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

Emilia Klimiuk is a researcher, designer and strategist. She spent the past two years in East Africa, working with Grameen Foundation to develop mobile financial services for the rural poor. Her focus is on applying human centered design principles to gather insights about customers, design appropriate solutions to fit their needs, and transform how organizations work to deliver these solutions to the market. Prior to joining Grameen Foundation, Emilia worked at MAYA Design, a design consultancy and technology research lab. While there, she helped a major health insurance provider change how they serve their customers in the post-reform marketplace. Emilia has a Masters of Design from IIT Institute of Design.

Joel Muhumuza is the commercial lead for Grameen Foundation’s financial services initiatives in Uganda. For the past three years, he has worked on developing viable business models for digital financial products, designing go-to-market strategies for these products, and relationship management with financial service providers and telecommunications companies as part of the development of the digital financial services platform. He previously worked as a business consultant at Summit Business consulting and as a graduate economist in the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning of Uganda. Joel received a Bachelor’s of Commerce degree from Makerere University and an MBA from Southern University A&M College, where he undertook graduate research work with companies such as Walgreens, Caterpillar and Johnson& Johnson