Premal Shah | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Education | Stanford University |
| Occupation | Co-founder Kiva |
| Board member of | Center for Humane Technology, Change.org Foundation, Watsi.org, VolunteerMatch |
| Website | Kiva.org |
Premal Shah is an Indian-American entrepreneur who co-founded Kiva, a global poverty alleviation non-profit that has raised over $1 billion for low-income entrepreneurs in eighty countries. [1] [2]
Shah was born in Ahmedabad, India, and raised in Minnesota, graduating from Irondale High School. He attended Stanford University, where he pursued his interest in economic development, with a specific focus on microfinance.[ citation needed ] At the London School of Economics he received a research grant to study the microfinance work of the Self-Employed Women's Association. [3]
Shah was an early employee of and principal product manager at PayPal. [4] Building on his college interest in microfinance, Shah took a sabbatical from PayPal in 2004 to prototype a concept of person-to-person microlending in India. [5] [6]
Upon his return to Silicon Valley in 2005, Shah joined Matt Flannery and Jessica Jackley in launching Kiva and scaling it into a global organization. [7] Kiva has since raised over one billion dollars in loans from over a million lenders in support of over two million entrepreneurs from eighty countries. Seventy-five percent of loans are disbursed to women, with a repayment rate of ninety-six percent. [2]
In addition to serving as president of Kiva, Shah sits on the boards of other non-profit of organizations, including Center for Humane Technology, Change.org Foundation, Watsi, and VolunteerMatch. [8] [9] He is considered to be a part of the PayPal Mafia, a group of PayPal alumni who have gone on to found or co-found other successful companies, including YouTube, LinkedIn, Tesla Motors, and Yelp. [10]
Premal is currently listed as a co-founder at renewables.org - an investment platform for renewable energy in emerging markets. [11]
Premal lives in San Francisco, California, with his wife and two children. He speaks widely about the potential for markets, technology & altruism to address some of society's toughest challenges. [19] [20]
Microcredit is the extension of very small loans (microloans) to impoverished borrowers who typically lack collateral, steady employment, or a verifiable credit history. It is designed to support entrepreneurship and alleviate poverty. Many recipients are illiterate, and therefore unable to complete paperwork required to get conventional loans. As of 2009 an estimated 74 million people held microloans that totaled US$38 billion. Grameen Bank reports that repayment success rates are between 95 and 98 percent.
Microfinance is a category of financial services targeting individuals and small businesses who lack access to conventional banking and related services. Microfinance includes microcredit, the provision of small loans to poor clients; savings and checking accounts; microinsurance; and payment systems, among other services. Microfinance services are designed to reach excluded customers, usually poorer population segments, possibly socially marginalized, or geographically more isolated, and to help them become self-sufficient. ID Ghana is an example of a microfinance institution.
David Oliver Sacks is an entrepreneur, author, and investor in internet technology firms. He is general partner of Craft Ventures, a venture capital fund he co-founded in late 2017. Previously, Sacks was the founding COO and product leader of PayPal and founder/CEO of Yammer. In 2016, he became interim CEO of Zenefits for 10 months. In 2017, Sacks co-founded Craft Ventures, an early-stage venture fund. His angel investments include Facebook, Uber, SpaceX, Palantir Technologies, and Airbnb. He is a co-host of the podcast All-In.
Kiva Microfunds is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization headquartered in San Francisco, California. Kiva's mission is "to expand financial access to help underserved communities thrive."
Kenneth Alan Howery is an American entrepreneur and diplomat. He is a co-founder of PayPal and Founders Fund. He served as the U.S. Ambassador to Sweden from 2019 to 2021 under President Donald Trump.
Legatum Limited, also known as Legatum, is a private investment firm, headquartered in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Legatum is a partnership that uses its own funds to invest globally. The firm also invests in activities to promote entrepreneurship and free enterprise as well as anti-slavery, health and education initiatives.
The Skoll Foundation is a private foundation based in Palo Alto, California. The foundation makes grants and investments intended to reduce global poverty. Jeffrey Skoll created the foundation in 1999.
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Fundación Paraguaya is a leading edge self-sufficient social enterprise founded in Paraguay in 1985 that seeks to develop innovative solutions to poverty and unemployment, and proactively disseminate them throughout the world.
Jessica Erin Jackley is an American entrepreneur who co-founded Kiva and later ProFounder, two organizations that promote development through microloans.
Impact investing refers to investments "made into companies, organizations, and funds with the intention to generate a measurable, beneficial social or environmental impact alongside a financial return". At its core, impact investing is about an alignment of an investor's beliefs and values with the allocation of capital to address social and/or environmental issues.
The "PayPal Mafia" is a group of former PayPal employees and founders who have since founded and/or developed additional technology companies based in Silicon Valley such as Tesla, Inc., LinkedIn, Palantir Technologies, SpaceX, Affirm, Slide, Kiva, YouTube, Yelp, and Yammer. Most of the members attended Stanford University or University of Illinois Urbana–Champaign at some point in their studies.
Energy in Common (EIC) was a not-for-profit organization issuing microloans specifically and only for renewable energy technologies. EIC was founded by Hugh Whalan and Scott Tudman in 2009. It has the very ambitious goal of delivering renewable energy to 15 million people in the next five years, while fighting poverty by empowering developing world entrepreneurs through microloans. EIC represents one of the most promising contenders in the growing green microfinance sector. As of 2012, it has ceased operations due to a lack of funds after their overseas partners defaulted on their loan obligations.
Watsi, legally Watsi, Inc., is a nonprofit healthcare crowdsourcing platform that enables individual donors to directly fund medical care for individuals in developing countries without access to affordable medical care.
Silatech is an organization based in Qatar, founded by Her Highness Sheikha Mozah bint Nasser. The current CEO of this organization is Mr. Hassan Al Mulla. Silatech means "your connection" in Arabic. The initiative seeks to create jobs and economic opportunities for young people in the Arab world, targeting 18- to 30-year-olds. by 2016, Silatech claims to have helped 200,000 young Arabs to obtain jobs. The initiative’s model involves building partnerships with governments, private companies and NGOs.
Pete Flint OBE is a British internet entrepreneur and investor based in San Francisco. He is the founder and former chairman and CEO of Trulia. Formerly, he was part of the founding team at lastminute.com. He is currently a managing partner at NFX, the early stage venture capital fund focused on network effect businesses.
Julie Hanna is an Egyptian-born technologist, entrepreneur, investor and board director. She serves as Executive Chair of the Board of Kiva., peer-peer lending and crowdfunding pioneer. She is Special Advisor to X, Alphabet's Moonshot Factory and Venture Partner at Obvious Ventures.
Roshaneh Zafar is a Pakistani development activist, working in the field of women's economic empowerment. She created the first specialised microfinance organisation in Pakistan, the Kashf Foundation, in 1996 which has served over 5 million women entrepreneurs across Pakistan and continues to pave the path for women's economic empowerment through its holistic financial services program.
Kashf Foundation is a non-profit organization, founded by Roshaneh Zafar in 1996. Kashf is regarded as the first microfinance institution (MFI) of Pakistan that uses village banking methodology in microcredit to alleviate poverty by providing affordable financial and non-financial services to low income households - particularly for women, to build their capacity and enhance their economic role. With headquarters in Lahore, Punjab, Kashf has regional offices in five major cities and over 200 branches across the Pakistan.
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