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GMG can leverage on the broad expertise of its Management, Advisory Board and Board of Directors. Each member contributes relevant skills and experience from diverse professional backgrounds (e.g. banking, venture capital, IT, strategic consulting and turnaround management) gained in over 40 different countries.
Several members can point to an intimate knowledge of major emerging markets – such as Brazil, Mexico, Russia, India, Vietnam and China, complementing over 100 years of combined experience in micro and small business finance.
The team’s field of expertise includes project and general management, corporate strategy, finance, growth management, fundraising, operations and credit. Several members have had hands-on experience initiating and developing micro and small business finance projects on the ground – including the design and/or implementation of successful microfinance institutions.
Management Team
Dinos Constantinou, General Management
Dinos Constantinou has eighteen years experience in banking, microfinance and management consulting. He began his professional career in corporate credit and international banking with Barclays Bank in Paris and Dresdner Bank in Frankfurt. Joining Internationale Projekt Consult (“IPC”) in 1995, he went on to lead major long-term micro and small business credit projects for the European Bank for Reconstruction & Development (“EBRD”) and Inter-American Development Bank (“IADB”) in Russia and Ecuador respectively. From 2000 to 2002, Dinos worked as a strategy consultant with Gemini Consulting (now part of CapGemini) and Cell Consulting. He founded GMG in 2004 and Microfinance Strategy, a strategy consulting company, in 2007.
Dinos holds an MBA from IMD International, Switzerland; an MA in European Economic Studies from the College of Europe, Belgium; and. a B.Sc. (First Class Honours) degree in Economics from the University of Bristol, England. He speaks eight languages, including English, Spanish, German, Russian and French.
Mikhail Cherkas, Strategy and Finance
Mikhail Cherkas brings to the team broad expertise in micro and SME finance, retail banking, loan collection and information technology. His career spans over a decade as a consultant for IPC with the EBRD’s Russia Small Business Fund, as well as senior management positions with Citibank, Renaissance Capital and KMB. He was the first General Manager of KMB Leasing, a subsidiary of KMB, which he initiated and developed between 2001-2 to a five-branch operation ranked 35th largest in Russia. Mikhail is a founding investor of GMG and joined the GMG management team in January 2008.
Mikhail holds an MBA from IMD International, Switzerland; a Masters degree in Business from Novosibirsk State Technical University, Russia; and a B.Sc. degree in Technical Trade from the Harbin Institute of Technology, China. He speaks Russian, English, Mandarin Chinese, and Spanish.
Rantej Singh, Business Development Southern Asia / Strategy
Rantej has seven years of experience in entrepreneurship, SME/supply chain finance and corporate banking. Rantej founded a company to source and execute deals for offshore manufacturing of light engineering products in India and China, which he exited through a successful acquisition. Later he worked with ICICI bank and with Bank of America in SME financing, trade finance and credit product structuring.
Rantej holds an MBA from IMD - Switzerland, a Masters in International Business from the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade, and a Bachelors in Technology from The National Institute of Technology (formerly called REC) – India. Rantej also authored ‘Practitioners book on Trade Finance’, the recommended course book at the Indian Institute of Banking and Finance. Rantej speaks English, Hindi and Punjabi.
Advisory Board
The Advisory Board consists of individuals who are in a position to assist in the growth of the company as a virtue of their rich experience, relevant skill sets and broad contact networks. Many of these individuals are founding or early investors in GMG. The availability of significant new funding and launch of new projects is likely to lead to at least some of the members of the Advisory Board becoming increasingly involved in the activities of GMG. This could include management roles with GMG – and management or Director positions at investee companies.
James Magowan
James Magowan has a capital markets background, advising public and privately held companies on business planning, fundraising and execution strategies. He serves as Managing Director of Housing Microfinance, which is launching a USD 100 million investment vehicle to fund the housing lending operations of leading MFIs. As a Director at Johnson Capital, one of the leading real estate investment banks, James has advised and placed several hundred million dollars in capital (equity, mezzanine, and debt) for public and private clients. He has led efforts within the firm to arrange institutional capital for commercial real estate projects in areas of high poverty and/or ecological distress. Previously, James was Managing Director of LuxCore, a partner of the American real estate development unit of Zurich Insurance. He has also provided business advisory and production services to Fortune-500 companies and government agencies.
James holds an MBA from IMD, Switzerland and is an honours graduate of Harvard University (USA). He is a member of the International Union of Housing Finance, the Urban Land Institute, and the Alumni Advisory Board of Friends of Real Estate at Harvard; and is a frequent speaker at capital markets conferences globally. He speaks English and French.
Gerd Pircher
Gerd Pircher has some 15 years of general management experience in financial services worldwide with the HSBC Group as member of their fast-track, globally mobile, cadre of generalists. Several management postings across the globe mean that Gerd has an intimate knowledge of major emerging markets like Brazil, Hong Kong, Dubai and Thailand. He also worked in the UK and Germany and spent time on shorter assignments in South Korea and India. Gerd currently runs HSBC's Corporate Bank in Italy.
Gerd has an MBA degree from IMD International (Switzerland), where he was an IMD & Wall Street Journal Europe Scholar. In addition he holds B.Sc. degrees in Business Administration from the University of Wales (UK) and in Financial Services from the University of Manchester (UK). A fluent English, German, Italian and Portuguese speaker, Gerd also gets by in French.
Marcos Pedote
Marcos Pedote is Director of Risk Management at the Consumer Finance Division of ABN Amro Bank in Brazil. His professional experience in retail credit, micro credit, collection and risk management spans 14 years with ABN-Amro, Citigroup, Ultra Group and Cargill Agrícola. Marcos is one of the founding investors of GMG.
Marcos holds an MBA from IMD, Switzerland, a BA in Economics from the University of Sao Paolo (Brazil), and a BA in Public Administration from the FGV Sao Paolo School of Business Administration (Brazil). He is fluent in English and Portuguese.
Christian Andersen
Christian Andersen has held senior management positions in emerging markets since 1997 – and is currently heading the Asia-Pacific operations of a US multinational corporation. In the past he has worked in several continents (Europe, Africa and Asia), focusing mainly on business development. Christian’s entrepreneurial instincts have led him to successfully launch an import and distribution business for children’s apparel in Japan – and to be a business angel to several start-ups. He is an early investor in GMG and is actively involved in business development and fundraising activities for the company.
Christian holds an Executive MBA from IMD International (Switzerland) and a degree in Marketing Management from Copenhagen Business School (Denmark). He speaks Danish, English and Japanese.
Juan More More
Juan More is an independent consultant with 19 years experience in microfinance and financial sector consulting in 12 countries. Until 2002, Juan worked for IPC, a leading microfinance consultancy. He also was CEO of Sociedad Financiera Ecuatorial (now ProCredit Ecuador) from its foundation in 2001 to 2002, a successful microfinance institution with a current loan portfolio of USD 55 million. He also held senior management positions with CMAC Piura, one of the leading microfinance institutions in Peru with USD 128 million in outstanding loans. Juan is currently the General Manager of FINCA Guatemala.
Juan holds a Masters in Economics from the National University of Piura (Peru).
Rahul Colaco
Rahul has worked for two years with KPMG Audit India and six years with Unilever's Indian unit in finance, operations and supply chain functions. Since 2004, Rahul has held several senior management positions with Unilever in Italy and the Netherlands.
Rahul has an MBA from IMD, Switzerland, a Bachelors degree in Commerce from Mumbai University (India), and a Chartered Accountant qualification (ICAI). He speaks English, Hindi and Italian.
Board of Directors
Dr. Elizabeth Wallace
Elizabeth is the architect behind, and former Director of, the Group for Small Business (GSB) at the European Bank for Reconstruction & Development (EBRD), which revolutionised micro and SME finance in Russia, Eastern Europe and Central Asia over the last 15 years. During her 11 years with the GSB, she initiated projects disbursing USD 7 billion to 1 million companies with cumulative losses of only 0.2%; started 12 specialised micro and small business banks; and served on the Boards of several microfinance institutions. In 2005,
Elizabeth founded Global Development Services (GDS), a consultancy providing high-level advice to governments and international financial institutions on effective development strategies. She has advised the Chinese authorities on regulatory reform and the design of an ambitious nationwide SME finance programme; and more recently has assisted the successful campaign of 44th US President Barrack Obama.
Elizabeth holds a Ph.D. from the London School of Economics (UK), a Masters (M.Phil.) from the Institute of Development Studies at Reading University (UK) and a BA in Political Science and Environmental Economics from Goucher College (USA).
Dr. Benoit Leleux
Benoît Leleux is the Schmidheiny Professor of Entrepreneurship and Finance at IMD International in Switzerland. He lectures mostly on growth management and venture capital, and runs the Start-Up component of the MBA programme at IMD. In the past, he has occupied positions as Visiting Professor of Entrepreneurship at INSEAD in France; Director of the 3i VentureLab; and Zubillaga Chair in Finance and Entrepreneurship at Babson College in the USA.
Benoît is a specialist in venture financing and his experience includes four years of corporate venturing in Southeast Asia for a major agribusiness conglomerate. He is active in a number of private equity funds, as well as several start-up companies in Europe and the US in a board, investor and/or advisory role.
Benoît holds a Ph.D. in Corporate Finance and Venture Capital from INSEAD (France), an MBA from Virginia Tech (USA), and M.Sc. Agricultural Engineering and M.Ed. Natural Sciences degrees from the Catholic University of Louvain (Belgium). He is fluent in English and French.
Gerhard Pries
Gerhard has served as the CFO of MEDA, a Canada-based development organisation, since 1995 – and is the President of related organisations MEDA Investments Inc. (USA) and Sarona Global Investment Fund Inc. (USA). He has previously worked for PricewaterhouseCoopers (Canada) and renowned international NGOs WorldVision, Care and UNICEF; has advised a number of private and public Canadian companies in a business consulting role; and has served as President or Director for several Latin American companies in the financial services and agribusiness sectors. Gerhard was founding Chairman of the microfinance fund LACIF and continues to hold a number of Board positions in microfinance. As well as being the Vice-Chairman of fund manager MicroVest (USA), Gerhard is Director at MFIs MiCrédito Finance (Nicaragua) and Argentina Microfinanzas (Argentina).
Gerhard studied Business Administration, Community Development and Theology at the University of Manitoba (Canada) and at Kirchliche Hochschule (Germany) – and is a Professional Member of the Certified General Accountants Association of Canada since 1984. He is fluent in English and German.
Dinos Constantinou
Please refer to the profile of Dinos Constantinou in Management and Consulting Team above.
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