Mr. Hayford Attah Krufi is the Chief Executive Officer of the National Pensions Regulatory Authority (NPRA), Ghana.

He is a Solicitor and a Barrister and holds a Masters of Arts (MA) Education from London Metropolitan University; Post Graduate Certificate of Education from the University of London; LLM in International Investment Law from the University of North London; Bachelor of Laws and Barrister-at-Law from University of Ghana and Ghana Law School respectively.

Until he was appointed CEO of NPRA, he was the Project Management Consultant at the US Agency for International Development (USAID) at the Ministry of Education Funds and Project Management Unit of Ghana.

As the CEO of NPRA he has transformed the Authority into credible autonomous regulatory body for pensions in the country. He has developed a strategic vision for the Authority which has enabled it to fulfil its mandate through rapid growth of pension funds, transfer of funds to Public Sector Schemes and expansion of voluntary micro pensions while enforcing the mandatory pension schemes across the country.

Dr. Farouk joined the National Pension Commission, Nigeria, in August 2005 after spending 14 years in classroom, where I taught Mathematics, Computing and Operations Research. He was engaged on special National Assignment to establish the pension industry in Nigeria after serving, on advisory capacity, during the period of legislative process on the pension reform bill by the National Assembly in 2004. He served on the Committee that reviewed the National Strategy on Public Service Reforms as well as on the Technical Committee for the implementation of the National Financial Inclusion Strategy and member of the Program Monitoring Office of the National Financial Sector Strategy 2020. He also served on the National Working Group for the Non-Interest Finance, which saw the successful implementation of Non-Interest Finance in Nigeria. He served as the Head of Research & Strategy Management Department of the National Pension Commission from August 2005 to March 2019 and the Head of Investment Supervision Department of the Commission from March 2019 to December 2020. He is currently the Commissioner (Executive Director) in charge of Administration at the Commission.

Dr. Farouk has a bachelor’s degree in Mathematics (Usman Danfodio University, Sokoto, Nigeria, 1990), a Postgraduate Diploma in Computer Science (Federal University of Technology, Minna, Nigeria, 1997), MSc in Management Science (Operational Research, Lancaster University, UK- 1998) and a PhD in Management Science (Operations Research, Lancaster University, UK - 2003). He attended several courses at home at abroad and had written and spoken extensively on the Nigerian pension reforms and the Contributory Pension Scheme at various national and international fora.

Olano Makhubela has been with the National Treasury since 2000. In his 19 years at the National Treasury, he has assisted with the development of Government policy on retirement reforms, insurance, investment funds, financial integrity, prudential regulation, capital controls and flows, first tier banking and financial inclusion. He has represented the National Treasury at the G20 Financial Access Working Group, Financial Sector Charter and Nedlac processes. He is currently the Divisional Executive: Retirement Funds Supervision at the Financial Sector

Conduct Authority (FSCA) (previously the Financial Services Board) and also serves on the Exco of the International Organisation of Pension Supervisors (IOPS) and African Pension Supervisors Forum. He also acted as the Commissioner of the FSCA in 2020/21. Olano Makhubela has a Bachelor of Commerce from the University of KwaZulu-Natal; Bachelor of Laws degree from the University of the Witwatersrand; BCom Honours (Economics) (distinction) from University of South Africa; and a Masters in Science in Development Economics from the University of London (SOAS).

Thandazile Alvinah Thela is currently a Director: Retirement Savings, at the National Treasury (RSA) and has been with the government department since 2003.

She is responsible for making policy recommendations that enhance pension fund governance and encourage long-term value for money savings through pension funds. Thandazile also represents National Treasury at National Economic Development and Labour Council (Nedlac) forums and the Financial Sector Transformation Council (FSTC) on pension fund related matters and serves as an alternate employer trustee on the Political Office Bearers Pension Fund.

Prior to taking up this role in 2011, Thandazile was a Senior Economist in the same institution, working on the design of policy and legal framework pertaining to financial inclusion and the development of the financial sector, to promote inclusive participation of non-financial sector players in the provision of financial services and products.

Thandazile started her career in 2001 at ABSA Bank, responsible for foreign exchange enquiries, transactions, stock control of foreign currency, and cash handling and cash reconciliation.

Thandazile has a Master of Commerce degree in Development Economics & Policy Studies from the University of Johannesburg; Bachelor of Commerce (Honours) degree in Economics from the University of South Africa; and a Bachelor of Commerce degrees in Banking from the University of Pretoria.

A Financial Economist and an expert in financial analysis, Public Debt management, Investment and Non-Bank financial sector policy development. Accomplished policy development work in Public debt Management policy; and non-bank financial sector with success in initiating policy and regulatory reforms in Insurance, Pension and Capital markets. Mr. Nsubuga holds a BSc (Economics) (Hons) from Makerere University and a Ms (Financial Management) from UMI. Mr. Nsubuga is a Member of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (FCCA) of the United Kingdom (UK); an accredited Fellow of the Macroeconomic and Financial Management Institute (MEFMI) of Eastern and Southern Africa; and a Public-Debt Specialist.

Mr. Nsubuga is the current Chief Executive Officer of Uganda Retirement Benefits Regulatory Authority (URBRA), the Pension sector Regulator. He has been pivotal in developing and implementing a robust supervisory framework; and championing initiatives to expand pension coverage to the informal sector in Uganda.

He is a Board Member of the Insurance Regulatory Authority of Uganda and an Executive Committee Member of the International Organization of Pension Supervisors (IOPS).

Joseph Sanjula Lutwama is a Certified Digital Finance Practitioner and a holder of a Master of Arts in Economic Policy and Planning from Makerere University. He is currently the Director of Programs at Financial Sector Deepening (FSD) Uganda and previously was the Director Research and Market Development at the Uganda Capital Markets Authority.

Mr. Lutwama is an expert at designing and implementing inclusive development program interventions focused on driving inclusive economic growth for underserved economic market segments. In over 20 years of his career, he has developed a wealth of experience in economic research, financial markets and economic development, and financial sector regulation.

Coming Soon...

Manasee Desai is a Vice President at ideas42 where she co-leads the organization’s Financial Health work, which applies tools from behavioral science to the design of financial products and programs for underserved and underrepresented populations. Over the past 17 years, she has advised a variety of banks, fintechs, governments, non-profits, and insurance companies in the US, Africa, and Asia on behavioral and data-driven strategies for product refinement and growth. She has also conducted research on financial inclusion, entrepreneurship, and gender equity with academics at Harvard, MIT, and Yale. Manasee founded and leads the Behavioral Evidence Hub (Bhub.org) which serves as a global repository of proven applications of behavioral design tools to improving social impact outcomes. She is a lead author on multiple ideas42 publications relating to the application of behavioral science to financial services and gender equity. She has a BA in Political Science from Boston University and an MPA in International Development Policy and Management from New York University.

Lois Aryee is a Principal Behavioral Designer at ideas42 where she works with various private sector and government stakeholders to design and implement behavioral interventions with the aim of boosting financial health and economic development outcomes across Sub-Saharan Africa. She has worked with multiple financial service providers in Tanzania, Kenya, Madagascar, Ghana, and the USA to design behaviorally-informed financial products and services that enhance user engagement and customer protection, as well as to run A/B tests and other experiments to determine which product features most effectively boost these outcomes. She’s also worked with government partners in Tanzania, Madagascar, and Ghana to incorporate behavioral designs into cash transfer programs with the aim of helping beneficiaries to utilize their cash grants productively. She previously worked as an Evaluation Coordinator for Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA) where she helped run an RCT that studied the effectiveness of a government-run apprenticeship program aimed at enhancing the employment opportunities of Ghanaian youth. Lois has a BA in Economics from DePauw University and a Master’s in Public Administration from New York University.

Yashna Gungadurdoss is a Senior Behavioral Designer focusing on Financial Health at ideas42, where she leads projects on topics such as consumer protection and over-indebtedness. Previously, she helped launch the Pan-African Scientific Research Council, which aims to increase inclusion of African scholars in academia, and promote evidence-based decision making on the African continent. She also has extensive experience in the field of psychometric credit scoring, where she managed partnerships, and took products from the drawing board to markets.

Yashna was born and raised in Mauritius. She holds a Master in Public Affairs from Princeton University’s School of Public and International Affairs, and a Bachelor in Economics and Psychology from Cornell University.

A 20-year veteran and leader in financial inclusion, Mayada El-Zoghbi became CFI’s Managing Director in September 2019. She leads the vision and strategy for CFI, building on its strong foundation of innovative, industry-shaping work.

Mayada’s experience includes serving as the lead for strategy, research and development for CGAP. In that role, she led CGAP’s strategy development and its research on women’s financial inclusion, financial services in crisis environments, and other emerging topics. Prior to this, she managed CGAP’s work with the donor and investor community-based in Paris, France.

From 2002 to 2009, Mayada founded and managed a development consulting firm. She has also led numerous technical assistance, evaluation, and research assignments, served as a research director for a USAID initiative, and lectured at Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs. Mayada started her career working with several non-profit organizations establishing inclusive financial institutions in the Palestinian Territories, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, and Kosovo.

Kulin is a pension and social security expert with over 25 years of experience in the global pension sector. Through his extensive career at some of the largest global pension consultancies across UK, North America and Asia, he has held various technical and leadership roles.

Asia, he has held various technical and leadership roles. Kulin has been a regular writer and speaker at industry forums, actuarial conferences and the media in Asia. He serves on many advisory groups, working committees and task forces on pensions in India. Most notably with Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority (India) and Employee Provident Fund Organisation (India). He has also recently been part of a Project committee of the Society of Actuaries, overseeing research on better retirement outcomes through risk-sharing post retirement income.

Kulin is a Fellow of the Institute of Actuaries of India and a Fellow of the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries UK.

Dr Kai-Uwe Schanz was appointed deputy managing director and head of research and foresight of The Geneva Association in 2019. In this capacity, he also serves as the Secretary to the Global Reinsurance Forum (GRF).

Before joining The Geneva Association, the only global association of re/insurance CEOs, Dr Schanz co-ran a reinsurance-focused strategy, business development and communications consultancy. From 2016 to 2018 he was a non-executive member of the board of directors of Trust International Insurance and Reinsurance Company in Bahrain.

Dr Schanz started his career in re/insurance in 1995, as a senior economist at Swiss Re, before moving to Hong Kong as the company’s first chief economist for the Asia-Pacific region and returning to Zurich as managing director global communications content. In 2004, he joined Converium (which was later acquired by SCOR) as head of corporate development and communications.

Dr Schanz holds a master’s degree in economics from the University of Konstanz (Germany) and a PhD in economics from the University of St Gallen (Switzerland). In 2003 he received a lifetime appointment as research fellow at Peking University.

Prof. Dr. H. van Meerten, (1974) is a professor European Pension Law at Utrecht University and a Dutch bar admitted lawyer. He deals with EU and Dutch Pension - and Financial Law. Hans has extensive knowledge of pension and financial law, and the various aspects of EU-legislation and processes. Hans publishes regularly in (inter-) national journals on EU Law, retirement, financial legislation and supervision. He and his team currently perform studies on consumer law vis-a-vis pension products. Most of his work you find here (more than 100 (peer reviewed) articles: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/cf_dev/AbsByAuth.cfm?per_id=1340792

Hans also assists individuals and financial undertakings in and outside the court and lectures on EU and Pension Law throughout Europe, the US and China.

Ms. Rashmi Pillai is a global executive with 17+ years of experience in impact investing, digital financial services, inclusive and competitive financial markets development and financial markets policy and regulation—across Africa and South Asia.

She is currently the Global Head of Public Policy for Wave Mobile Money. Previously she was the CEO at Financial Sector Deepening Uganda (FSDU). Prior to that she was a digital financial services technical expert to two organizations - CGAP, at the World Bank and the Better Than Cash Alliance at the UNCDF across multiple African countries.

Prior to the above she co-founded the "Sankalp Forum" - The first major impact investment deal flow platform in India for for-profit social enterprises and took it to scale. The forum has now expanded across South East Asia and East Africa.

Ms. Pillai has a Masters in Public Policy from Harvard Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University on a Fulbright Scholarship. She also holds another Masters in Spectroscopic Physics from M.S. University Baroda, India.

An Ashoka Fellow and promoter-director of pinBox Solutions, a Singapore-based global social enterprise focused on digital pension inclusion in developing countries. He has over two decades of experience working extensively with governments, regulators, mainstream financial institutions and multilateral aid agencies across several countries on pension policy formulation, system design and implementation of inclusive pension programs targeting low income, non-salaried workers. Gautam pioneered the concept of “micro-pensions” in 2005 and established a unique social enterprise focused exclusively on assisting financially excluded and unbanked individuals to accumulate micro-savings for their old age. This social enterprise achieved ~1.5 million voluntary micro-pension subscribers across ~100 districts of 15 Indian States by 2015. He has led many World Bank, ADB and UNDP projects related to pension inclusion and has served on several government of India committees on postal, pension, tax and financial sector reforms. At pinBox, Gautam is presently working in Rwanda, India and Bangladesh on designing a replicable and inclusive model and technology platform for contributory microPension program

Co-founder and director of pinBox Solutions, a Singapore-based fintech enterprise committed to supporting digital pension inclusion in developing countries. She also runs the microPension Foundation, an India-based non-profit R&D hub. Over the years, she has led the development and implementation of digital outreach and distribution platforms for micro-pension and micro-insurance targeting low-income women in developing countries- Rwanda, India, Kenya, Uganda, Bangladesh, Papua New Guinea to name a few. This includes "gift-a-pension" -- the first global P2P ePension platform for pension and insurance inclusion of home help (maids, drivers, guards, cooks) and blue-collar workers in export factories in India. Parul is working extensively in South Asia and Africa in assisting governments and pension regulators with designing retirement literacy tools and strategies for expanding voluntary pension coverage among low income, non-salaried informal sector workers. She has recently co-edited "Saving the Next Billion from Old Age Poverty: Global Lessons for Local Action" with William Price and Gautam Bhardwaj. In a previous life, Parul was a journalist in the electronic media and has worked at BBC, CNBC and NDTV.

Smeeta has close to two decades of professional experience in behavioural sciences, policy research, analytics and consulting across India, US and UK. In her current role at pinBox, Smeeta is responsible for building the global research and analytics capability and also driving all programs focused on women’s micro-pension inclusion. Prior to joining pinBox, Smeeta led data science and research at TransUnion CIBIL, India’s oldest and largest credit bureau. Smeeta and her team were responsible for building generic credit scores that are used across the industry for lending decisioning. She was responsible for leading policy research in collaboration with various Government bodies, such as Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI), Department of Financial Services (DFS), Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI), etc. She also worked with various lenders in an advisory capacity to help define their credit underwriting policies. Previously, Smeeta also worked with Ernst &Young US LLP where she focused on business process transformations and policy creation across credit and investment products for various global banks and wealth managers. Smeeta has a degree in MBA (Finance) from XLRI, Jamshedpur.

Dr. Alfred Ouma Shem is the Director, Research, Strategy & Planning at the Retirement Benefits Authority (RBA) since 2014. He was previously the Manager and Head of Financial Access and Inclusion Section of the Financial Inclusion & Stability Division in the Research & Policy Analysis Department of the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK). He worked as a Policy Analyst at the Kenya Institute for Public Policy Research & Analysis (KIPPRA) in the Macroeconomics Division. He has been a Senior Lecturer of Economics at Moi University; a Lecturer of Economics at Egerton University; and a Research Fellow at the Institute for Development Studies of the University of Nairobi. Shem studied for his PhD in Economics at the University of Cologne, Germany under DAAD (German Academic Exchange Service) Sponsorship after doing his master’s degree in Economics and bachelor’s degree in economics & Business Studies at Kenyatta University.

Mr. Leonard Audi Apiyo is an Economist with valuable experience spanning over 13 years in the public sector in Kenya in development planning, public policy research and analysis, strategic planning, performance management and measurement, monitoring and evaluation. Currently working as a Senior Economist with the Retirement Benefits Authority, the regulator of pension industry in Kenya, his specific role involves coordinating development of the pension industry through undertaking research on topical issues affecting the pension industry that culminate into policy advice. He also serves in the secretariat of the Africa Pensions Supervisors Network which is a platform for collaboration and exchange of ideas among pension sector regulators within the African continent. He holds a Master of Arts in Economics from the University of Nairobi and Bachelor Arts in Economics (Hons.) from Egerton University.

Edwin is a Financial Inclusion expert currently serving as Head-Inclusive insurance at FSD Zambia. He has 13 years of industry experience in financial services which he leverages on in his current role to oversee projects that help strengthen the resilience and improve productivity of thousands at the bottom of the pyramid through access and usage of financial services such as Insurance. Edwin has also served as a member of the Board of Trustees for a private pensions scheme. He holds a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Economics from the University of Zambia.

Engwase is a development practitioner and gender activist currently serving as the Chief Executive Officer for Financial Sector Deepening Zambia (FSD Zambia), an organisation that works closely with key players throughout the economy to ensure that all Zambians are financially healthy. Over the past two decades, Engwase has emerged as an accomplished leader with expertise in the public and private sectors. In line with her passion for gender equity and equality, Engwase continues to advocate for the empowerment of women and girls actively. This experience has provided her with the requisite expertise and skills necessary for her strategic role in expanding financial inclusion to the most vulnerable and marginalised members of society. Among many of her accomplishments, she has significantly contributed to the development of broad-based partnerships and robust networks of development-focused sectors and organisations.

Regis Hitimana was appointed as Deputy Director General in charge of Social Security Benefits at the Rwanda Social Security Board (RSSB) in May 2020, which has changed to Chief Benefits officer since September 2022. Under these two positions he is overseeing the administration of six social security benefits including 2 pension schemes that cover formal and informal sector members.

He is a health economist with 16 years of experience, including 3 years in civil society organizations, 8 years in central government (including 3 years ar RSSB) and 5 years in academia. His areas of expertise include social security, health insurance, health economics and public policy.

Regis Hitimana has co-authored a dozen scientific manuscripts, eight of which have been published in scientific journals. Regis Hitimana holds a Masters in Epidemiology from the University of Rwanda and a PhD in Public Health with specialization in Health Economics from Umeå University, Sweden. He holds a Honorary Senior Lecturer position at the University of Rwanda since December 2021.