Digital Financial Services Lead
– Africa & Middle East
Lesley Denyes is the Digital Financial Services Practice Group Lead for Middle East & Africa with IFC, part of the World Bank Group. She has worked in the sector for the last 18 years; specifically, in the areas of business modeling, financial analysis, strategic planning, product development and channel management for DFS across Asia & Africa. Before joining IFC, she worked as an independent consultant for the UN’s Mobile Money for the Poor program, Oxford Policy Management and Grameen Foundation, among others. As a Program Director for Mercy Corps, in 2014, her program in the Philippines with BPI Globe BanKO won the GSMA award for the ‘Best Use of Mobile Money in a Development Context’. Lesley has worked with commercial banks, mobile network operators, payment service providers, research institutes, technology developers and NGOs to reach mass market households through technology-led financial services. Based in Johannesburg, South Africa, Lesley has a BSc in Quantitative Economics from Dalhousie University, Canada, and a MBA from Edinburgh Business School, UK.