NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

Alex Kjorven is a Chartered Accountant and holds a Bachelor of Commerce specializing in Finance and Economics. She was most recently the Development Manager for ACCESS Community Capital Fund (ACCESS), where she lead the initiative in developing the community-based lending model to various neighbourhoods in the GTA while significantly expanding its presence as a player in social finance.

Her previous roles include Manager, Partner Programs at MaRS Discovery District where she was responsible for developing the financial organization and management of MaRS’ various externally funded projects such as Social Innovation Generation. Her experiences working in the private sector include Senior Associate at KPMG LLP, for both the Audit as well as Transaction Advisory practices. There she worked on deal teams performing due diligence on mergers and acquisitions transactions as well as audit and internal control evaluations of public companies.

She is the founder of Beyond Business at the University of Toronto, which focused on helping business students lend their talents to benefit the broader community through volunteer activities, fundraisers, and partnerships. Alex has spent time teaching accounting and economics in Ghana, West Africa and currently lives and works in Toronto, Ontario where she provides advisory support to organizations looking to engage in social finance or community miro-lending programs.