Exec Committee

Executive Committee 2012-2013

Alok Kumar Dubey

Alok is a Masters candidate at the Sanford School, and a recipient of Ford Foundation International Fellowship for Social Justice Leaders. He is a development practitioner having worked in the areas of Microfinance, Livelihoods Promotion and Grassroots Level institution building in the interior tribal areas of Jharkhand State, India. He recounts his over four years’ experience in these areas as the most ‘enriching’ of his life. Armed with a Master degree in Rural Development from IGNOU, New Delhi and a Post Graduate Diploma in Development Management from Tata-Dhan Academy, Madurai, he is now focusing on sharpening his quantitative skills and acquiring new knowledge in the areas of Social Policy Analysis and Research.

Fanny Diaz Galindo

Fanny is a first year MBA student at Fuqua school of Business.She is enrolled in Global Consulting Practicum (GCP) at Fuqua, as advisor for Wizzit Bank, which focuses on the creation of banking products for the lower end of the market in South Africa though mobil banking. Prior to Duke, she worked around 5 years in Peru´s financial service industry, where she analyzed national and international, and small and mid-size companies involved in a wide range of economic sectors, including manufacturing, mining, commerce, services and microfinance. Additionally, Fanny worked in a global start-up pilot in Peru, Social Futures Exchange, whose core business is the creation of innovative financial products focused on attaining ambitious social goals. Her main areas of interest are finance, microfinance, impact investing and social entrepreneurship.

Huanbing Xu (Izzy)

Izzy is a Trinity Junior majoring in Economics, Philosophy with a minor in Dance. She joined the DMLI her freshman year and has since worked on projects such as South America Partner Selection and Month of Microfinance. She deeply believes in the humanistic approach microfinance has taken towards economics development that respects self-sufficiency, dignity and recognises the importance of education, human rights and health care which are interdependent factors contributing to the realisation of economics empowerment and liberty. She is excited to work with iHub to implement a Duke student designed mobile app facilitating direct microlending in Nairobi, Kenya this summer.

Rajlakshmi De

Raj is a Trinity Senior majoring in Economics. She joined the DMLI Executive Committee in 2012. Raj is passionate about understanding how to improve microfinance and other poverty action initiatives. Her trips to visit relatives in Kolkata, India have compelled her interest in sustainable development. Raj’s curiosity led her to intern at the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh during the summer of 2011. That opportunity allowed her to interview many village microcredit borrowers, raising many questions about development that Raj hopes to pursue through research.

Travis Britain

Travis is a Trinity Sophomore pursuing a double major in Statistics and Economics. He has been extremely involved in DMLI since his freshman year, and has revitalized the impact of DMLI in the Durham community, particularly through the “Flip-It” Microenterprise Consulting Program. He is excited to lead such a globally-concious organization, although his interests lay primarily in the field of social enterprise, helping poor and disadvantaged entrepreneurs maximize the potential of their business efforts and achieve sustainable growth on the microeconomic level. He is passionate about the universal economic advantages of microfinance and microenterprise, and is grateful for the opportunity to help people overcome obstacles in pursuit of their dreams.

Thomas Shelbourn

Executive Committee 2011-2012

Amin Saleem

Amin is a Trinity Junior majoring in Public Policy. He joined the DMLI in 2009 and has since then been an integral part of the Global Committee. He plans to take much of what he has learned about microfinance and leadership back to his home country, Pakistan, after he graduates. In summer 2010, he got the opportunity to do a Duke Engage internship in South Africa. He worked with a small non-profit, Izandla Zenkosi, that helped other NGOs in terms of internal capacity building, partnership formation and external marketing. (He also got to see one of the world cup games!)

Alex Groves

Alex is in the final year of a PhD in economics. He first joined the DMLI in 2008 and for the next several years worked on projects related to the creation and upkeep of the partnership with the Nkokonjeru SACCO in Uganda. In the fall of 2011 he became a member of the DMLI executive committee.

Due to his experiences with the DMLI Alex’s research has become focused on understanding if and how non-standard behavioral characteristics, for instance temptation and self-control, can influence people’s borrowing and saving behavior. The ultimate goal is to be able to design simple, robust methods to help people improve their finances, and through this, their lives.