Mengistu Alemayehu is the Regional Director for
IFC, South Asia.
An Ethiopian national, he joined IFC in 1994. He
has spearheaded IFC’s financial services activities
across the globe as well as built highly effective
teams and provided valuable strategic and
corporate support for a number of IFC wide
initiatives across financial inclusion. Before he took charge as the regional director for
IFC in South Asia, his last appointment was Senior Manager in the Financial Institution Group
(FIG) heading key products and channels such as
microfinance, small and medium enterprises,
gender finance, digital finance, banking, and
housing. Prior to that, Alemayehu was Global
Product Manager for wholesale and SME banking
and microfinance based in Dubai. During his
leadership, IFC’s business and impact results in
these areas have grown up to five-fold and far
exceeded IFC’s impact development targets,
enabling IFC to assume a leadership positi on in
these areas.
In particular, one of Alemayehu’s main
achievements has been his key role in the
development and execution of India’s
microfinance strategy that moved IFC from an
insignificant player a few years ago to a key
player today whereby 40 percent of India’s
microenterprises (about 30 million of India’s
poor, largely women, largely rural) are clients of
IFC investee microfinance institutions.