s Trade Capacity Building projects and served as a community health volunteer in Peace Corps Niger.
Kristy completed her M.A. in international business and development economics at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and her B.A. in political science and history at the University of Notre Dame.

DANA CAVALLARO

Dana Cavallaro works as Administrator of Contract Finances at BFA, handling client invoicing and project based payments. In addition to her work at BFA, Dana works with other clients including non-profits and manufacturing companies. In a related role, she owns her own business in the bookkeeping/tax preparation field. Graduating from Quincy Vocational Technical School in Quincy, Massachusetts, Dana went on to become highly active in the financial industry. Dana has been in the accounting field for over 17 years and is a current student at Cambridge College, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, working on her accounting degree, as well as studying for the IRS enrolled agent exam.

DARYL COLLINS

Daryl Collins is a director leading the research efforts of Bankable Frontiers, with a specialization in the demand-side dynamics of development finance.  She was the principal investigator of the Financial Diaries, 2003-2004 field study based at the University of Cape Town, South Africa.  This study generated over a year's worth of daily data on the financial cash flows of poor households (see www.financialdiaries.com for findings and more detail).  The results of the Financial Diaries have been combined with similar studies undertaken in India and Bangladesh to create a book, Portfolios of the Poor, which will be published by Princeton University Press in May 2009.

Daryl began her career as an emerging market economist at a New York investment bank before moving to South Africa in the late 1990’s.  She ultimately joined the finance faculty of the University of Cape Town, where she leveraged a successful career in portfolio management into research on the financial behavior of the poor. Daryl holds bachelors and masters degrees in economics from the London School of Economics, and she is currently completing doctoral work at New York University.

Daryl and her husband, Brian Talbot, recently moved to the Boston area with their daughter, Isabella.

AHMED DERMISH

Ahmed is an Associate at BFA working on the technology and access to finance side of the practice,  Ahmed brings experience as a former regulator and bank supervisor at the Financial Services Authority (FSA) in the UK. Ahmed's work at BFA primarily focuses on enabling regulatory environments to provide more inclusive financial services.

During his tenure as a regulator Ahmed was a supervisor of medium sized banks and building societies. He was involved in the first wave of enhanced supervision during the liquidity crisis in the UK in 2007-2008, monitoring institutions struggling to navigate the liquidity landscape in difficult market conditions. Prior to his role as a supervisor Ahmed worked as a policy advisor in Operational Risk providing policy advice regarding electronic money regulations in the UK and EU. Notably during his time at the FSA Ahmed spent 6 months seconded to the CGAP Policy and Technology teams to work on electronic money regulations and the development of proportionate regulatory frameworks for branchless banking.

Ahmed has a Masters of Science in Development Economics from the School of African and Oriental Studies at the University of London.

DENISE DIAS

Denise specializes in both prudential banking and in microfinance regulation and supervision. She worked for CGAP (the World Bank) and GIZ (formerly GTZ) before becoming an Associate at Bankable Frontier Associates. Denise’s work concentrates on branchless banking policy, regulation and supervision, as well as prudential regulation and supervision. Before becoming a consultant in 2011, she was a member of CGAP’s Government and Policy Initiative, where she served as the regional manager for Latin America and the Caribbean. Previously, Denise had consulted independently to CGAP, GIZ, FIRST Initiative, and the World Bank in several regulatory matters related to policy-making around financial access. Before moving to the US in early 2007, Denise worked in the banking supervision and licensing departments of the Central Bank of Brazil, headed a small internet business in Brazil, and audited government programs for the Brazilian Ministry of Treasury. She has an MBA in International Banking and Finance from Birmingham Business School (UK), an MBA in Financial Sector Economics from USP (Brazil), and a Bachelor’s in Business from UFMG (Brazil). She speaks Portuguese, English and Spanish.

LARA GIDVANI

Lara Gidvani is an Associate in BFA’s policy practice. Lara comes to BFA after two and a half years at the Alliance for Financial Inclusion (AFI), a global network of financial sector regulators and policymakers pursuing financial inclusion based in Bangkok, Thailand. At AFI, Lara was the Policy Analyst/Knowledge Manager, where her primary responsibilities included managing the AFI Financial Inclusion Data Working Group, developing AFI Knowledge Products, capturing policy lessons from grants and network activities, and supporting AFI’s Policy Champions with the tools to present their policy experiences. Prior to AFI, Lara worked for two years as a Research Assistant at the Financial Access Initiative, a research consortium focused on finding answers to how financial sectors can meet the needs of poor households, to make the results of academic research more accessible. Lara began her work in financial inclusion as an Associate at Swadhaar FinServe an urban microfinance institution in Mumbai, India, where she focused on reporting and implementing new programs such as field collections and a business correspondent relationship as part of the head office team. Lara holds a Masters in Public Administration in International Development from New York University’s Wagner School of Public Service and a BA in Economics and Political Science from McGill University in Montreal.

ANTHONY HANNAGAN

Anthony is the Data Analyst for the U.S. Financial Diaries Project, a timely and independent look at how low-income Americans manage their financial lives. This survey tracks 300 families in four geographic regions in the U.S. over 16 months to collect highly detailed financial data. Anthony brings his experience in economic and statistical analysis from his graduate research in multinational industry statistics under the Economics faculty at Boston College, and from his work in international development consulting in Boulder, Colorado, and Kingston, Jamaica with the University of Colorado at Boulder Institute of Behavioral Sciences. Additionally, he designed and conducted a brief survey of small-scale bicycle transportation investments in southern and eastern regions of Ghana. Previously, Anthony had started a non-profit bicycle shop in Boulder, Colorado, and was an active student leader at the Environmental Center at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Anthony holds an MA in economics from Boston College, where he specialized in empirical industrial organization and international trade. He earned his BA in economics at the University of Colorado at Boulder, with concentrations in mathematics and business.

JAMES HOKANS

James Hokans is a director of Bankable Frontier Associates, and leads the firm’s housing finance practice.  He has undertaken numerous assignments primarily for international NGOs and commercial banks in the areas of both wholesale and retail finance with a special focus on housing microfinance, product development, market research and risk assessment.

James Hokans has over 25 years of international development experience managing housing, economic development and urban management programs primarily in Eastern, West and Southern Africa. He has also worked in India, Philippines and Indonesia and several countries in Latin America and the Caribbean. As a resident chief technical advisor, he worked for seven years in South Africa and was instrumental in establishing a national wholesale finance facility investing in micro-finance institutions in that country. Previously, he served as a policy advisor to the first minister of housing and local government in post-independence Namibia, and Mr. Hokans helped establish the Ford Foundation’s first Urban Poverty Program in Eastern and Southern Africa that invested in some of the first micro-finance institutions of that region. James Hokans received his M.Sc. in Economics and Public Policy from the London School of Economics (LSE) and his B.A. in history from Dartmouth College. He also holds a certificate in Project Management from the Business School at the University of Cape Town.

LESLIE HUBBARD

Leslie Hubbard has over 30 years in commercial, investment, and mortgage banking, and he leads the development of BFA’s Strategy Practice Group. This practice area focuses on offering strategic consulting services, operational planning, and financial advisory services for private organizations and commercial institutions that are currently providing or developing strategies for delivering a wider range of financial services for the unbanked and underserved markets. Prior to joining Bankable Frontiers, Les was Managing Director of BrownstonePartners, a financial consulting practice he founded in 1995. Les has served as Vice President/Managing Director of the Wall Street investment banking firm, CIBC/Oppenheimer, and as Senior Vice President with Bank of America, where he directed strategic acquisitions and product development of an interstate retail branch banking network. He has held positions in insurance and investment operations as Senior Vice President/COO of Prudential Bache CES group and as CEO of MEMC, a division of Mortgage Corporation of America, where he led the development of a strategic interstate coalition of commercial banks and retail mortgage originators. His experience also includes terms as President/CEO, founder, and director of several regional commercial banks. For a significant period, Les worked in Washington DC assisting federal banking authorities to formulate strategies for the resolution of national banking institutions and related regulatory policy. Les took his undergraduate in finance at Marian University in Indiana and his MBA at Northeastern University in Boston. He is currently a visiting executive at the Sawyer Business School of Suffolk University in Boston; he lives in Lexington, Massachusetts, with his wife Lisa and son Nathan.

NIKETA KULKARNI

Niketa Kulkarni is an associate at BFA, working primarily within the firm’s research practice. She brings over five years of experience of gaining ground level understandings of socially and economically depressed communities in India.

Prior to joining BFA Niketa worked as a primary relationship manager for Unitus, a nonprofit which provides capital and consulting support for microfinance institutions (MFIs) across the globe. She was an integral member of the team which started the Bangalore office, working intimately with key industry players to devise a suitable and contextspecific strategy for Unitus in India. Additionally, she maintained the primary client relationship with C-level executives at over 12 MFIs, focusing on strategic planning, improving key systems, strengthening governance and fostering innovation. During these three years, she also travelled extensively across the most impoverished parts of rural and urban India to investigate and understand ground level perspectives, as well as the needs of these communities to provide better guidance to her clients.

Niketa completed her J.D. and M.A. in South Asian Studies from the University of Michigan, where she focused her studies on researching and understanding the effects of the evolution of legal jurisprudence on cultural and religious identities.

In her free time, Niketa enjoys cooking, exercising, and travelling.

SARAH LANGHAN

Sarah Langhan brings a specialist focus on G2P payments, competition policy, and law and financial-sector regulation to BFA. Her expertise and interests lie in the areas of payment and regulatory issues pertaining to cross-border remittances, alternative payment mechanisms for social cash transfers (G2P payments), strategy and business-case development for private-sector clients launching financially inclusive payment products (mobile and card), the compilation of operational and product manuals, and the design and delivery of training programs. Prior to joining BFA in August 2011, Sarah held consultancy and senior management positions at a Nathan Associates Inc., Genesis Analytics, Quindiem Consulting, and eXactConsult. She also spent three years focused on economics and trade-related capacity-building and training activities at Eduardo Mondlane University and USAID (Mozambique). Her countries of experience include Bahrain, Colombia, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, Pakistan, Swaziland, Zambia, and South Africa. Sarah is currently working on a Doctoral thesis in Competition Law and Policy and received her B.Com (Law) degree in 2000 and an LLB degree in 2002 from the University of Stellenbosch, South Africa.

KATE LAUER

Kate Lauer is an Associate of BFA. As a trained lawyer with over twenty years of experience in international finance, she has focused over the past decade on the legal and policy issues related to expanding the poor’s access to financial services. She has worked with donors and regulators in various countries advising on regulatory and policy reform, in particular in the area of branchless banking. She has worked with financial service providers on strategic planning, joint ventures, and transformations. She is also a Policy Advisory Consultant for CGAP and is co-author of CGAP’s revised Guide to the Regulation and Supervision of Microfinance (April 2011).

Kate began her career with the law firm Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton and has served as in-house counsel at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and for an international fund managed by Goldman, Sachs & Co. She has a J.D. from New York University School of Law and a B.A. in economics from Dartmouth College.

JEREMY LEACH

Jeremy Leach is a Senior Associate with BFA focusing on insurance. As former Principal: Business Development & Divisional Director with Hollard Insurance Group, he headed up micro-insurance, which aimed to drive growth through the provision of high-quality insurance products to the lower-income markets of Africa and emerging markets. He also conceptualized and drove FinMark Trust’s mandate on “making insurance work for the poor” in SACU (Southern African Customs Union); this research is forming the basis for the IAIS (International Association of Insurance Supervisors) and South African principles on micro-insurance regulation. In addition, he conceptualized and oversaw research programs at FinMark Trust on high-impact insurance and transactional banking projects, which led to considerable policy and organizational engagement; this, in turn, led to insurers and banks engaging more in the low-income market in South Africa. He was appointed by the South African Minister of Finance to the South African Short Term Insurance Advisory Committee, and he is a Chartered Certified Accountant. He enjoys reading, philosophy, theology, cycling, and once upon a time, triathlon. He is married with one daughter.

BRIAN LE SAR

Brian Le Sar is a Senior Associate of Bankable Frontier Associates. He is an experienced banker with executive management experience in public- and private-sector banking, having particular specialties in payments, product, and channel management across the value chain, as well as policy, regulatory, and strategy issues arising in the design and application of new technology, business models, and architecture to retail financial services in emerging markets. Brian is also experienced in management consulting and in the design, setup, and management of payments- and card-related businesses across the African continent. Brian has authored several journal articles on payments in Payments Strategy and has a BComm Hons (UNISA) and an MBA (Wits).

IGNACIO MAS

Ignacio Mas is an independent consultant on technology-enabled models for financial inclusion, associated with Bankable Frontier. Ignacio has been Senior Advisor in the Financial Services for the Poor program at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and at the Technology Program at CGAP (a resource center for microfinance housed at the World Bank). Previously he was Director of Global Business Strategy at Vodafone Group, executive vice-president of marketing and account management at DoCoMo interTouch (a supplier of broadband solutions to the hospitality industry), and Senior Manager responsible for telecoms investments in Europe at Intel Capital (Intel Corp's venture capital arm). Ignacio holds undergraduate degrees in mathematics and economics from MIT and a PhD in economics from Harvard University, and has been a Visiting Professor of International Business at the Graduate School of Business at the University of Chicago. He is author many articles and blog posts on mobile money and branchless banking.

ANAND MENON

Anand is an Associate at BFA, working primarily in the G2P and financial inclusion practice. Prior to joining BFA, Anand was the project lead for Intellecap, a boutique advisory firm focused on the financial inclusion sector in India. Anand also spent time in Nepal, where he played a leadership role in incubating a microfinance institution called SamriddhaPahad (meaning “Prosperous Mountain”), which is focused on delivering financial services and market-linkage services to mountain communities in the Himalayas. Anand also has over five years of mainstream financial services and consulting experience, having worked with KPMG Consulting India’s strategy consulting practice, within E&Y’s transaction advisory team in Boston, and with the corporate strategy team at UBS AG in New York. Anand received his undergraduate degree in Management with a specialization in International Finance from the University of Mumbai, India.

CAROLINE PULVER

Caroline Pulver is an Associate of BFA. She has a specialised focus on G2P payments, in particular the design and review of payment mechanisms for cash transfer schemes. She has worked with donors, governments and the private sector to deliver more efficient and financially inclusive payment arrangements for a number of cash transfer programmes. She was involved in the design and implementation of the payment mechanism for the Hunger Safety Net Programme in Kenya on behalf of FSD Kenya and continues to oversee the delivery of payments. In Uganda, she contributed to the design of the payment mechanism for the SAGE cash transfer. In Ethiopia, she reviewed the payment arrangements for the Productive Safety Net Programme and made recommendations to improve efficiency of delivery. She has 12 years experience in financial services, the last 4 of which have been focused on increasing financial inclusion in developing countries. In Kenya, she has also been involved in mobile payments, in particular M-PESA and financial education initiatives.

JOHN RATICHEK

John Ratichek manages projects and facilitates the growth of BFA’s consulting practice and organization.  He also leads the development of BFA’s work in social transfer payments.  He has done work on the use of technology in mobile phone banking and has written and supervised case studies on the development of financial services in rural Africa.

He has recent experience in micro-enterprise development in Nepal and Vietnam.  Based on 10 years of partnership with agencies in Nepal, he is leading a small NGO for educational, healthcare and business development in that country.

His management background includes 10 years in manufacturing industry and 24 years in a religious non-profit.

John graduated from Harvard Business School with an MBA degree and from Amherst College (USA) with a BA in religion and economics.

He and his wife, Ellen, have four grown sons.

DAVID REED

An Associate at BFA, David focuses primarily on the intersection of public policy and the development of inclusive financial services. David brings a rich, heterodox background in research and evaluation to this work. At the Financial Clinic, a New York-based nonprofit, he helped design a system of novel metrics to assess clients’ financial security and then helped to popularize it through a partnership with the NYC Office of Financial Empowerment. Consulting for the GSM Association, David designed a survey of mobile money regulation and mobile services taxation in Africa. In Jordan, he developed, implemented, and evaluated a performance measurement and management curriculum for civil servants drawn from a variety of ministries. David earned his Bachelor’s degree in Psychology at Harvard University and a Master’s of Public Administration at New York University.

CERSTIN SANDER

Cerstin Sander brings significant operational and advisory experience in financial- and private-sector development to her work at BFA. Whether as manager, team leader, team member, or expert adviser, she has worked in technical cooperation as well as development investment. She’s previously worked with the International Finance Corporation (IFC), KfW Entwicklungsbank, DFID/UK, the Austrian Development Cooperation, the Canadian International Development Research Centre, and as a consultant.

Her assignments in Africa, Asia-Pacific, the Caribbean, and the former Soviet Union have grounded her in development finance. She has done extensive work in enterprise finance, microfinance, and migrant remittances—including operational, strategic, policy, and regulation projects. In particular, she has focused on money transfer and migrant remittances, having published, taught as a faculty member of the Boulder Microfinance Institute, and founded the Migrant Remittances newsletter.

Her other work includes private-sector development, institutional assessment, performance management, strategy and planning, and monitoring and evaluation.

Cerstin holds an M.A. in International Relations from Queen’s University, Canada.

CAITLIN SANFORD

Caitlin Sanford is an Associate at BFA working primarily on demand-side projects within the research practice. So far her work at BFA has focused on understanding financial behavior of G2P beneficiaries and low-income individuals’ perceptions of retail payment systems. Caitlin brings over three years of experience in international development research, evaluation and product management in Africa and Latin America to BFA. Caitlin worked on impact evaluation and research at the Independent Evaluation Group of the World Bank, and provided research support to economic and environment projects at the World Bank office in Brazil. Caitlin also spent nearly three years working on mainstreaming environment into national development plans and managing emission reduction projects with the UNDP-UNEP Poverty-Environment initiative, two years based in Kenya and 9 months in Panama. Caitlin holds a Master’s in Economics and Public Policy from the Woodrow Wilson School and Princeton University and BA from Stanford University. Caitlin loves languages and speaks French, Spanish, and Portuguese, and is conversant in Kiswahili.

STEFAN STASCHEN

Stefan Staschen is an economist specializing in policy and regulation of inclusive financial sectors and in the use of technology for improving access to finance. Stefan started his career in the financial system development section at GTZ headquarters, then worked as a resident advisor to the Central Bank of Uganda. As part of his PhD research, he later conducted a regulatory impact assessment of microfinance regulation in Uganda. In 2001, he established his own consulting firm, Inclusive Financial Systems, working for a variety of clients on policy reform initiatives in microfinance and with transforming microfinance institutions. Stefan also works as a core member of CGAP’s Policy Advisory Consultant Cadre. He has been part of CGAP’s and BFA’s teams working on branchless banking and m-banking regulation from as early as 2006. For CGAP he led five diagnostic missions on branchless banking regulation (in Pakistan, Kenya, India, Russia, and Indonesia). Stefan has an MSc in Economics from the Free University Berlin and a PhD from the LSE. He lived for 6 years in Nairobi, Kenya, before relocating to Istanbul, Turkey, in early 2010. He is now busy learning Turkish.

PAULINE VAUGHAN

Pauline Vaughan’s work with Bankable Frontier Associates has been focused on assisting organizations that are preparing to launch mobile banking products by providing strategic input and operational planning. Pauline gained in-depth experience in mobile financial services and agent management through four years of working with Safaricom on the rollout and operations of M-PESA in Kenya. She joined Safaricom in 2001 to assist with network rollout, following which she coordinated launch of a variety of new products and services for the mobile operator. When Safaricom decided in 2006 to launch M-PESA she headed the team responsible for rollout and overall operations of the world-renowned service. Her subsequent roles included M-PESA strategy development, process efficiency, and liaising with external parties interested in learning from the Safaricom success in mobile money transfer. Prior to working in the GSM industry, she worked as quantity surveyor and Project Manager for a number of Kenya city water supply projects. Pauline graduated with a BSC in Civil Engineering from the University of Cape Town (1991). She is Kenyan born and lives in Nairobi with her husband and two daughters.

LIZ WEISHAAR

Liz Weishaar is Office Administrator for Bankable Frontier Associates, performing a variety of practice-support activities. Liz also brings her extensive editorial and publishing experience to BFA, and she is involved in helping to finalize various BFA publications. Her most recent background includes a law degree and a successful book on writing bar-exam essays published by Aspen Publishing/Wolters Kluwer Law and Business. Her previous experience includes 10 years as Director of Publications with a boutique human resources consulting firm. Liz graduated from Massachusetts School of Law and Mount Holyoke College. She is an active member of the Social Action Committee at her church.