Michael is a financial services professional with 15+ years of experience cutting across digital financial services, strategy formulation, project Management and business development. His working knowledge spans across Banking, Aviation, Agriculture, and impact development covering multiple geographies in Africa. Michael was the project lead for Rwanda National Digital Payments Platform working directly with Access to Finance Rwanda (AFR) and National Bank Rwanda (BNR) spear-heading Interoperability blueprint development and rollout. Prior to this he served as Pesalink Chief Information Officer (CIO) and Ag-Chief Executive Officer (CEO) for Kenya Bankers Association payments services company - Integrated Payment Services Limited (IPSL) and was instrumental in leading the industry towards launching real-time interoperable payment platform. He holds two Masters degrees, MBA in Strategic Management from United States International University and M.Sc. in Information Technology from Nairobi University respectively and is currently undertaking a PhD in Information Systems at Cape Town University South Africa with research interests in Payments Interoperability, Making Markets Work for the Poor (M4P) and ICT for development (ICT4D). When he is not studying or deploying payment solutions, Michael is the Secretary at his alma mater “United States International University” and is passionate about youth mentorship. He is also an avid CrossFit enthusiast.