Founder and CEOAceli Africa
Brian is Founder & CEO of Aceli Africa, a market incentive facility to mobilize private capital for small- and medium-enterprises in the agriculture sector across Africa. Since launching in 2020, Aceli has partnered with 25 commercial banks and impact investors to mobilize $80M+ in lending to SMEs that link 500k smallholder farmers to markets. Incentives reward lenders for serving first-time borrowers and impact across gender and youth inclusion, climate & environment, and food security & nutrition.
Previously as Chief Innovation Officer for Root Capital, he led the impact and advisory teams and designed impact-linked finance mechanisms in Africa and Latin America. He is also a co-founder and serves as Director of the Council on Smallholder Agricultural Finance (CSAF), an alliance of 17 impact lenders that promote industry standards and best practices for agricultural SME lending globally. He was named a 2020 Rainer Arnhold Fellow by the Mulago Foundation.