About the authors

Monica Brand Engel is a wife, mother of twins, as well as an investor, entrepreneur, and co-founding Managing Partner of Quona Capital. She has launched funds and products aimed at broadening financial inclusion globally. Monica spent her formative years in Silicon Valley, building alternative financing companies targeted at near-bankable businesses and earning dual degrees at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business and Graduate School of Education. Longing to apply lessons learned in emerging markets, she moved to South Africa after graduating Stanford, to work in venture capital (with Anthuri) in a nascent ecosystem. From Cape Town, she was recruited by Accion as Head of Product + Innovation, to launch new financial services to underserved businesses and consumers globally – including an extended stint in Mexico with Compartamos, re-branded Gentera Bank following its IPO in 2007. This IPO provided the funds and the mandate to launch Accion’s Frontier Investments – its first fintech for inclusion fund and the predecessor to Quona Capital. Monica loves travel, dinner parties, and dancing and finds balance doing yoga, spending time in nature and exploring with her family.

Wendy Jagerson Teleki is a wife, mother of three teens, and daughter of entrepreneurs, who has spent her career spearheading efforts to help private and public institutions in emerging markets expand financing and support for small businesses and women entrepreneurs. With the International Finance Corporation, she led programs to privatize and build the small business sector in Ukraine in the early 1990s, developed solutions for SMEs in Indonesia during the Asian Financial Crisis, launched innovative SME finance and advisory offerings and pioneered blended finance efforts. Currently, she heads the secretariat of the Women Entrepreneurs Finance Initiative (We-Fi) housed in the World Bank, which aims to break down barriers and increase financing for women entrepreneurs in over 60 developing countries around the world. She is the editor of the Last Leather Helmets, an extraordinary tale of an everyman in extraordinary times. She has an MA in International Economics from Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) and an MBA in Finance from the Wharton School of Business. Wendy finds balance as a rowing and high-school theater fan, a universal design afficionado, an aspiring gardener and furniture-maker and walking (and talking) with others through forests, mountains and cities.

Lisa Neuberger Fernandez is a wife, mom of a teen and a puppy, visionary social innovator, sustainability strategist, and Unusual Pioneer recognized by Yunus Social Business and the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship. As a Managing Director at Accenture, she led global strategy and innovation teams to up-skill and empower social innovators in more than fifty countries to have a net positive impact on society. In her over twenty-four years at Accenture, Lisa and her teams founded and ran highly innovative cross-sector collaborations to create a more sustainable future such as the Sustainability Innovation Challenge, Social Innovators Accelerator, Public Service Value, and NGO consulting spin-off New Sector Alliance. A thought leader, speaker and patent holder, Lisa co-authored the Social Innovators Guidebook, Inclusive Future of Work: A Call to Action, and New Skills Now. She has lived and worked abroad in France and Spain and graduated with dual master’s degrees from the Wharton School of Business and the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. She is a great connector who loves to learn and finds balance walking on the beach with family and friends, singing jazz, and playing tennis.