Distribution of Financial Services to Low-Income Markets
Regions of Specialty:
Consulting Team​
Our Consulting Team makes up the core advisers and researchers who design and implement our methodologies, conduct field research, deliver institutional strengthening services, and develop programmatic analyses, strategies, and plans of action.
Regions of Specialty:
Global
Barbara Magnoni
Barbara Magnoni
Practice Areas: Strategic Planning and Business Modeling, Client-Centered Business Approaches, Impact, Program Evaluation
​
Education: MIA, School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University, BA Tufts University
​
Languages: English, Spanish, Italian
Barbara is an international development advisor with over 25 years of international finance and development experience, with a focus on financial services. She founded two private firms and currently leads EA Consultants after working on Wall Street as an emerging market strategist. As a consultant, she has advised financial institutions, insurers, and international donors on improving access to inclusive financial services and health financing in the Americas as well as worldwide. With a focus on placing clients at the center of the experience, she has collaborated with banks and insurance companies to design and adapt client-driven insurance products for the bottom of the pyramid. She has also done extensive work providing financial service providers with business and strategic insights. Ms. Magnoni oversees the methodology, analysis, and deliverables on EA's consultancies, and manages the firm's strategic direction.
Jennifer Powers Dorrington
Jennifer Powers
Practice Areas: Financial Modeling, Microfinance, Evaluation, Financial Sector Development, Gender
Education: MIA, School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University, BA, Economics, Duke University
Languages: English, Spanish
Jennifer is a financial inclusion specialist with over 10 years at EA Consultants, where she focuses on the interaction between financial services and new market opportunities. She has lead evaluations of new financial products designed to fill market gaps, including lack of financial access for women, rural areas, and very small businesses. Jennifer has expertise in gender issues related to entrepreneurship and finance, to ensure that gender is a critical consideration in financial inclusion initiatives. Prior to EA, Jennifer worked at Deutsche Bank Social Investments, where she helped structure credit facilities, including syndicated finance, direct loans, letters of credit, and guarantees for microfinance institutions and other social ventures worldwide. She was also an investment banker, working as an analyst at the Financial Institutions Group at Merrill Lynch.
Danielle Sobol
Danielle Sobol
Practice Areas: Quantitative and Qualitative research; Rural Development; Digital Financial Services; Health Financing
Education: MPA in Development Practice, Columbia University, BA University of Wisconsin
Languages: English, Swahili, Hebrew
Danielle Sobol is the Vice President of BOP Analytics and Insights. She runs EA’s Mobile Data Unit, is the resident statistics wizard, and has fine-tuned our end-to-end field execution for seamlessness and efficiency. Danielle has 15 years of experience in various research disciplines, and has been working with EA Consultants since 2012. At EA she leads quantitative field studies of low-income financial service users throughout Africa, Asia and the United States, and utilizes combinations of qualitative and quantitative insights to make smart recommendations for policymakers and financial service providers looking to positively impact their communities.
Alfredo Villavicencio
Maria Luisa Montalvo
Practice Areas: Program Management, Financial Inclusion, Inclusive Insurance, Rural Development, Quantitative and Qualitative Research
Education: MIA, School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University;
BA, Economics and Business Administration, Universidad de los Andes, Colombia
Languages: English, Spanish
Maria Luisa is a program management and field research specialist with strong program management and client management skills. She has experience improving the distribution and quality of financial services in rural and low income communities with international organizations and private financial services providers. She has also worked with a Colombian e-commerce platform to expand marketing opportunities for artisans and small businesses.
Mexico and South America
"We are a commercial force that approaches financial management products to the market with responsibility"
Noahui Soluciones
Noahui Soluciones is EA Consultants' sister company in Mexico that promotes digital financial services to small businesses, informal sector workers, and employees. "Noahuis" or "aunts" in Nauhatl, have close relationships with their communities and serve as trusted information channels, teaching digital skills to low income households and businesses and conducting qualitative and qualitative market research in those communities. Noahui Soluciones collaborates with EA Consultants, conducting remote consumer research throughout Latin America and remote and in person consumer research in Mexico.
Practice Areas: Agricultural Lending and Financial Services, Agricultural Non-Financial Services, Training
​
Education: MA in Social Economy Organizations, Technological University Indoamérica, Quito. Agricultural Engineer, The Salesian Polytechnical University, Quito
Languages: Spanish
Edison Proaño
Edison has collaborated with EA Consultants on a variety of projects aimed at providing financial services to farmers. He supported the development of training materials for loan officers in Peru on climate insurance, and trained trainers on the responsible sales of climate insurance. He has collaborated with NGOs such as Technoserve on a project to extend financial services to coffee producers in Peru and worked on a project in collaboration with the German government to support rural financial initiatives in Peru. A former loan officer with ProCredit in Ecuador, and Agricultural Loan Manager with Banco Adopem in the Dominican Republic, he has a strong grounding in the realities that microfinance institutions and their staff face when working in rural areas. An agronomist with an agricultural business of his own, he understands the challenges of farming and the tools and techniques needed to turn farming into a profitable business.
Central America and The Caribbean
Katherine Baez
Practice Areas: Actuarial Science, Microinsurance, Business, Financial Modeling, Financial Education
Education: MSc, University of Nebraska-Lincoln; MBA, Barna Management School (candidate 2019)
Languages: English, Spanish
Katherine is a Dominican economist with a MSc. in Actuarial Sciences with over 9 years of professional experience in risk management and quantification related to health, life, disability and survival insurance, pensions, general insurance and microinsurance.
She is an independent actuarial consultant for insurance solutions and pension funds valuation.
At EA, Katherine supports different projects with statistical and actuarial analysis, market research and financial modeling. Katherine is also a social entrepreneur and founder of ALAS, a financial inclusion project through microinsurance. She is currently a professor of the Specialty in Actuarial Mathematics: Life and Pensions at INTEC University in Santo Domingo.
Rosario Duarte
Practice Areas: Program Management, Market Studies, Impact Evaluation, Program Evaluation
Education: Masters in Administration, Instituto Centroamericano de Administración de Empresas (INCAE), BA, Universidad Centroamericana
Languages: Spanish, Intermediate English, Intermediate French, Beginner Danish
Rosario is a Nicaraguan professional with over 25 years of experience in program management, evaluation, health systems, and financial inclusion. She has collaborated on projects with bilateral and multilateral agencies including USAID, the government of Norway and JICA. She has also worked extensively on health financing and quality improvement schemes with the Nicaraguan Ministry of Health as well as private providers and NGOs such as Profamilia. With EA, Rosario has worked on a variety of market research and evaluation initiatives, focused on understanding the needs and behaviors of low-income clients of microfinance institutions. A social entrepreneur, Rosario co-owns an eco-tourism adventure lodge, Flor de Pochete in Masatepe, Nicaragua.
East Africa
Amy Galland
Practice Areas: Program management, Program evaluation, Design thinking, Impact
Education: MBA and PhD in Art History from the University of California, Los Angeles, MA in Anthropology from Stanford University, BA in Philosophy and Art History from Tufts University
Languages: English, Intermediate Spanish, Intermediate Swahili
Amy has over a decade of experience providing entrepreneurs, investors, and NGOs strategy, sustainability, impact, and analysis expertise and is the founder and former CEO of NTWC, an image-based technology company dedicated to reducing body shaming and sexual violence which was acquired in October 2016. Prior to her work in technology, Amy was the Research Director at As You Sow – a nonprofit working alongside responsible investment funds to improve the environmental and social performance of publicly traded companies. There, Amy built and managed multi-stakeholder groups, wrote numerous publications analyzing industry performance on key issues of corporate responsibility, led successful shareholder engagements, and created organizational and program strategies. Before joining As You Sow, Amy worked as a project manager and production coordinator in the music industry and as an Adjunct Assistant Professor of Art History at SUNY Binghamton teaching courses in Modern Art.