SaveAct has three new trustees. Sazile Mtshali has joined our main Board of Trustees, while Michel Hanouch and Paula Nimpuno have joined the new Board of Trustees for Gauteng. Marcel Jakubec, a member of our main board, and Anton Krone are also members of the Gauteng Board. This new board of trustees was set up to oversee the development of SaveAct’s urban programme.
Sazile Mtshali previously worked for SaveAct as a programme coordinator. She has a PhD from the University of Wageningen in the Netherlands and an MA from the University of Reading in the UK. She’s also qualified in nursing, home economics, and rural development and has experience in training, research and evaluation. She is interested in models and strategies that make a sustained difference in people’s lives. She has extensive experience in working with traditional authorities in KZN.
Michel Hanouch has over 13 years of experience working on fintech-enabled product and business model innovation. He currently leads CGAP’s work on Open APIs in financial inclusion – working to open existing digital rails to fintechs and other third-party applications. He has project experience across Africa and South East Asia, and his specialties include product and business model innovation, inclusive financial services strategy, payments, financial inclusion and value proposition development. He has a master’s in economics from Wits University.
Paula Nimpuno has also joined our Gauteng Board of Trustees. She is an independent consultant in the development sector. She works globally and on the African continent in particular to address issues of poverty, economic and social empowerment and sustainability. She worked for several international donors, most recently as a programme officer at the Ford Foundation, working on development of programme strategies to build financial assets of the poor, including the design of strategies promoting and strengthening livelihood opportunities to increase the well-being of vulnerable households and ensuring the rights of women and securing justice. While working at the Ford Foundation in 2005, she took a chance on SaveAct and recommended that it should receive Ford funding, and so the organisation was born. She has two primary degrees, a master’s degree in development studies from the Institute of Social Studies in The Hague and two postgraduate diplomas.
The other two members of the Gauteng Board of Trustees are Marcel Jakubec (also a member of the main Board of Trustees) and Anton Krone.