Reaching Africa's Unbanked population

Witney W. Schneidman is President of Schneidman & Associates International, a consulting firm that works with American companies and NGOs in Sub-Saharan Africa. 

 

In this context, he advised the Bethesda, MD-based RLJ Companies on the structure of the $30 million Liberia Enterprise Development Fund and the OPIC-financed RLJKendeja Resort and Villas, the first hotel to be built in Liberia in 25 years. Dr. Schneidman, in collaboration with John Zogby of Zogby International, developed an Africa-based study on the National Perceptions of the Official Response to the HIV-AIDS Crisis, that was sponsored by UNAIDS in Geneva and the UN Foundation.

 

During the Obama campaign, Dr. Schneidman was co-chair of the Africa Experts Group on the Foreign Policy Advisory team and a member of the Presidential Transition Team.

 

He is a Senior Adviser at the Leon H. Sullivan Foundation responsible for the Global Sullivan Principles on corporate social responsibility and the Africa-China-U.S. Trilateral Dialogue, a partnership with the Council on Foreign Relations, the Brenthurst Foundation in South Africa and the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing. The Trilateral Dialogue was created to promote greater cooperation and understanding in Africa among African, U.S and Chinese interests.

 

During the Clinton Administration, Dr. Schneidman served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, and was responsible for economic and commercial issues in Sub-Saharan Africa. Among his activities was ensuring the passage and implementation of the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act. He also coordinated the U.S.-SADC Forum, the U.S.-Angola Bilateral Consultative Commission and the U.S.-Nigeria Joint Economic Partnership Commission.

 

Dr. Schneidman is the author of Engaging Africa: Washington and the Fall of Portugal’s Colonial Empire, which Foreign Affairs described as “a must-read for anyone interested in decolonization or Cold War diplomacy.” He was the author of the report, “A Ten Year Strategy for Increasing Capital Flows to Africa,” issued by the Commission on Capital Flows to Africa, sponsored by the Corporate Council on Africa, the International Institute for Economics and the Council on Foreign Relations. 

 

He received a Ph.D. in international relations from the University of Southern California, an M.A. in international relations from the University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and his B.A. (Cum Laude) from Temple University. He has written extensively on African economic and political issues, and has served as a commentator for CBS News, CNN, the BBC, NPR and the South Africa Broadcasting Corporation, among other media outlets. He was a founding board member of Episcopal Relief and Development.

 

Sadrudin Akbarali was born in Nairobi and went to primary and secondary schooling in Arusha, Tanzania and Nairobi, Kenya. Thereafter he went to London and qualified as a Chartered Accountant and Taxation with relevant Institutes in England in 1970 and 1971.

In 1971-1975 he founded, in partnership, Small-sized Professional Firm of Chartered Accountants in London.  Specialised in Management Consultancy and Tax Planning. Between 1976 and 1996 he was CEO of Small Business Advisory and Partial Loan Guarantee Programme for the U.K. Community Based support Programme spanning 50 locations in the U.K. [Programme operated under AKFED (Aga Khan Fund for Economic Development)]. Assisted about 1,500 families to start/expand their enterprises/practices. The Loan Guarantee Programme attained 98% success (cumulative failure over 20 years was 2%).

From 1986 to 1996 Sadrudin also served as CEO of IPS UK which administered a Small/Medium Enterprise Venture Capital Company in the U.K for the Swiss Company- IPS S.A. Dealing with Appraisals of Proposals, Co-financing & Co-investments, Acquisitions, Mergers, Re-organisations and Restructuring, Disinvestments.

1996- 2000 Sadrudin was the manager of Enterprise Support Facility in Tajikistan, a Microfinance Programme and Business Advisory Services in the Mountainous Regions of Tajikistan. He designed the Facility in 1996; established a Network of 17 branches; attained operational sustainability & in Yr 2003 facilitated graduation of the programme to National Microfinance Bank.

2001- End 2008, Sadrudin served as Senior Manager, Microfinance Programmes for Aga Khan Agency for Microfinance based in Geneva, Switzerland. Starting and developing microfinance Programmes in Ten* countries; attaining operational sustainability within three years for the Central Asia and Middle East activities; developing and designing a range of products- health, education, housing, microinsurance etc; facilitating deployment of 80 branches in 10 countries with over 100,000 loans disbursed; providing operational oversight and enabling expansion and graduation of some of the programmes to licensed MFIs or National Microfinance Banks.

2004- End 2008, Sadrudin Supervised Community Financial Institutions in Canada, Kenya, Tanzania and India. Also interacting with Economic Planning Boards and Credit Co-operative Societies in Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and USA. 2008 onwards. Advising, in personal voluntary capacity, several organizations connected with microfinance.  

* Ten Countries: Afghanistan, Burkina Faso, Egypt, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, Mali, Mozambique, Syria, Tajikistan, Tanzania

Kash Rangan is the Malcolm P. McNair Professor of Marketing at the Harvard Business School. Until recently the chairman of the Marketing Department (1998-2002), he is now the co-chairman of the school's Social Enterprise Initiative. He has taught in a wide variety of MBA courses, including the core First-Year Marketing course (was its head across multiple sections from 1993-1996), and the second-year electives, Business Marketing and Channels-to-Market. He has also taught marketing in the Advanced Management Program for senior managers. Currently Rangan teaches the elective courses, Customers, Commerce and Society: Business Value and the Private Creation of Social Value, and Business at the Base of the Pyramid. In addition, he teaches in a number of focused executive education programs: Business-to-Business Marketing Strategy, Strategic Perspectives on Nonprofit Management, and Corporate Social Responsibility.

Professor Rangan's business marketing and channels research has appeared in management journals such as Journal of Marketing, Harvard Business Review, California Management Review, Sloan Management Review, Journal of Retailing, Management Science, Marketing Science and Organization Science. Rangan has authored several books, which include: 1) Going to Market, which deals with distribution systems for industrial products (co-authored with E. Raymond Corey and Frank V. Cespedes), and 2) Business Marketing Strategy, which presents approaches for managing industrial products and markets over their life cycle (co-authored with Benson P. Shapiro and Rowland T. Moriarty). Rangan's latest book, Transforming Your Go-to-Market Strategy, presents a unique framework on how to evolve a firm's go-to-market strategy with the changing needs of customers, and other opportunities in the environment. Rangan currently serves on the editorial board of Journal of Retailing and Journal of Business-to-Business Marketing. He has also served on the editorial board of Journal of Marketing.

In addition to his interest in business marketing, Professor Rangan is actively involved in studying the role of marketing in nonprofit organizations, and specifically how it influences the adoption of social products and ideas. He has written a number of case studies and articles on the topic. He served as one of the founding co-chairs of the Social Enterprise Initiative at Harvard, whose faculty study and teach the challenges of nonprofit management. He also founded and chaired the executive program, Strategic Perspectives on Nonprofit Management, from 1994 until 1998. His research on this topic has appeared in journals that include Nonprofit Management and Leadership and Harvard Business Review. His current research is focused on understanding the needs and wants of the global poor, those living on less than $5/day. The aim of the research is to capture the lessons of successful models of businesses, nonprofits and governments serving that segment.

Rangan has a Bachelor of Technology from I.I.T. (Madras), 1971; an MBA from I.I.M. (Ahmedabad), 1973; and a Ph.D. in marketing from Northwestern University (Evanston, Illinois), 1983. From 1973 to 1979, Rangan held several sales and marketing positions for a large multinational company in India. Rangan has engaged in a variety of executive education programs, consultancies, and advisory activities for numerous commercial and nonprofit enterprises.

Rangan has been on the faculty of the Harvard Business School since 1983.