Supervisory Board
The Supervisory Board receives monthly reports and meets once a quarter.
The Supervisory Board consists of:
Marinus Maaskant (Chairman)
Marinus Maaskant has over 20 years of experience in banking in various international management roles. The last 10 years Marinus Maaskant specialized as a strategy consultant and coach for management teams in various organisations. The last two years Marinus also performed various MFI assignments in the Caucasus, Cambodia and the Balkans through Triple Jump. Since the end of 2008 Marinus is an advisory board member of an MFI in Azerbaijan.
Marinus was trained as a CPA in the Netherlands and worked with the ministry of Finance for seven years. He pursued his career at the ABN AMRO Banking group for 21 years in different areas: Operations, Internal Audit, Training and Development and Securities processing. His last position was CEO of a joint venture between Mellon and ABN AMRO.
Marinus Maaskant started his own company in 2001 and acts as a coach and strategy consultant in Europe. He also develops commercial projects in China. Marinus is advisory board member of several organizations.
Malcolm Harper (Vice Chairman)
Malcolm Harper is a well-known scholar on microfinance and economic development.
Mr. Harper was educated at Oxford, Harvard and Nairobi. He first worked in marketing in England, and then taught at the University of Nairobi. He was Professor of Enterprise Development at Cranfield School of Management, and since 1995 he has worked independently in many developing countries. He has published on microfinance, self-employment, enterprise development and livelihoods, most recently ‘Inclusive value chains in India – Linking the poor to modern markets’ and ‘What’s wrong with microfinance?’
He was Chairman of Basix Finance in India for ten years, and is Chairman of M-CRIL, the international microfinance and social rating company. He was the founding editor of ‘Enterprise Development and Microfinance’, and is a director and trustee of Homeless International, EDA Limited, APT Enterprise Development, PA Publications and other related institutions.
Ellen Cramer
Ellen Cramer studied notarial law and economics at the Free University of Amsterdam. Her first job was with De Brauw Blackstone Westbroek. She worked as a legal corporate associate, first in Rotterdam (1995-1998), followed by London (1998-2001) and Amsterdam (2001-2004).
In 2004 Mrs. Cramer joined Allen Overy LLP in Amsterdam, working in the investment funds team. In May 2009 she became a partner in this domain for the same firm. Ellen worked on several larger microfinance investment structures and strives to make the microfinance funding market more professional.
Duncan Goldie-Scot
Duncan Goldie-Scot pioneered the use of mobile payments in microfinance institutions in Africa, through his not-for-profit company Mobile Microfinance Ltd.
He has previously invested in a successful start-up microfinance institution in Tanzania and has microfinance field experience in Kenya, Tanzania and Nigeria.
Duncan trained as an economist and later took a Sloan Fellowship (MSc equivalent) at the London Business School. After university, Duncan briefly edited a computer magazine for what is now Reed Elsevier, then started his own company publishing a wide range of magazines and books, mostly about technology and finance. He has also written his own books, published by the Financial Times, on banking and finance in India, China and South Africa and edited a Financial Times newsletter about digital and mobile money. He was the founding Chairman of the UK's Electronic Money Association and a director of the International Financial Cryptography Association.
Ian Callaghan
Ian Callaghan brings nearly 20 years of expertise - as a business owner, consultant and banker - to the areas of SME finance, microfinance and finance for other “bottom of the pyramid” products and services. His particular specialism is in the provision of such finance in remote areas and developing countries.
From 2008-2009 he was Senior Director of Investments at the Omidyar Network, a US-based philanthropic investment company and from 2005 to 2008 he led the investment bank Morgan Stanley’s efforts in the field of microfinance, latterly as head of its Microfinance Institutions Group. During this period he arranged some $250 million in loans for some 35 microfinance institutions in 20 countries. From 2000 to 2006, Ian was a specialist consultant on SME finance and risk, first with a City of London consultancy and latterly (2004/06) to Morgan Stanley. During this time he advised many of the UK and Europe’s leading banks, in particular on SME risk transfer strategies.Ian brings to this wide career experience the realistic perspectives of 25 years in West Africa, where he was born and brought up.
Ben Christiaanse
Ben Christiaanse studied at Nijenrode Business University, and has over 30 years of banking experience. After his studies he joined Amro bank (later ABN Amro bank) where he held several management positions. In his last position, before leaving ABN Amro in 1998, he was heading the mortgage division of the bank.
After a short period as an executive Board member of OAD group (tourism), in 2000 Ben joined Rabo Bank as executive vice president heading the payments division of the bank. In 2006 he was appointed as CEO of National Microfinance Bank in Tanzania. He developed NMB into one of the largest financial institutes of Tanzania, and successfully managed an IPO of part of the share capital of the bank in 2006. Ben was chairman of the Tanzania Bankers association, and Treasurer of the Tanzania Private Sector Foundation.In December 2010 he returned to Holland where he has started his own consultancy, specially focused on financial institutes in developing countries.
