Gojo & Company, Inc. (“Gojo”) is pleased to announce that Gojo has successfully agreed on the USD 9 Mn loan agreement with Credit Saison Co., Ltd. (“Credit Saison”)
Gojo & Company, through its seven group companies based in Cambodia, Myanmar, Sri Lanka and India, operates financial businesses that contribute to financial inclusion, one of the top global issues. Gojo will finance the raised funds to the group companies as inter-company loans.
Purpose of the Loan The Group companies that will receive the inter-company loans will use the funds for micro-loans to micro, small and medium enterprises. More than 95% of the borrowers are women entrepreneurs who mainly use the loans for working capital or capital investment in their micro, small, and medium businesses.
Lenders for Microfinance Institutions in Emerging Markets Microfinance institutions are some of the major borrowers from commercial banks in emerging markets. Other notable lenders are impact investment funds and non-profit organizations based in Europe and other developed countries, who provide loans to microfinance institutions to achieve economic and social impact. On the other hand, most Japanese financial institutions have not yet entered this sector due to concerns on its information gap.
Gojo’s role for Japanese Financial Institutions Gojo will play the role of a bridge between Japanese financial institutions and microfinance institutions in emerging countries, enabling Japanese financial institutions to reduce screening and monitoring costs.
Gojo is well aware of the market environment in each country, and has a system in place to provide additional value to lenders not only in the form of financial return, but also of market information. With Credit Saison, Gojo will explore not only loan agreements but also the possibility of business collaboration.
Expanding the Network of Japanese Lenders Five and a half years have passed since Gojo’s inception. Group companies have continued their stable growth while recording profits for several years. Gojo aims to expand the borrowers’ networks by leveraging growth funds from Japanese financial institutions as well as more than 50 lenders from various countries. Gojo will continue to grow its number of borrowers to achieve the long-term goal of delivering affordable and high-quality financial services to more than 100 million people in 50 countries by 2030.
About us Gojo was founded to extend financial inclusion to everyone in the world beginning with the developing countries. Gojo encourages the formalization and growth of micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises. Our long-term goal is to enable the provision of high-quality affordable financial services for 100+ million unserved and underserved people in 50+ countries by 2030. 5 years since our establishment, we work in Cambodia, Myanmar, Sri Lanka and India with 3,000+ employees, serving more than 500,000 women who are also mothers. The total loan portfolio reached approximately $300 million including off-balanced receivables, and since 2017 the company has made a profit on a consolidated basis.
Gojo & Company has committed to invest USD 10 Mn in supply chain financing platform, Loan Frame. The investment in Loan Frame will be instrumental in increasing access to working capital for small businesses as it will be deployed for further developing technology, increasing the number of corporate partners, adding more banks as lenders on its platform, making acquisitions and starting its own NBFC.
Loan Frame’s proprietary and flexible technology platform enables short term and flexible credit to distributors, dealers and retailers associated with mid to large sized corporates. The company primarily focuses on distribution finance where it enables 7-90 day pay-as-you-use working capital products. Distribution finance gives small businesses credit primarily for purchasing inventory whilst helping corporates to better manage their receivables.
Loan Frame uses proprietary scoring and risk assessment algorithms to process both traditional and alternate data to assess borrower creditworthiness, and plans to invest further in artificial intelligence and machine learning to assess customers better and faster. The company has automated all major workflows to enable same day loan disbursals.
Loan Frame which is on track to achieve approximately USD 100mn of disbursals by this fiscal year, recently won in the Fintech category at the prestigious Financial Express India’s Best Banks Awards.
“In India you have over 63 million MSMEs and credit penetration is circa 10%. The investment will enable us further invest in developing innovative short term technology-enabled unsecured working capital products that fill critical financing gaps for small businesses. We are very excited to partner with a long term oriented investor such as Gojo & Company who are deeply passionate about the democratization of financial access.” said Shailesh Jacob, Founder & CEO of Loan Frame.
Speaking on the investment, Sanjay Gandhi, Co-founder, and Chief Investment Officer, Gojo & Company, Inc. said that “It gives us great pleasure to have Loan Frame as our Fintech partner. With immense potential in the MSME lending space, we believe Loan Frame is the right fit for our thesis of promoting financial access for the “missing middle”. We invested in Loan Frame because of their strong leadership team, differentiating technology, and their vision to leverage it to unlock working capital financing to small businesses that have been neglected by traditional players. We envision Loan Frame as a long term partner in promoting Gojo’s quest for providing financial inclusion for everyone, not only in the Indian markets but all across Gojo’s global endeavours.”
Unitus Capital was the exclusive financial advisor and Vertices Partners was Loan Frame’s legal counsel on this transaction while Anoma Legal advised Gojo & Company, Inc.
About Loan Frame: Loan Frame is a supply chain finance platform that is changing the way how small businesses get access to working capital finance. Loan Frame merges world-class processes with deep Indian MSME credit experience and cutting edge proprietary technologies to create innovative lending products, superior underwriting and a differentiated customer experience.
About Gojo Gojo was founded to extend financial inclusion to everyone in the world beginning with the developing countries. Gojo encourages the formalization and growth of micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises. Gojo’s investment in Loan Frame is also in alignment with our commitment to the Sustainable Development Goals, especially SDG 8- Decent Work and Economic Growth. Our long-term goal is to enable provision of high-quality affordable financial services for 100+ million unserved and underserved people in 50+ countries by 2030. 5 years since our establishment, we work in India, Cambodia, Myanmar and Sri Lanka with 2,700+ employees, serving more than 500,000 women who are also mothers. The total loan portfolio reached $250 million, and since 2017 the company has made a profit on a consolidated basis.
Gojo & Company, Inc (CEO: Taejun Shin; Head Office: Shibuya-ku, Tokyo) is happy to announce that Mr. Kohei Katada, former Senior Vice President of SmartNews, Inc. has joined us as our Chief Financial Officer.
Over the 5 years since its establishment, Gojo group has expanded to 6 Partner companies in 4 countries; Cambodia, Sri Lanka, Myanmar and India, with approximately 2,500 employees and more than 450,000 clients. Mr. Katada, leveraging his experience in corporate finance and administration, shall accelerate the growth of Gojo to achieve its long-term goal to:
“Enable provision of high-quality affordable financial services for 100+ million unserved and underserved people in 50+ countries by 2030”
Prior to joining Gojo, Mr. Katada has served as Senior Vice President of Finance at SmartNews, Inc., a developer of a news discovery app and led a total of over US$ 80 million in fundraising and the setting-up of its administration department. Before that, as one of the founding members and as Chief Financial Officer at LIFENET INSURANCE COMPANY, he led the insurer’s successful $100 million Initial Public Offering.
Mr. Katada began his career at Morgan Stanley Japan Ltd. as part of its M&A Advisory Group in the Investment Banking Division. In 2005, he joined Och-Ziff Capital Management, a global hedge fund.
Mr. Katada has a B.A. in Law from the University of Tokyo. While at school, he did an internship at PROSHIKA, a local NGO in Bangladesh where he was inspired by the power of microfinance that can unlock the potential of micro-entrepreneurs.
Gojo extends a warm welcome to Mr. Kohei Katada!
About us Gojo & Company, Inc. was founded in July 2014 with a mission to provide financial inclusion to everyone in the world as a Private Sector World Bank. It aims to provide low-cost, high-quality financial services to 100 million people in 50 countries by 2030. For the last five years since its inception, it has acquired and/or founded microfinance institutions in Cambodia, Sri Lanka, Myanmar and India and employs over 2,500 serving more than 450,000 people. The total loan amount under the management has exceeded US$ 200,000; the consolidated net profit has turned positive since FY2017.
Gojo & Company, Inc completed its Series C funding round and raised US$ 40 million.
Gojo & Company, Inc (CEO: Taejun Shin; Head Office: Shibuya-ku, Tokyo) completed the Series C financing at the end of September, raised a total amount of US$ 40 million. The cumulative paid-in capital reached US$ 70 million.
About Series C The lead investor of this series was the existing shareholder Dai-ichi Life Insurance Co., Ltd; DIMENSION, Izawa Investments Co., Ltd; and SBI Investment Co., Ltd. 15th Rock Ventures have joined as new shareholders at the final close held at the end of September.
The proceeds will be used to accelerate investment in technology to revamp the subsidiaries’ operational system and expand Gojo & Co’s investment in Asia.
Why Gojo & Co. was founded Gojo & Co. aspires to provide low-cost, high-quality financial services in emerging countries around the world. Microfinance, which emerged in the 1970s, attracted a great deal of attention in 2006 when Grameen Bank’s Muhammad Yunus won the Nobel Peace Prize. Microfinance has received a lot of attention from capital markets, and several microfinance institutions have listed on the stock markets. Nevertheless, fundamental issues still remain in the industry. To address the problem, Gojo & Co. was founded in July 2014.
Achievements so far Since its inception, Gojo & Co’s asset under the management has grown rapidly at compound annual growth rate of more than 200%, while it has maintained exceptional quality in its loan portfolio (the delinquency rate of 30 days or more is less than 1%). Consolidated quarterly sales for 2019 were US$ 10 million, the number of borrowers was 450,000 and the number of employees exceeded 2,500.
Future expansion plans Gojo & Co has been expanding its business through a greenfield investment or acquisition. In the next few years, it will focus on Asia, including the Philippines and Indonesia, followed by Eastern Europe, Africa and Latin America as a long-term goal.
Equity and debt financing Gojo & Co has raised its capital mainly from Japanese individuals and institutional investors, while it has obtained debt financing at each subsidiary level. Gojo & Co and its affiliates cultivated the diversified debt funding ecosystem with more than 50 lenders, including local banks, international microfinance lenders and social impact funds. The total debt has reached US$150 million.
About the team Gojo & Co has been tirelessly building a strong team to accelerate global expansion. In the last year, it has recruited in the areas of management support, investments and new business development. Five new employees will join the team by January 2020.
Establishing a pole position with big data in emerging countries Gojo & Co collects repayment histories, KYC data and household information from 450,000 borrowers. Taking advantage of having a customer database of low to middle-income groups in emerging countries, Gojo & Co is developing a credit scoring system based on machine learning.
Initiatives for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) All of Gojo & Co’s group companies are in the process of being certified for the Social Performance Management (SPM) international certification. Maxima, a group company in Cambodia, was the first to obtain the certification in 2019. To realise the SDGs, Gojo & Co has actively been engaged in various areas of SDGs through microfinance business and partnered with international NGOs.
We are hiring and looking for team members who want to collaboratively achieve the goal of being a Private Sector World Bank. Gojo & Co aspires to create a world where everyone can determine their own destiny. Financial access is a major factor of the equality of opportunity. If you are interested, please contact us at info@gojo.co.
About Gojo & Company, Inc Gojo & Co was founded in July 2014 with a mission to deliver financial access to the world as a Private Sector World Bank. It aims to provide low-cost, high-quality financial services to 100 million people in 50 countries by 2030. For the last five years since its inception, it has acquired or founded microfinance institutions in Cambodia, Sri Lanka, Myanmar and India and has employed over 2,500 and served more than 450,000 people. The total loan amount under the management has exceeded US$ 200,000; the consolidated net profit has turned positive since FY017.
Gojo & Company, Inc. Vision: A world where everyone can determine their own destiny Mission: Deliver financial access to people around the world as a Private Sector World Bank Headquarters: Shibuya-ku, Tokyo
Comments from equity investors:
Kazuyuki Shigemoto, Executive Officer/ Chief General Manager, Investment Dai-ichi Life Insurance Co., Ltd. We invested in Gojo & Company as an ‘impact investment’ aiming to achieve both an investment return and social impact. We hope that by providing financial access in emerging countries through the microfinance business, we will contribute to the economic independence of local people and the improvement of living standards.
Yuichi Katayori / Hisanori Takata, Managing Partner Tokyo University of Science Innovation Capital Co., Ltd. We will support for Gojo & Company to realize social innovation. We hope to create sustainable social and economic value by improving financial access using the latest technology and improve living standards in emerging countries.
Hirotsugu Katoh, Director, Managing Executive Officer MARUI GROUP CO., LTD. We were pleased to participate in Gojo’s series C equity fundraising; we were touched by Gojo’s mission statement of ‘Financial Access for All’. It is an ambitious goal; it is great to see how Gojo has transformed its passion into steady progress.
Yasuaki Funatake, President and Representative Director Seven Bank Ltd. We have been inspired by Gojo & Company’s mission statement of ‘Delivering financial access to people around the world’. Financial inclusion is one of the major agendas among Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which we follow. We believe that the Seven Bank’s overseas business strategy is compatible with Gojo’s business model. We also aim to create a world where one is left behind.
Jun Tosabayashi, Partner TransLink Capital Partners (SOMPO) I, L.P. Under its mission statement of becoming the Private Sector World Bank, Gojo & Company has been growing rapidly. It is exciting to see that talented and experienced professionals have recently joined Gojo and building a strong team under the robust leadership of CEO, Taejun Shin. We could say that Gojo is the most promising start-up company in Japan.
Mikio Hataeda, Director General Private Sector Partnership and Finance Department Japan International Cooperation Agency (‘JICA”) Financial inclusion is one of the major agendas in development finance. We resonate with Gojo’s mission statement of ‘We aspire to create a world in which everyone has an opportunity to overcome one’s destiny and attain a better life’ and support its microfinance business as a means to realise its vision. We hope that Gojo keeps on its approach of ‘the clients first’.
Takamitsu Miyaso, Chief Executive Officer DIMENSION, Inc. Gojo & Company is one of the most outstanding start-up companies that I, as a venture capitalist, have ever invested for the last two decades. Taejun Shin, CEO, and his team’s passion and ability to make it happen are eminent. It is also nice to see that its group companies and their clients appreciate Gojo’s management support. We look forward to seeing Gojo & Company penetrating further in Asia.
Masato Tanaka, General Manager Investment Department SBI AI&Blockchain Investment LPS We have decided to invest in Gojo as it is a rare company which has succeeded in pursuing both social impact and profitability. The number of its clients is expanding exponentially; in future we expect Gojo to focus more on quality over quantity by bringing better financial products and services to the poor population. The SBI Group will continue to foster Gojo by providing its FinTech expertise and financing.
Shoichiro Kusumoto, Executive officer Investment Department General Manager AIZAWA Investments Co.,Ltd We firmly believe that Gojo & Company will change the world. It has a passion and capacity to advance towards its goal of being the Private Sector World Bank by 2030. It is great to see that Gojo & Company and its affiliates always put their clients first.
Takeshi Minamoto, Founder / General Partners 15th Rock Ventures Fund 1 L.P Taejun Shin, CEO, once told me the source of his motivation, ‘I want to create a world where everyone has an opportunity to build a better life no matter of his/her background.’ That was a striking remark and remained deep in my mind. Some years have passed since the conversation; great people joined his team, and his dream is forming a shape. We keep supporting Gojo until it reaches its goal, then the world finally becomes a better place.
Hiroyuki Kuwazono, Director Senior Managing Nippon Venture Capital Co., Ltd. Over the past two years, we have observed that bright, dedicated professionals joined the team one after another, and Gojo & Company has achieved tremendous growth. We warmly welcome JICA as a signature shareholder and hope JICA’s support will be a prominent driving force to realize Gojo’s grand vision.
Tetsuya Adachi, President NISSAY CAPITAL CO.,LTD. We could see Taejun Shin, CEO as a driving force, and his humanitarian virtue has attracted teams, investors, and group companies. We hope that Gojo & Company, led by microfinance technology, to realize its goal of financial inclusion.
Shunichi Ono, Director, Chief Financial Officer Link and Motivation Inc We have been inspired by Taejun Shin, CEO’s vision (to create a world in which everyone has an opportunity to overcome one’s destiny and attain a better life), and his management philosophy. To make Gojo’s vision to be realised, we will continue to support Gojo though our expertise in human relations as well as equity investment.
Shozo Isaka, Partner JAFCO Co., Ltd. Although Gojo & Company has an ambitious goal, taking care of each customer matters the most for them. We see this as essence of finance.
Gojo & Company, Inc. (“Gojo”) is pleased to announce that Gojo has successfully concluded the first investment in AVIOM India Housing Finance (“AVIOM”), a housing finance provider based in New Delhi, India. Gojo obtained approximately a 25% stake of AVIOM through the first investment.
AVIOM India is an Affordable Housing Finance Company facilitating families in mostly semi-urban areas in realizing their dream of owning their first home. Along with home purchase loans, AVIOM assists with innovative and segment-appropriate affordable products for home building, up-gradation, and extensions.
AVIOM offers services in the niche segment of the semi-formal and informal sector, with special focus on women empowerment. With a woman at the helm of the Company who is in tune with women’s needs, AVIOM’s first loan applicant is always the ‘Woman.’ Targeting the social bottom-line, AVIOM develops women’s strengths and capacity to earn an income via the ‘AVIOM Shakti’ model. Hence, AVIOM also facilitates women’s economic empowerment leading to women’s confidence and financial autonomy within the household, the basic unit of societal change. AVIOM prides itself on its strong team, which works diligently with the values of transparency, simplicity of processes, and respect in all its transactions to ensure customers’ delight.
Gojo has a partnership with Ananya Finance and Satya MicroCapital, a wholesale lender and microcredit provider in India. By adding Aviom to its partner’s list, Gojo will be able to provide a wide range of financial solutions to the low/middle-income households in India.
Gojo is committed to address the financial inclusion globally. Through the AVIOM investment, Gojo expands its footprint to the affordable housing market in India.
About us Gojo was founded to provide financial access for everyone in the world beginning with the developing countries. Our long-term goal is to provide quality and affordable financial services for 100+ million people in 50+ countries by 2030. 5 years since our establishment, we work in India, Cambodia, Myanmar and Sri Lanka with 2,300+ employees, serving more than 400,000 women who are also mothers. The total loan portfolio reached $200 million, and since 2017 the company has made a profit on a consolidated basis.
Gojo & Company, Inc. Vision: Create a world in which everyone can overcome one’s destiny and attain a better life Mission: The first mission is to be the “Private Sector World Bank” providing financial access for everyone in developing countries HQ: Tokyo, Japan CEO: Taejun Shin Since: 4 July 2014 Capital: Approximately $70 million Mail: info@gojo.co URL: http://gojo.co/
Gojo & Company, Inc (“Gojo”) has completed the second part of its Series C financing. JICA, Marui Group, Seven Bank and CVC Fund of Sompo Holdings have joined with a total of $24 million. The aggregated amount raised over the Series C financing has reached to $35 million, making Gojo’s equity $65 million.
Dai-ichi Life Insurance, one of the most reputable Japanese life insurance companies, led the round. JICA, Marui Group, Seven Bank and CVC Fund of Sompo Holdings have newly joined through the second window of the series. With the freshly injected capital, Gojo will expand its footprint to new countries in Asia, and invest in cutting-edge technologies.
Gojo is a microfinance-technology company. Founded in July 2014, it currently employs more than 2,300 people, provides multiple financial products with over 400,000 clients (most of them are women) in India, India, Cambodia, Myanmar and Sri Lanka. Gojo’s gross loan portfolio has attained c. $200 million. We aim to provide quality and affordable financial services, with 100+ million people in 50+ countries by 2030. The net profit has been positive since 2017.
About us Gojo was founded to provide financial access for everyone in the world beginning with the developing countries. Our long-term goal is to provide quality and affordable financial services for 100+ million people in 50+ countries by 2030. 5 years since our establishment, we work in India, Cambodia, Myanmar and Sri Lanka with 2,300+ employees, serving more than 400,000 women who are also mothers. The total loan portfolio reached $200 million, and since 2017 the company has made a profit on a consolidated basis.
Gojo & Company, Inc. Vision: Create a world in which everyone can overcome one’s destiny and attain a better life Mission: The first mission is to be the “Private Sector World Bank” providing financial access for everyone in developing countries HQ: Tokyo, Japan CEO: Taejun Shin Since: 4 July 2014 Capital: Approximately $65 million Mail: info@gojo.co URL: http://gojo.co/
Gojo & Company, Inc. (“Gojo” or “We”), a microfinance-technology company, made the first close of its Series C financing led by Dai-ichi Life Insurance followed by Tokyo University of Science Investment Management Company and other individual shareholders. The total funding amount in the financing round is expected to be in the range of $35 to $50 million.
The raised funds will be used for expanding Gojo’s international footprint and for accelerating our technology initiatives. Until recently, some MFIs in our group have adopted the digital model of cashless collections, fingerprint authentication, and credit risk modeling, and these innovations will be applied in all group companies of Gojo. Gojo’s group company, Satya MicroCapital, is the only MFI in India which is successfully running cashless repayment using fingerprint authentication. From this year, Gojo will make sure that all group MFIs apply the cashless model, although the practical application may vary from country to country. Also, we will install our credit risk model in all group companies and will further develop it by using voice and GPS information of the clients. Furthermore, we wish to maximize the impact that we can make from our microcredit and thus start developing an application by which our field staff can provide meaningful business support for the clients.
We are also pleased to share that during this period, Mr. Stuart Rutherford, a reputable microfinance practitioner, and researcher, joined us as a Director thereby augmenting the company. In 2015, Stuart’s book, “Portfolios of the Poor” was one of the recommendations made by Mark Zuckerberg’s book club; “A Year of Books”. Business Insider said of the book; A fundamental finding in “Portfolios of the Poor” is that extreme poverty flourishes in areas not where people live dollar to dollar or where poor purchasing decisions are widespread but instead is where they lack access to financial institutions to store their money. The authors’ research has inspired them and their respective organizations to find ways to bring banking to the worlds least fortunate. We are very happy to welcome Mr. Rutherford to the Gojo Board.
Gojo will continue to raise its equity in a private round. It is expected to be a “unicorn” after the Series D financing and will work in 6 to 10 nations, serving more than 3 million people. To underpin the growth, we will recruit talent from all over the world.
About us Gojo was founded to provide financial access for everyone in the world beginning with the developing countries. Our long-term goal is to provide quality and affordable financial service for 100+ million people in 50+ countries by 2030. 4.5 years since our establishment, we work in India, Cambodia, Myanmar and Sri Lanka with 1,600+ employees, serving more than 300,000 women who are also mothers. The total loan portfolio reached is $150 million, and since 2017 the company has made a profit on a consolidated basis.
Gojo & Company, Inc. Vision: Create a world in which everyone can overcome one’s destiny and attain a better life Mission: The first mission is to be the “Private Sector World Bank” providing financial access for everyone in developing countries HQ: Tokyo, Japan CEO: Taejun Shin Since: 4 July 2014 Capital: Approximately $45 million Mail: info@gojo.co URL: http://gojo.co/
Gojo & Company, Inc. (“Gojo”) is happy to inform you that we have concluded our first investment in Satya MicroCapital Ltd. (“Satya”), a young and dynamic microfinance institution, based in New Delhi, India. Gojo obtained approximately 25% stake of Satya through the investment.
“Satya” in Sanskrit means “truth”. “Truthfulness” is an ethical concept embodying a consistency in one’s thoughts, speech and actions. Satya MicroCapital works with the tenet of developing relationships of “trust” and “truthfulness” within the ecosystem of Satya. This ideology, which resonates strongly with Gojo, coupled with a stress on “team strength”, has enabled Satya to grow exponentially.
Satya MicroCapital has the vision of touching the lives of 5 million households by year 2025, and is being seen as one of the most promising microfinance institutions in the Indian microfinance sector. In a short span of 18 months, Satya has opened 55 branches in 11 states in India, with more than 100,000 women clients, who own businesses and need loan funding for fueling their expansion. These “women micro entrepreneurs” are provided collateral free loans. The company has a strong belief in combining social touch with high technology and has since its inception adopted the usage of technology in their microfinance operations.
Here at Gojo & Company, Inc. (“Gojo”), we are delighted to inform you that we have entered into an agreement with Ananya Finance for Inclusive Growth Private Limited (“Ananya”) , whereby Gojo is to acquire more than a majority stake of Ananya. The RBI (Reserve Bank of India) gave approval for the transaction on 21st June 2018, and after the 1 month public notification period, the investment was made on 26th July 2018.
Based in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India, Ananya is a Non-Banking Financial Company (NBFC), a wholesale lender with the objective of reaching out to a large section of small microfinance institutions and farmer producer companies which support a number of small and marginal farmers in the country. Ananya is among the most responsible and reputable NBFCs in India, committed to serve socially motivated, double bottom-line enterprises. Ananya specializes in combining credit support with technical assistance to microfinance institutions and farmer producer companies.
This investment marks a giant step for us to enter the microfinance sector in India whose number of potential clients exceeds the total of all clients across other Asian countries. We are most grateful for the opportunity to serve the people of this country.
We are pleased to announce that JAFCO Co., Ltd.(“JAFCO”) joined Gojo & Company Inc. (“Gojo” or “we”) through its funds as a shareholder this month. The event marks the close of our Series B Financing, totaling JPY1.9 billion (USD 17 million). The fund will be mainly used for making investments in microfinance institutions, including follow-on investments for the existing affiliates and subsidiaries and new business development.
Listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, JAFCO is a fund management company specializing in venture capital and buyout investments. JAFCO has as its mission a commitment to new business creation that helps in jointly shaping the future. It identifies new technologies and services that are in high demand and commercializes them into new businesses with entrepreneurs with the aim of realizing a better society. JAFCO also has a clear strategy to invest in companies that they see having a positive impact on society. This approach, allows them to have in their pool businesses offering energy usage visualization systems, satellites to remove space debris, services to allow sharing of things and information, medical support utilizing AI and big data, platforms to promote communications, and games and other forms of entertainment that add spice to peopleʼs lives.
We consider this funding another step forward for us to achieve our mission – to be the Private Sector World Bank. We expect to have our Series C Financing in the next year.
Despite many hurdles ahead of us, we keep calm and carry on with our mission of making quality financial services available to everyone in the world. We wish your continuous support for us.
Prachi Goyal joined Gojo in April 2025 as a Senior Executive – HR. She brings over 4 years of experience as an HR Business Partner, with a strong focus on end-to-end employee lifecycle management, performance management, stakeholder collaboration, and driving a positive employee experience.
Before joining Gojo, Prachi was associated with Infogain India Pvt. Ltd., where she played a pivotal role in aligning HR initiatives with business goals and contributed to HR analytics and insights.
She holds a Master’s degree in Business Administration (HR) from Phagwara, Punjab, and a Bachelor’s degree in Science from her hometown, Faridabad—where she is currently based.
Outside of work, Prachi loves exploring new destinations and winding down with a good movie or web series.
Works in: India
堅田 航平
執行役CFO
大学在学中にバングラデシュのNGOにおけるリサーチ・インターンを通じて、マイクロファイナンスの可能性と課題を認識。大学卒業後、インドの英文校正スタートアップの立ち上げに関与したのち、モルガン・スタンレー証券 投資銀行本部においてM&Aアドバイザリー業務に従事。Och-Ziff Capital Management(Hong Kong)を経て、2008年にライフネット生命保険に入社し、経営管理、事業開発、組織開発、韓国におけるJV設立などを担当。IPO準備の責任者として同社を東証マザーズ上場に導き、執行役員CFOに就任。
Prior to joining Gojo, Kohei has served as Senior Vice President of Finance at SmartNews, Inc., a developer of a news discovery app. As its 7th employee and part of its management team, he led $80 million of equity financing and undertook a wide range of responsibilities including financial control, accounting, recruiting, people operations, legal, and investor relations.
As one of the founding members and as Chief Financial Officer at LIFENET INSURANCE COMPANY, a leading online life insurer in Japan, Kohei led it’s successful $100 million Initial Public Offering in 2012, and also setup a joint venture in Korea.
Kohei started his career at Morgan Stanley in its Investment Banking Division, where he was involved in multiple cross-border M&A transactions. In 2005, he moved to Hong Kong and joined Och-Ziff Capital Management, a global asset management company.
Kohei has a B.A. in Law from the University of Tokyo. While at school, he did an internship at a local NGO in Bangladesh where he was inspired by the power of microfinance that can unlock the potential of micro-entrepreneurs.
Kohei enjoys playing with his two boys over the weekends. He loves sports and has successfully finished the long-distance triathlon.
Sanjay co-founded Gojo in 2014 as Gojo’s Chief investment Officer and has led the Investment Division since then. Apart from recommending the investments to be made by Gojo, he also represents Gojo on the Board and Committees of the partner entities and contributes actively towards strengthening the governance at the partner level.
Sanjay qualified as a Chartered Accountant (CPA) before graduating from Delhi University. After his first job as an Audit Manager in India in early 1990s, he led the Corporate Banking (North India) team for a Finance company.
Sanjay joined the microfinance industry in 2003 and has been part of it ever since: conducted about 125 MFI ratings & assessments in 29 countries; approved more than 400 MFI Rating reports. Some of the assignments were for the World Bank, ADB, UNDP, Cordaid and Mercy Corps. After his CEO assignment at a Cambodian MFI in 2013, Sanjay and Taejun got together to set up Gojo, where Sanjay’s extensive experience in the microfinance sector has been invaluable.
Sanjay operates from India, where he stays with his wife and two daughters. He speaks English, Hindi, and Punjabi. Loves reading; movies; and music. “The Beatles” is his all-time favourite music band.
Arnaud Ventura
執行役
世界有数の金融包摂グループ2社を設立、CEOとして率いた。
Jacques Attaliとムハマド・ユヌスの支援を受け、プラネットファイナンスを共同設立し、世界中でアドバイザリーサービスを提供。またアフリカ9カ国と中国でBaobab（旧MicroCred）を設立・CEOとして主導。退職前の2019年にBaobabは100万人の顧客に10億ドルを貸し出し、約2億ドルの総収益と4000万ドル以上の経常利益を創出。
世界経済フォーラムのヤング・グローバル・リーダーであり、the French China FoundationとShare Africaの共同設立者でもある。パリのEFREIでコンピュータサイエンスを、La Sorbonneで哲学を学んだ。フランス語、英語、スペイン語を流暢に話し、歴史と哲学を愛する。スキーとハイキングが好きな二児の父。
勤務地：フランス
Arnaud Ventura
Managing Partner
Arnaud has founded and led two of the leading European financial inclusion groups active in Micro and SME finance, as well as digital finance.
Between 1998 and 2008, Arnaud cofounded and led PlaNet Finance with the support of Jacques Attali (Chairman) and Muhammed Yunus (Chairman Advisory Board). It was one of the most successful European financial inclusion groups, providing mainly advisory services in the sector. Between 2008 and 2019, Arnaud founded & led Baobab (formerly MicroCred), the leading Micro&SME digital bank in Africa & China. In 2019 alone, Baobab lent $1 billion to 1 million clients, generating around $200 million total revenues and more than $40 million pre-tax profit.
Arnaud is a Young Global Leader of the World Economic Forum. He also cofounded the French China Foundation, the leading network of Young Leaders between France and China, and Share Africa, a platform to promote Africa’s innovation and creativity. Arnaud graduated from EFREI, Paris, in Computer Science, and La Sorbonne in Philosophy. He speaks French, English and Spanish fluently and loves reading history & philosophy. He loves skiing and hiking in the mountains (particularly in the South of France), and has 2 young boys.
金融機関で働くかたわら、2007年にLiving in Peaceを設立し(2017年に理事長退任)、日本初のマイクロファイナンス投資ファンドを企画した。過去15年以上にわたり社会的養育を受ける子どもの支援に携わっており、2021年に日本児童相談業務評価機関を共同設立した。
単著は9冊。日本縦断1648kmウルトラマラソン完走。空手黒帯、ブラジリアン柔術青帯(2022年時点)。世界経済フォーラムのYoung Global Leader 2018選出。一般財団法人五常代表理事。朝鮮大学校法律学科、早稲田大学大学院ファイナンス研究科卒。趣味はストリート写真を撮ること。時々バンドでドラムを叩く。
取締役会議長、監査委員会及び指名委員会の委員を務める。
勤務地：日本
Taejun Shin
Founder, Managing Partner & CEO
Taejun cofounded Gojo in 2014 and has led the company’s growth until today as the CEO. Before Gojo, Taejun worked as an investment professional at Morgan Stanley and Unison Capital. To deal with an enormous number of investment projects, Taejun studied programming and automated many financial models, some of which are used even today.
While working in the sector, Taejun founded Living in Peace, an NGO, in 2007 and created the first microfinance investment fund in Japan. Taejun has been involved in Japan’s child foster care for more than a decade and co-established Japan Office for Standards on Children Services in 2021 to conduct third-party inspections on the local authority children services in Japan.
Taejun is the Young Global Leader of the World Economic Forum and is the youngest founding board member of Endeavor Japan. He is an author of 9 books, a finisher of the 1648 km ultra-marathon, and a Karate black-belt holder (he just recently started Brazilian Jiu-jitsu and owns a blue belt as of 2022). Taejun is fluent in Japanese, Korean, and English. He plays drums and loves shooting street photos of the world.
Haruna is a professional with expertise in strategy, business development and incubation. She is the Head of Corporate Planning and PMI of Gojo, working on strategy development, post merger integration, corporate governance, social performance management, impact measurement, stakeholder impact management and any other projects that are needed to further enhance Gojo’s work.
Prior to Gojo, she worked for Rakuten, a Japanese internet services company for 10 years. As a member of the CEO’s office, she worked on special projects and other items on the CEO’s agenda, including acquisition of overseas companies, enrollment of Englishnization at Rakuten, strategy development of Rakuten Mobile and more. Amongst other things, she also led Rakuten’s ebook business as business manager in Japan and Taiwan, Asian business development, and innovation activities, including internal and external accelerator programs. Before Rakuten, she was a strategy consultant at Booz and Company. She graduated from Tokyo University majoring in Economics. She has lived 3 years in UK and a year in US in her childhood and is fluent in Japanese and English.
Outside of work, Haruna is a partner and board member of Social Venture Partners Tokyo, an NPO supporting seed stage social entrepreneurs to succeed. She is also a mother of 2 children, and enjoys reading and playing the flute.
Works in: Japan
ラジニッシュ・ロイ
Chief Internal Audit Officer
2021年12月からHead of Internal Auditとして五常に参加。五常グループの内部監査を担当し、各グループ会社の内部監査部門と連携。Chartered Accountant, Certified Fraud Examiner, Certified Anti-Money Laundering Specialist, ISO9001:2015 Lead Auditorの資格を保有。銀行・金融業界で合計20年の経験を持ち、様々な銀行や金融機関に勤務。
Rajnish has joined the Gojo Group as the Head of Internal Audit from Dec 2021. He is responsible for internal audit function in Gojo Group and collaborating with the internal audit functions with each partner of Gojo. He is a Chartered Accountant, Certified Fraud Examiner, Certified Anti-Money Laundering Specialist and ISO9001:2015 Lead Auditor. He has a total experience of 20 years in the Banking and Financial space and has worked in various banks and financial institutions.
In his last assignment with Axis Bank, he was responsible for Anti Money Laundering Compliance. He has also worked with the Lulu Financial Group as the Chief Internal Auditor, at their Global Headquarter in Abu Dhabi. In his other job assignments, he has worked with ICICI Bank, PwC, YES Bank and HDFC Life.
In his free time he runs marathon, hikes and listens to music.
After studying at Keio University, Faculty of Economics, and graduating from School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London, Shun joined Roland Berger and worked in the Japan and Singapore Offices. As a management consultant, he was involved in multiple projects across Southeast Asia.
As a freelance consultant, Shun worked in rural Japan in Akita for a local supermarket chain. His early childhood was spent in the UK and Brazil. Proficient in English and Japanese, he also has basic Burmese skills. Tennis is his favourite sport. During an earlier stint in Myanmar, Shun ordained at a Buddhist monastery and practiced meditation.
Works in: Taiwan
Customers
Our key focus is our net positive impact on our clients through financial inclusion, something enshrined in our corporate mission. This continuous effort is reflected in our score in the “Customers” category, by far the highest in our assessment with 50.6 points overall, out of a maximum of 80. We are not satisfied yet: our work to further improve how we serve and support our clients is detailed in the impact reports we publish every year.
川城 瑛
Outside Director
Akira Kawashiro is an attorney qualified to practice both Japanese law and Illinois law, currently serving as a Partner at Southgate, a law firm in Tokyo. His practice primarily focuses on domestic and cross-border mergers and acquisitions (M&A), venture capital investments, and securities regulations. He has also been seconded to the Tokyo Stock Exchange, and has a deep knowledge of disclosure regulations.
Akira began his career in 2013 at Mori Hamada & Matsumoto, where he engaged in domestic and cross-border M&A and antitrust matters. At Gojo, Akira monitors management from an independent standpoint through board and committee meetings as an Outside Director.
Works in: Japan
Akira Kawashiro
Outside Director
Akira Kawashiro is an attorney qualified to practice both Japanese law and Illinois law, currently serving as a Partner at Southgate, a law firm in Tokyo. His practice primarily focuses on domestic and cross-border mergers and acquisitions (M&A), venture capital investments, and securities regulations. He has also been seconded to the Tokyo Stock Exchange, and has a deep knowledge of disclosure regulations.
Akira began his career in 2013 at Mori Hamada & Matsumoto, where he engaged in domestic and cross-border M&A and antitrust matters. At Gojo, Akira monitors management from an independent standpoint through board and committee meetings as an Outside Director.
Works in: Japan
Marco Giancotti
System and Knowledge
Marco studied physics and aerospace engineering, up to doctoral studies at the Sapienza University of Rome and the Japanese Space Exploration Agency (JAXA). Before joining Gojo in 2019, he worked as an engineer and then as a project manager at Axelspace, a maker of small commercial satellites.
At Gojo, Marco participated in several tech initiatives, ranging from DX support for partners around the world to the creation of novel financial service platforms. He led the creation of a digital field application (DFA) as product manager from 2020 to 2022.
Marco reads and writes most of the time. He speaks Japanese and is doing independent research in several scientific fields.
Works in: Tokyo
マルコ・ジァンコッティ
System and Knowledge
学生時代は物理学と宇宙工学を学び、Sapienza University of Romeと宇宙航空研究開発機構（JAXA）で博士課程を修了。2019年までは超小型人工衛星メーカーの株式会社アクセルスペースで衛星の開発とプロジェクトマネジメントを経験。
Starting in August 2024, Ai is responsible for legal and compliance matters at Gojo. She is a qualified attorney-at-law in Japan.
After becoming a registered attorney-at-law in 2012, Ai spent 2.5 years working in the crisis management team of Nishimura & Asahi Law Firm, where she performed internal investigations for client companies, leading to initiating civil litigation, advocating criminal prosecutions, collaborating with relevant authorities/agencies, and providing regulatory guidance to client teams. Subsequently, she joined Mitsubishi Corporation, where she provided comprehensive legal counsel across various corporate and contractual domains, including investments, intellectual property, litigation, implementing policies to meet regulatory compliance, among others.
In her personal life, Ai is a mother of two children. Ai loves pilates, jogging and drawing with her children.
Deepak has joined the Gojo Group as an Audit Manager in the Internal Audit Team from October 2024. He is responsible for conducting / supporting HoldCo and Partner audits. He is a qualified Chartered Accountant with over 14 years of post-qualification experience in the Financial Service Sector.
Prior to Gojo, he has worked with Yes Bank, Standard Chartered Bank and Doha Bank conducting Risk based Internal Audit of various Units of the Bank.
Outside of work, he enjoys jogging and cycling. He is keenly interested in reading about different forms of investments.
Works in: India
Deepak Singhania
Audit Manager
Deepak has joined the Gojo Group as an Audit Manager in the Internal Audit Team from October 2024. He is responsible for conducting / supporting HoldCo and Partner audits. He is a qualified Chartered Accountant with over 14 years of post-qualification experience in the Financial Service Sector.
Prior to Gojo, he has worked with Yes Bank, Standard Chartered Bank and Doha Bank conducting Risk based Internal Audit of various Units of the Bank.
Outside of work, he enjoys jogging and cycling. He is keenly interested in reading about different forms of investments.
Works in: India
Nao Munemura
IR Officer
Joining Gojo in September 2024, Nao is in charge of Investor Relations on the Finance team.
Prior to Gojo, Nao started her career as an investment professional at Mitsubishi Corporation, focusing on mining projects in Chile and Peru. Later, she joined the semi-governmental funds under the Ministry of Economy, Trade & Industry and Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport & Tourism of Japan, encouraging Japanese companies to expand their business overseas.
She holds dual MBA degrees from Universidad de Chile and Tulane University.
Her enthusiasm to work for development comes from her experience attending a boarding high school in the US, United World College, where she spent two unforgettable years with students from more than 80 different countries. Her ambitions have grown stronger through different experiences such as volunteering in an orphanage house in Peru, organizing a young leaders program in Guatemala, and conducting independent research with an indigenous community in Costa Rica.
Outside of work, she is a mother of two kids who she loves to the moon and back, and she enjoys travel and eating.
大学卒業後、三菱商事にて金属資源投資事業、官民ファンド（クールジャパン機構/海外交通・都市開発事業支援機構）にて日本企業の海外市場参入促進支援を目的とした投資事業に従事。また、夫のチリ駐在帯同中にUniversidad de Chile/Tulane Universityの共同MBAプログラム修了。
二児の母、家族・友人と過ごすこと、旅をすること、食べることが好き。
勤務地：日本
Kannan
Respondent Kannan, aged 30, married, a fisherman who lives with his family. He sends his children to private schools. He had lived on small-sized informal loans in 2022 during the economic crisis, when Sri Lanka experienced a significant currency depreciation and sharp price increases.
In early 2023, he repaired his fishing boat and purchased fishing nets through a local microfinance institution. He shares that the fishing nets need to be changed twice or thrice per year and the financial services help in his business continuity. He is also a participant of ROSCA (Rotating Savings and Credit Association) and his income has seen an increase since mid-2023. He faces financial setbacks when his boat engine fails and he depends on his relatives for immediate cash to meet the household needs in times of emergencies.
In the photo, Kannan stands beside his boat and fishing nets.
Jessy
Respondent Jessy, aged 37, is divorced and a mother of two children. She lives in her mother’s house and earns through tailoring where the sewing machine and other tailoring equipment were purchased through a local microfinance institution.
She manages her household needs through occasional alimony from her ex-husband, Samurdhi government benefits and support from close relatives. She keeps monthly shop credit for basic food and grocery expenses and repays the following month. She wants to earn more and focuses on her tailoring skills. Jessy desires to build her own house in the future.
In the photo, Jessy sits next to her newly purchased sewing machine.
We counted the monthly income for each household in the Cambodia Diaries and aggregated the frequencies based on magnitude. The leftmost bar represents the number of months with no recorded income. Levels ranging from less than USD 10 to around USD 70 were the most frequently observed income levels. We can also see that as income increases, its frequency decreases.
This graph shows how the diarists borrow from financial institutions like microfinance institutions and banks for larger loan sizes and in less frequency, and how they borrow from relatives and individual lenders for smaller sized loans.
This is the total number and cumulative amount of all transactions recorded in the Cambodia Diaries. All transactions have been categorised into four quadrants. You can see various sources of income and expenses, as well as the inflows and outflows from financial or asset transactions.
This graph represents the count of expenses for each household in the Cambodia Diaries for over a monthly period, aggregated by magnitude. There were no instances of zero expenses over a month. Levels ranging from less than USD 50 to around USD 90 were the most common expense levels. Compared to the income distribution, the distribution of expenses is more skewed. It suggests that expenses are necessary even when there is no income; in cases of substantial income, some of it is saved instead of spent.
Respondent Prema, aged 33, a housewife and a mother of 3 children, lives with her spouse. Her spouse is a driver and her 13-year-old helps record daily cash flow in the financial diary.
The household purchased a piece of land through a local institution and has done house repairs in phases by pawning gold goods. The loan repayments, utility bills, school and tuition fees are the recurring high expenditures in 2023. In January 2024, they invested in a small business towards fragrant agarwood plants. The household aims towards varied objectives balancing monthly income and expenditures.
In the photo, Prema stands on her purchased land with construction materials.
Chandri
Respondent Chandri, a housewife, aged 33, lives with her spouse, two children and parents. Her spouse is a carpenter and she participates in ‘Equipment Seettu’ where regular deposits are made to a shop and by the end of the stipulated period, she receives household goods. Seettu is a group saving method practiced among Sinhalese men and women, and it operates through friends and social circles in the community. In this case, it is probably in collaboration with the seller of these pots.
She has a children’s bank account where she tries to save, though not regularly. The household had utilized small-sized loans from welfare societies and local lenders for the consumption / purchase of household goods. Chandri shares that managing the medical expenses of the parents is hard to get by, yet the financial diary helps to cut unnecessary expenses and save for emergencies.
In the photo, Chandri carries her new cooking utensils (equipment seettu).
Shoko joined Gojo as a team assistant in August 2024.
Prior to joining Gojo, Shoko worked in the entertainment industry as a digital marketer for a year.
Originally from the United States and having lived in China for five years, she grew up in a diverse environment. In Gojo, she is determined to create a comfortable office environment for everyone.
Shoko loves to go to the beach/ocean, take walks through the city, and talk with her family and friends.
Works in: Japan
Mariko Tsuchiya
Financial Reporting / Accounting
Mariko, a Japanese Certified Public Accountant, joined Gojo & Company in September 2024 as a member of the finance team focusing on accounting and financial reporting.
She started her career at a Japanese electronic components manufacturer. She then joined a Japanese NPO project and worked in Timor-Leste as a project member. Realizing the importance of business, she began studying to become a certified public accountant. After passing the exam, she joined PwC Japan in 2015 and mainly engaged in auditing real estate funds and offshore funds under J-GAAP and IFRS.
Outside work, she enjoys cooking, especially have a big interest in Indian cuisine.
Abbey works at Gojo for financial planning and analysis. He comes from an equity and credit analysis background. Before joining Gojo, he worked with Citi and Standard Chartered Bank, covering a range of companies across Asia. He earned his degree in Management Engineering from Ateneo de Manila University in the Philippines and completed his MBA at Hitotsubashi University in Japan. Abbey is also a CFA® Charterholder.
Abbey enjoys going to the cinema to catch the latest movies and playing video games.
Abbey Bautista
FP&A Officer
Abbeyは五常でファイナンシャル・プランニングと分析に携わっている。株式とクレジット分析のバックグラウンドを持つ。五常に入社する前は、Citi と Standard Chartered Bankでアジア全域のさまざまな企業を担当。フィリピンのAteneo de Manila UniversityでManagement Engineeringの学位を取得し、日本の一橋大学でMBAを取得。また、CFA® Charterholder.
趣味は映画館で最新映画を観ることとビデオゲーム。
Milena Nikolova
Outside Director
Milena has over 25 years of finance experience spanning across investment banking, wealth management, venture capital investing and startup advisory. She is a strong believer that directing capital for impact can be a powerful force for good without compromising financial returns.
Milena is Partner at Antares Ventures, an early-stage venture capital firm taking a strategic approach to investing globally in breakthrough innovations that address sustainability challenges in Asia’s Growth Markets. She is co-chair of the Climate Solutions Committee at the Singapore Venture & Private Capital Association. She is also involved in several philanthropic initiatives and is a Member of the Board of Trustees of the Clean Air Fund, a leading non-profit at the intersection of climate and health.
Prior to that she was Partner at Aera VC and focused on investing in transformative technologies to reverse climate change. In her earlier career as Executive Director at UBS Investment Bank in London, Milena advised leading financial institutions on mergers, acquisitions, and IPOs with over $10bn in deal value. In Singapore, she worked in UBS wealth management, advising ultra-high-net-worth individuals on asset allocation, wealth planning, and corporate structuring.
Milena holds a MSc Degree in International Accounting and Finance from the London School of Economics.
Haruna Tanaka
Corporate Planning Team
Why did you join Gojo?
Since the beginning of my career I had wanted to spend my time on supporting people in developing countries. However, I ended up starting my career as a strategy consultant. After 3 years, I joined Rakuten, a Japan-based internet services company, where I worked mainly at the CEO office as an internal consultant. There were many interesting projects and I really enjoyed my time there, but I couldn’t give up on my original aspiration. After spending 10 years at Rakuten I decided to shift my career to pursue my personal mission. You can read more about my career here. (Link to : https://gojo.co/shifting-your-career-to-serve-a-social-mission)
What does a day in your life look like?
A typical day will be like this:
0700-0900 : Time with kids – breakfast, send them off to school, dish washing, laundry etc
0930-1200 : Start working at home. Morning is usually more quiet and I get time to do analysis, write / read reports etc. (if I’m lucky)
1200-1300 : Lunch
1300-1800 : Meetings with Gojo team members, group company counterparts, committees and board meetings
1800-2000 : Time with kids – dinner, bath, homework etc
2000-2200 : Not everyday but sometimes late night meetings, some additional work to be done
What do you find challenging and rewarding about your job?
The best part is the people you work with. It is amazing to work with really talented people who share the same values and the goal to achieve a social mission. Everyone is very kind and empathetic, while being super professional. I also like the flat and open culture – you are encouraged to dissent without fear, almost all information is disclosed to everyone so transparency is quite high, very little hierachy. The challenges are workload management and distance with the clients. Being a startup there is always so much work that needs to be done, while as a working mother there is only limited time I can spend, so it sometimes becomes difficult. Being in Japan, it is sometimes difficult to provide effective support to clients in a timely manner. Having said that I feel that the challenges are possible to overcome with the great team members.
A word for prospective team members
I think it was one of my best decisions I made in my life to come to Gojo. I am sure you will feel the same too.
Marco Giancotti
Technology team
Why did you join Gojo?
I come from a science/tech background, but originally I was making satellites and web platforms for satellite data, not financial services. Working on tech projects was great in itself, but I felt that I wanted to channel that fun to solve non-first-world problems as directly as possible. I started looking to pivot my career in that direction and found Gojo to be the perfect match for that. Even better than I hoped, actually.
What does a day in your life look like?
When there is no pandemic bringing the world to its knees, I usually work from Gojo’s office in Tokyo. Otherwise, I work from home. My team is scattered around the globe, so we communicate online most of the time anyway.
What do you find challenging and rewarding about your job?
In the half-year that I’ve been working here (it flew by like a flash!) I’ve learned lots already, and it’s real fun to work with the best of the best professionals from very different fields. Everyone is both highly-skilled and committed to do good. No one is fooling around. Best of all for me, they are all simply nice people. Of course, working with team members spread across many countries and cultures is not easy. You have to step up your inter-personal skills and get used to the overheads. But if you can do that, it’s extremely rewarding and, I repeat, fun. We get to meet our clients, team up with our partners and solve some of the toughest problems of our society. What better job can I wish for?
A word for prospective team members
You have to be a little crazy and very empathic to work at Gojo. If you are, you are going to love it!
Kana Koda
IR & Fundraising / IPO Project Lead
Kana joined Gojo’s finance team in June 2023, where she is the IPO Project Lead and is involved in investor IR and debt/equity financing.
Prior to joining Gojo, she worked at the Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC) since 2015, where she was mainly in charge of structuring and managing loans for various overseas projects in which Japanese companies participate, including infrastructure projects in developing countries. She also gained experiences in developing ALM strategies based on profitability and market risk analysis for the bank at the Treasury Department. In 2022, she graduated from the University of Cambridge, UK, with a Master of Public Policy.
She enjoys cafe-hopping, cooking, travelling and hot springs. Mother of one child.
A Master’s in Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship graduate from the London School of Economics and a Chevening Scholar, Arya cares deeply about poverty alleviation, gender equality, education and youth development. At Gojo, Arya works on social performance management of Gojo’s partners and runs initiatives to measure the impact of Gojo’s partners’ products and services on clients’ lives.
Before Gojo, she worked for 5 years in strategy, business development, community building, program management and leadership in NGOs, social enterprises and for-profit enterprises. Most recently, she served as the Vice President of Women in Technology International in India, a 30 year old pioneer in empowering women in technology across the globe, where she built and led WITI’s India business. She has in the past built communities of 5000+ women in tech and conducted several online learning and mentorship programs.Arya is also a TEDx speaker and one of the 18 young women to receive the prestigious WeTech Qualcomm Global Scholarship.
In her spare time, she enjoys reading non-fiction books, writing blogs on her website (aryamurali.com) and listening to countless hours of Indian music.
Works in: India
Mehnaaz Rehman
HR & Admin
Mehnaaz joined Gojo in March, 2023 as a Deputy Manager- HR & Admin. She has 7 years of experience in HR and has managed Recruitment, Employee Engagement along with managing end to end employee lifecycle. Prior to joining Gojo, Mehnaaz was associated with Universal Sompo general insurance company where she worked as a HRBP heading North region , taking care of various employee greviances , and conducting GPTW surveys . Apart from Universal Sompo, she has also worked with Maxbupa Health insurance company which has given her exposure across industries.
At Gojo, she works under Human Resource and manages end to end employee life cycle with Admin related activities.
Mehnaaz did her Masters in Business Administration from RIT, Roorkee and did her BCA from her hometown Roorkee.
Mehnaaz lives in Ghaziabad , Uttar Pradesh with her family. She has a keen interes in Decoring , Dancing and travelling . She also loves to socialize with all age group people to establish more powerful bonds.
Mercy works in Gojo’s Financial Diary (FD) projects as a Research analyst. She assisted in the data processing of baseline & endline surveys and the respondent diaries of Cambodia FD. She is currently involved in the analysis of the Sri Lanka FD project. She also supports the SPM team with the client survey analysis of the partner companies. She has a Masters in Computer Applications and Diploma in Materials Management with Information Science.
She started her career as a Lecturer in Computer Science and later joined the Indian Army as an Officer in the Army Ordnance Corps where she was involved in data analysis, process automation and system implementation of Oracle database system. She is an Oracle Certified Associate in Database Administration. She also has other work experiences in web designing, content management and migration.
Apart from work, she supports emotional and mental health groups and has been serving in the International Bible Study Fellowship since 2015. She likes to travel, cook and watch athletics.
Cheriel Neo
Impact Lead
Cheriel works on initiatives to measure and learn from the impact of Gojo’s partners’ products and services on our clients’ lives. She has a BA (Hons.) in History and English from Exeter College, Oxford University, and an MSc. in Translation Studies from the University of Edinburgh. Cheriel got started in the world of social impact during her time in Oxford, where she ran a homeless outreach, and helped found what would become a national student-led charity for social justice.
After graduating, she joined Social Finance, a social investment financial intermediary, where she designed Impact Bonds in the UK, Cameroon and the West Bank, and helped create an app to track young people’s outcomes after leaving state care. She is a founding director of Proof Bakery, a social enterprise training and employing refugee women in the UK.
In her spare time, Cheriel enjoys reading, snacking, and exploring her neighbourhood. She is an accomplished knitter and an avid home cook.
Works in: Japan
Arya Murali
SPM & Impact
A Master’s in Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship graduate from the London School of Economics and a Chevening Scholar, Arya cares deeply about poverty alleviation, gender equality, education and youth development. At Gojo, Arya works on social performance management of Gojo’s partners and runs initiatives to measure impact of Gojo’s partners’ products and services on clients’ lives.
Prior to Gojo, she worked for 5 years in strategy, business development, community building, program management and leadership in NGOs, social enterprises and for-profit enterprises. Most recently, she served as the Vice President, India at Women in Technology International, a 30 year old pioneer in empowering women in technology across the globe, where she built and led WITI’s business for India. She has in the past built communities of 5000+ women in tech and conducted several online learning and mentorship programs.
Arya is also a TEDx speaker and one of the 18 young women to receive the prestigious WeTech Qualcomm Global Scholarship. In her spare time, she enjoys reading non-fiction books, writing blogs on her website (aryamurali.com) and listening to countless hours of Indian music.
Works in: India
カウンセット・リン
Innovation Lead
米国のSarah Lawrence Collegeでリベラルアーツを学び、一度ミャンマーに帰国し、金融セクターで6年以上の経験を持つ。マイクロファイナンス機関であるProximity FinanceでMISを管理。その後、KBZ Bankでミャンマーの銀行セクターに参入し、Huaweiとのパートナーシップのもと、さまざまなステークホルダーと協力してKBZ Payを開発し、同銀行のアウトリーチを拡大させた。五常入社前は、Yoma Bankのデジタル部門に所属し、SMART Creditというデジタル融資商品を作成し立ち上げた。
財務計画・分析を担当。JP Morgan の元金融アナリストとして、財務分析、予算編成、予測、差異分析などを専門としていた。以前は、DeloitteにTax seniorとして勤務し、Tax戦略等を担当したほか、恵まれない人々のコミュニティを向上させ、社会的、経済的、慈善的な意識を広めるための同社イニシアチブである「Impact Days」に積極的に参加していた。
Jai Hind Collegeで商学を学び、IBSでMBA（Management Finance）を取得。分散型金融とデジタル通貨プロトコルに情熱を注いでいる。
Sheetal joined Gojo in the Internal Audit Team as a consultant in Apr-23. In Apr-24, she joined Gojo as a full time member. At Gojo, she is responsible for conducting/supporting HoldCo and Partner audits. Also, she would assist in developing the Risk framework for Gojo and Partner companies.
She is a qualified Chartered Accountant with over 15 years experience in Process & Internal Audit, IFC (Internal Financial Controls), development of RCM (Risk Control Matrix), SOP (Standard Operating Procedure) & CSA (Control Self Assessment), SOX documentation. Prior to Gojo, she has worked at consulting firms,Tata Motors, Tata Power, Tata Trent, Axis Bank in full time/part time roles.
In her free time she likes to read, travel and write.
Works in India
Kshama Fernandes
Outside Director
Kshama has three decades of experience in Capital Markets, Risk Management and Structured Finance, with the last 15 years focussed on the financial inclusion space in India. Respected for her knowledge and commitment towards the cause of unleashing the power of finance for the greater good, Kshama has been a member of various High Powered Committees setup by the Government of India and has worked on consulting assignments for the World Bank, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, Ministry of Finance, Government of India, and NSEIT. Through her innovative and pioneering work, she has been instrumental in creating and developing the market for debt for the underbanked in India. Kshama is recognised as a leading figure in the Indian financial markets, and in the world of impact investing. She is also the Vice Chairperson of the Northern Arc Group, a leading finance company in India that invests and connects underbanked institutions and businesses to capital markets investors.
She has a bachelors in Mathematics, a Masters in Management and a Ph.D. in Finance. An adventure sports enthusiast, Kshama is a trained mountaineer, sailor, sky diver and an ardent biker.
Almira Zejnilagic
Outside Director
Almira has two decades of experience in risk and crisis strategy management, having worked as an advisor, board member and management, as well as having extensive Investment Committee experience. Most recently she was a senior executive in a global, fast-growing Web 3 financial services business and previously a Partner at FTI Consulting where she spent a decade and helped build and ran Global Risk and Investigation Practic in Europe, Central Asia and Africa.
During her formative years, as a Bosnian refugee, Almira experienced challenges relating to remittances and access to finance, which later shaped her keen interest in finacial inclusion and digital finance as well as broader issues of social justice.
Almira is a Young Global Leader of the World Economic Forum. She speaks English, Serbo-Croatian and Russian (as well as some basic Tajik). She enjoys reading and cooking with her family.
Abhishek Iyer
Regional Finance
Abhishek has joined Gojo & Company as part of the Finance team. He is a qualified Chartered Accountant with Institute of Chartered Accountants of India and have over 6 years of experience across banking and financial sector & has worked across housing finance, NBFC, Micro Finance and fintech. He is originally from Mumbai (India) & currently living in the city of Bengaluru in the state of Karnataka in India.
Prior to joining Gojo, he worked at Rupeek Fintech which is asset backed gold lending co. At Rupeek he was responsible for managing the financial reporting & audits of Rupeek Fintech & its subsidiary Rupeek Capital.
Outside of work, he enjoys playing cricket, badminton & loves cooking.
Works In: India
Rania Manayra
Corporate Planning Officer
Rania started her journey with Gojo in January 2022 as an intern, working closely with the Corporate Planning and SPM/IM team. She mainly helped develop Gojo’s Impact Reports, write and implement group-wide policies, and conduct social and environmental due diligence. She transitioned to becoming a full-time member in October 2023.
Prior to joining Gojo full-time, Rania studied at Keio University as a MEXT scholarship recipient and graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in strategic management. During her time in university, she was a seminar lead for the International Business and Entrepreneurship Research lab, where she often served as student consultant for various companies and published several papers. She also interned at a global manufacturing company and volunteered at an Indonesian education NPO.
In her spare time, Rania enjoys cooking, reading sci-fi, and going to museums and art galleries.
Works in: Japan
Pooja Kumari Singh
Junior Internal Auditor
Dedicated to analyzing, assessing, and mitigating risks, Pooja is a part of the Internal Audit team at Gojo. She earned her master’s degree in Post Graduate Diploma in Management with her major in Finance from Management Development Institute Murshidabad in April 2023. Certified as an ISO 31000:2018 Risk Management Specialist, Pooja started her journey with Gojo in June 2022 as an intern, working closely with the IA team, taking care of the data room, managing communication with the partner companies and building reports to be submitted to the Audit committee. Post completing her studies, she successfully transitioned her internship into full-time work at Gojo in July 2023 and is currently supporting the team with Audit functions and developing various policies such as the Internal Credit Risk Policy. Pooja had previously worked as an intern in a CA firm in India, where she drafted financial statements and was a business analyst for Purv Technologies, among other organisations
Outside of work, she enjoys taking part in case study competitions primarily in finance and marketing. She is a sports enthusiast and loves travelling.
Grateful for the opportunities that have shaped her career so far, she is motivated to explore the world of finance!
Works in: India
Ignacio Mas-Ribo
Board Member
Ignacio is a non-executive director at Gojo & Company, Senior Fellow at the Fletcher School’s Council on Emerging Market Enterprises at Tufts University, and an independent consultant.
During 2015-2020, Ignacio was co-founder and executive director at the Digital Frontiers Institute, a not-for-profit that develops professional development training courses around digital money and payments. Previously, he was Deputy Director in the Financial Services for the Poor program at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Senior Advisor at the Technology Program at CGAP. I have been Director of Global Business Strategy at Vodafone Group, Executive VP of Marketing and Account Management at DoCoMo interTouch, and Senior Manager responsible for telecoms investments in Europe for Intel Capital.
Ignacio has undergraduate degrees in maths and economics from MIT and a PhD in economics from Harvard University. He has been Adjunct Professor at the Booth School of Business at the University of Chicago.
Vidary Inthamone
Debt Fundraising & Treasury Manager
Vidary joined Gojo in September 2022, working part of her time in the finance team. She has over 10 years of experience in microfinance – in the investment department at the holding company Advans International, and in the operations department whilst working for a Mexican MFI at the beginning of her career.
The other part of her time as an independent consultant is still dedicated to the microfinance industry, working mostly on ESG related matters.
Vidary graduated from EM Lyon, Master of Science in Management, specialized in Finance & International business.
She speaks French, English, Spanish fluently and can be conversational in Slovak and Laotian.
Vidary loves soul music, cooking, travelling, mountain climbing and surfing. She’s the mother of 2 young boys.
投資銀行業務の専門家。以前はBank of Americaにシニアアナリストとして勤務していた。グローバル投資銀行チームに所属し、ヘルスケア分野に重点を置き、数十億ドル規模のM&A取引に関与。それ以前は、インドのFortune Financial Services LtdとNYのCrucible Capital Groupの投資銀行チームに所属していた。
ビール好きであるほか、個人的にエンジェル投資家としても活動。家族と一緒にプネに住んでいる。
勤務地：インド
シュラッダ・クマリ
HR Assistant Director
2022年8月、人事部のアシスタント・ディレクターとして五常に入社。12年の人事経験を持ち、採用、従業員エンゲージメント、業績評価、従業員のライフサイクル管理などを行ってきた。五常入社前は、EYで職場におけるウェルビーイングを推進するプロジェクトを担当し、調査、従業員の考え方の理解、ウェルビーイングプログラムのカスタマイズなどの仕事を経験した。また、Genpact、HCL、Max Bupa Health Insurance、Pearl Academyなど様々な企業で働き、業界を超えた経験を積んできた。
ミレーナは、スタートアップ向けアドバイザーのTherion Advisersの共同創業者兼Managing Partner、気候変動の課題解決に取り組む革新的なソリューションに投資するグローバル・ベンチャーキャピタルであるAera VCのVenture Partner、ベンチャーキャピタルAntlerのVenture Partnerを務めています。以前はロンドンでUBSグループ投資銀行部門のExecutive Director、シンガポールのウェルスマネジメントのコンサルタントを歴任。慈善活動にも力を注いでおり、複数のNGOの創設者やパートナー。米国証券アナリスト。London School of EconomicsでInternational Accounting and Financeの修士号を取得。
数社の起業を経験の後、マッキンゼー・アンド・カンパニーの日本およびドイツを拠点に主に海外企業の経営支援に従事。その後、オックスフォード大学に移籍し、経営学の優等修士号と博士号を取得。立命館大学経営学部を経て、2016年より現職。専門は、経営戦略、国際経営、および、制度と組織の関係。慶應義塾大学政策・メディア研究科委員、上場企業を含む複数のスタートアップの社外役員を兼務。著書に『STARTUP優れた経営者は何を考え、どう行動したか』、『経営戦略原論』、『領域を超える経営学』、分担著に『Japanese Management in Evolution』などがある。
キャリアをスタートさせた当初から、イノベーションとインパクトに関心があり、現在ドイツ1位にランクインする初の完全自動化オンラインクレジットソリューション、easyCreditを開発。五常入社以前は、Vision Fund MyanmarのCOOとして、完全デジタル化されたマイクロファイナンスシステムを開発・導入し、貧困顧客30万人以上にローン、預金、教育へのアクセスを提供。現在は、デジタル化と変革のプロセスについて、いくつかの銀行にアドバイスをしている。
Yoshi joined Gojo and currently is leading the company’s analytics projects. Having graduated from Tokyo University and worked for Dai-ichi Life Insurance for 2 years, he spent 10 years as a quantitative analyst at Goldman Sachs Asset Management where he used to work for Global Alpha, a hedge fund of the investment bank.
At Goldman Sachs, Yoshi managed quantitative global tactical asset allocation of the fund and developed various quantitative investment management products and tools. After leaving Goldman Sachs, he founded his own company and used to run a music studio business while providing consulting services for financial institutions. He loves finance theory, music, and skiing.
Works in: Japan
Takao Takahashi
Chief People & Inclusive Officer
At Gojo, Takao leads corporate planning and HR. Before joining Gojo, Takao was an Investment Officer at International Finance Corporation (IFC), the private sector arm of the World Bank Group, based in both Washington DC and Jakarta. In his 7 years with IFC, he led investments in microfinance institutions, banks and fintech startups in emerging markets. Before IFC, Takao worked as the Bhutan Prime Minister’s Fellow, developing microfinance regulations and financial inclusion policy to contribute to Bhutan’s Gross National Happiness (GNH). He also worked for 4 years as a management consultant with McKinsey & Company based in Frankfurt and Tokyo.
Takao graduated from Georgetown University, USA, with a Master of Science in Foreign Service and completed his Bachelor of Laws from Kyoto University, Japan.
Takao loves singing, both opera and karaoke. Tennis is his favorite sport. He has authored a book in Japanese, the English translation of the title being; ‘What is true happiness? Thoughts from Bhutan’
Works: Japan
Sohil Shah
Principal/Head of VC
Sohil graduated from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, with a Masters in Finance and completed his under graduation in Electronics Engineering from the University of Mumbai. Before joining Gojo, Sohil was a part of the Aavishkaar-Intellecap Group where he led Intellecap Impact Investment Network, an early-stage angel network focused on making investments in social impact start-ups. In his five years with the group, he led around 35 investments in India and East Africa of which they exited from 6 companies and another 15 companies raised follow-on round of investment.
An Investment Banking professional with over six years of experience in India and US, Sohil previously worked as a Senior Analyst at Bank of America. He was part of the Global Investment Banking team, with a key focus on the healthcare sector, where he was a part of a few billion-dollar M&A transactions. Prior to that, he worked with the investment banking teams at Fortune Financial Services (India) Ltd and Crucible Capital Group in New York.
Apart from being an avid brewer, Sohil is an angel investor in his personal capacity as well. He lives in Pune with his family.
Works in: India
Sheetal Bhandari
Audit Manager
Sheetal joined Gojo in the Internal Audit Team as a consultant in Apr-23. In Apr-24, she joined Gojo as a full time member. At Gojo, she is responsible for conducting/supporting HoldCo and Partner audits. Also, she would assist in developing the Risk framework for Gojo and Partner companies.
She is a qualified Chartered Accountant with over 15 years experience in Process & Internal Audit, IFC (Internal Financial Controls), development of RCM (Risk Control Matrix), SOP (Standard Operating Procedure) & CSA (Control Self Assessment), SOX documentation. Prior to Gojo, she has worked at consulting firms,Tata Motors, Tata Power, Tata Trent, Axis Bank in full time/part time roles.
In her free time she likes to read, travel and write.
Works in India
Rahul Rokade
Senior Data Engineer
Rahul holds a masters degree in Computer Science & Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology – Bombay, India.
After graduating, he joined Quikr India Pvt. Ltd. and led implementation of various in-house systems there. Prior to joining Gojo, Rahul worked for leading Indian matchmaking platform Shaadi.com in their Data Engineering team, and was responsible for implementing and enhancing cloud-based data lake and data warehousing systems.
At Gojo, Rahul is working as a part of the Technology/Data team on building a data management platform to support the company’s data strategy.
Rahul likes photography and cooking. He has a keen interest in topics related to the existence and evolution of life, and has recently developed an interest in learning about the influence of religion and mythology on modern technological advancements.
Rahul is an animal lover. He loves to spend his free time with family, friends and his dog Eathen.
Works in: India
Pooja Kumari Singh
Junior Internal Auditor
Dedicated to analyzing, assessing, and mitigating risks, Pooja is a part of the Internal Audit team at Gojo. She earned her master’s degree in Post Graduate Diploma in Management with her major in Finance from Management Development Institute Murshidabad in April 2023. Certified as an ISO 31000:2018 Risk Management Specialist, Pooja started her journey with Gojo in June 2022 as an intern, working closely with the IA team, taking care of the data room, managing communication with the partner companies and building reports to be submitted to the Audit committee. Post completing her studies, she successfully transitioned her internship into full-time work at Gojo in July 2023 and is currently supporting the team with Audit functions and developing various policies such as the Internal Credit Risk Policy. Pooja had previously worked as an intern in a CA firm in India, where she drafted financial statements and was a business analyst for Purv Technologies, among other organisations.
Outside of work, she enjoys taking part in case study competitions primarily in finance and marketing. She is a sports enthusiast and loves travelling.
Grateful for the opportunities that have shaped her career so far, she is motivated to explore the world of finance!
Works in: India
Mercyline Manoj
Researcher in Residence
Mercy works in Gojo’s Financial Diary (FD) projects as a Research analyst. She assisted in the data processing of baseline & endline surveys and the respondent diaries of Cambodia FD. She is currently involved in the analysis of the Sri Lanka FD project. She also supports the SPM team with the client survey analysis of the partner companies. She has a Masters in Computer Applications and Diploma in Materials Management with Information Science.
She started her career as a Lecturer in Computer Science and later joined the Indian Army as an Officer in the Army Ordnance Corps where she was involved in data analysis, process automation and system implementation of Oracle database system. She is an Oracle Certified Associate in Database Administration. She also has other work experiences in web designing, content management and migration.
Apart from work, she supports emotional and mental health groups and has been serving in the International Bible Study Fellowship since 2015. She likes to travel, cook and watch athletics.
Mehnaaz Rehman
HR & Admin
Mehnaaz joined Gojo in March, 2023 as a Deputy Manager- HR & Admin. She has 7 years of experience in HR and has managed Recruitment, Employee Engagement along with managing end to end employee lifecycle. Prior to joining Gojo, Mehnaaz was associated with Universal Sompo general insurance company where she worked as a HRBP heading North region , taking care of various employee greviances , and conducting GPTW surveys . Apart from Universal Sompo, she has also worked with Maxbupa Health insurance company which has given her exposure across industries.
At Gojo, she works under Human Resource and manages end to end employee life cycle with Admin related activities.
Mehnaaz did her Masters in Business Administration from RIT, Roorkee and did her BCA from her hometown Roorkee.
Mehnaaz lives in Ghaziabad , Uttar Pradesh with her family. She has a keen interes in Decoring , Dancing and travelling . She also loves to socialize with all age group people to establish more powerful bonds.
Works In: India
Masahiro Kotosaka
Outside Director
Masahiro Kotosaka is an Associate Professor at Keio University and a non-executive director of Gojo & Company since March 2017. He is an expert in Internationalization strategy and early stage business development, and advisor/non-executive director of several start-up/multinational companies.
Before moving to Keio, he was an associate professor of multinational management at Ritsumeikan University, a teaching & research associate at the University of Oxford, and a consultant at McKinsey & Company based in Frankfurt and Tokyo. As a practitioner, he worked for strategy/marketing projects with sixteen client organizations across nine industries and nine countries and spent four years running three profitable IT/Retail businesses before joining McKinsey.
He graduated from the University of Oxford with D.Phil. (Ph.D) in Management Studies and MSc in Management Research with Distinction. His recent publication includes STARTUP (Co-authored, NewsPicks Publishing, 2020), The Element of Strategic Management (Toyo Keizai, 2018), and The Japanese Business in Evolution (Co-authored, Routledge, 2017).
Works in: Japan
Kaung Set Lin
Innovation Lead
Kaung Set Lin studied Liberal Arts at Sarah Lawrence College in the United States and returned to Myanmar at the end of 2012. He has over 6 years of experience in the financial sector in Myanmar. He started out his career in microfinance managing the MIS while exploring digital products and partnerships at one of Myanmar’s leading MFIs, Proximity Finance. After this, he entered Myanmar’s banking sector with KBZ Bank, where he worked with different stakeholders in partnership with Huawei to develop KBZ Pay to expand the outreach of the bank. Before joining Gojo & Co in late 2019, he worked for Yoma Bank’s Digital Division, where he created and launched a digital lending product called SMART Credit.
When he is not busy working, Kaung Set likes to travel and read along with learning new skills. He also likes going to music festivals and would travel to go to different events around the region.
Works in: Myanmar
Karthik Pai Nejigar
Regional Finance Manager
Karthik has joined Gojo & Company as part of the Finance team. He is a qualified Chartered Accountant with Institute of Chartered Accountants of India and have over 8 years of experience across multiple areas of the finance function. He is based out of the city of Bengaluru in the state of Karnataka in India.
Prior to joining Gojo, he worked at Avanti Finance, a fintech startup. At Avanti he was responsible for the entire finance function and was part of the team that successfully closed Avanti’s first equity fund raise of USD 26 Million. He has also worked at CapitaLand where he was responsible for financial reporting for India business and led the setup of the treasury function for their India business.
Outside of work he enjoys cooking and also tries to keep fit by cycling and running. He is an avid traveller and has travelled extensively across India.
Works In: India
Ignacio Mas-Ribo
Outside Director
Ignacio is a non-executive director at Gojo & Company, Senior Fellow at the Fletcher School’s Council on Emerging Market Enterprises at Tufts University, and an independent consultant.
During 2015-2020, Ignacio was co-founder and executive director at the Digital Frontiers Institute, a not-for-profit that develops professional development training courses around digital money and payments. Previously, he was Deputy Director in the Financial Services for the Poor program at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Senior Advisor at the Technology Program at CGAP. I have been Director of Global Business Strategy at Vodafone Group, Executive VP of Marketing and Account Management at DoCoMo interTouch, and Senior Manager responsible for telecoms investments in Europe for Intel Capital.
Ignacio has undergraduate degrees in maths and economics from MIT and a PhD in economics from Harvard University. He has been Adjunct Professor at the Booth School of Business at the University of Chicago.
Arisa Oba
IR Manager
Arisa works on investor relations and funtraising with the team.
After graduating from Keio University, Department of Political Science, and studying abroad at the University of Manchester as an exchange student, Arisa joined the Investment Banking Division of Mitsubishi UFJ Morgan Stanley. She was involved in cross-border and domestic M&As, equity offerings and financial advisories, primarily for the real estate industry.
Building on her long-standing interest in global inequality and her experience interning at a local NGO in Tanzania providing empowerment programs for women and children, she aims to dedicate herself to solving injustice in the world.
She loves yoga, traveling, and reading books to find beauty and peace inside and outside.
Works in: Japan
Vidary Inthamone
Debt Fundraising & Treasury Manager
Vidary joined Gojo in September 2022, working part of her time in the finance team. She has over 10 years of experience in microfinance – in the investment department at the holding company Advans International, and in the operations department whilst working for a Mexican MFI at the beginning of her career.
The other part of her time as an independent consultant is still dedicated to the microfinance industry, working mostly on ESG related matters.
Vidary graduated from EM Lyon, Master of Science in Management, specialized in Finance & International business.
She speaks French, English, Spanish fluently and can be conversational in Slovak and Laotian.
Vidary loves soul music, cooking, travelling, mountain climbing and surfing. She’s the mother of 2 young boys.
Works in: Slovakia and France
Tomohiro Isozaki
CEO, Maxima
Tomo joined Gojo in 2018 as a Country representative of Cambodia and became the CEO of Maxima Microfinance Plc. in 2022. He oversees the strategic and operational development of Cambodian business. He leads the MFI by managing strategy, corporate planning, operation, credit, HR, digital initiative, marketing, fundraising, and social performance management.
Prior to Gojo, he worked for Healthbank Pte.Ltd. as a Business Development Associate, working in Vietnam, Malaysia, and Singapore. Next, he joined McKinsey (Tokyo office) and was involved in multiple projects. Later, as a member of the strategic planning division of the Food Business Unit of Mitsui &Co.,Ltd. Tomo was engaged in projects of strategy, investment, research, and group company management.
Tomo is proficient in English and Japanese and is also learning Khmer. His motto is “Be tough, wise and tolerant, enjoying your own life.” Throughout the business activity, he tries to establish a fair and free society based on trustworthy relationships.
Works in: Cambodia
Tomasz Ociepka
Data Analytics
Tomasz graduated from Queen Mary University of London, United Kingdom, with a Master of Science in Mathematics.
Before joining Gojo, Tomasz was an independent data scientist based in Oxford, United Kingdom. He was providing services in the area of data analysis and data management for startups and SMEs. He was also a consultant for academic research using advanced quantitative methods.
In 2019 he joined Gojo to fight income inequalities in the world. Among others, he is responsible for data analysis and data projects in Gojo as well as support partner companies with his knowledge and experience.
Likes hiking and ink paintings. When inspiration strikes, he writes haiku.
Works in: Japan
Shraddha Kumari
HR Assistant Director
Shraddha joined Gojo in August, 2022 as an HR Assistant Director. She has 12 years of experience in HR and has managed Recruitment, Employee Engagement, Performance Appraisal along with managing end to end employee lifecycle. Prior to joining Gojo, Shraddha was associated with EY (Ernst & Young) where one of the most fun project she worked was around driving Wellbeing at work which included surveys, understading employee mindset and customizing Wellbeing programs under diffferent pillars like Social, Financial, Physical and mental wellness. Apart from EY, she has worked with different organizations like Genpact, HCL, Max Bupa Health Insurance and Pearl Academy which has given her exposure across industries.
At Gojo, she leads Human Resource and manages end to end employee life cycle along with focusing on building the right culture.
Shraddha did her Masters in Business Administration from IBS, Kolkata and did her Psychologu Hons. from her hometown Jaipur.
Shraddha lives in Jaipur, Rajasthan with her family. She loves to travel, enjoys going on treks and is an ardent dog lover. She also enjoys meeting new people and building meaningful connections.
Works In: India
Sajin J S
PMO Pasio Youth Banking App
Sajin has over 7 years of experience in Android application development. He joined Gojo as a Software Engineer as part of the technology team. He is a Bachelor of Engineering graduate, passed out from Nagarjuna college of Engineering and Technology, Bangalore, India.
Before joining Gojo, Sajin was a Lead Engineer at Seqato, and was responsible for leading the mobile team and developing mobile applications. Prior to Seqato, Sajin worked in companies Rainconcert Technologies, Codeleven Technologies and Businocrats. In his career, he developed Android applications in different categories like Weather, Health & Fitness, Finance, Social, Business, Productivity, Food & Drink, Maps & Navigation etc.
Sajin likes spending free time with family and friends. He loves playing cricket, chess and carrom board, also he loves to listen to all types of songs.
Works In: India
Ryo Satake
Head of Accounting and FP&A
Ryo is a Certified Public Accountant and works at Gojo as a head of Accounting and FP&A. Ryo has a bachelor’s degree in Economics from the University of Keio. While at university he passed the CPA exam, the youngest to do so that year. He did an internship at Ernst & Young Philippines, where one of his clients was a microfinance institution, and was impressed with the purpose of microfinance and its business model.
After graduating, he joined Ernst & Young in Tokyo, where he engaged in financial audits, internal control audits, operations/financial management advisory and financial due diligence for potential M&A. He also spent 2 years on secondment at the EY Los Angeles office, where he was in charge of supporting a unicorn startup company headquartered in the United States. He has experience auditing under IFRS, US-GAAP and J-GAAP.
Ryo is very fond of traveling, reading books, watching soccer and going to the sauna.
Works in: Japan
Rania Manayra
Corporate Planning Officer
Rania started her journey with Gojo in January 2022 as an intern, working closely with the Corporate Planning and SPM/IM team. She mainly helped develop Gojo’s Impact Reports, write and implement group-wide policies, and conduct social and environmental due diligence. She transitioned to becoming a full-time member in October 2023.
Prior to joining Gojo full-time, Rania studied at Keio University as a MEXT scholarship recipient and graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in strategic management. During her time in university, she was a seminar lead for the International Business and Entrepreneurship Research lab, where she often served as student consultant for various companies and published several papers. She also interned at a global manufacturing company and volunteered at an Indonesian education NPO.
In her spare time, Rania enjoys cooking, reading sci-fi, and going to museums and art galleries.
Works in: Japan
Koharu Suganuma
Financial Reporting / Accounting
Koharu is a Certified Public Accountant and Tax Accountant in Japan and works at Gojo with a focus on accounting, tax, and financial reporting.
Koharu has a B.A. in Policy Management from Keio University. She passed the CPA exam when she was a sophomore in university and started her career at Ernst & Young Tokyo as an auditor. After spending 4 years focusing on statutory/internal control audits and IFRS implementation projects, she joined Deloitte Tohmatsu Financial Advisory and experienced cross-border and domestic M&A advisory, mainly financial due diligence, overall support for carve-out transactions, deal structuring, and PMI projects for 3 and half years.
Outside of Gojo, Koharu delivers several supports to start-ups by building and improving business flows and providing accounting/tax services.
Koharu loves listening to music, watching movies, traveling and visiting hot springs. She also enjoys road biking and hopes to take a long vacation and go around Taiwan by bike in the future.
Works In: Japan
Ishaq Sutarwala
FP&A officer
For Gojo, Ishaq works on Financial Planning & Analysis. As an ex-financial analyst at JP Morgan, he specialised in analysing financials, budgeting, forecasting and variance analysis. Before being an analyst, he worked with Deloitte as a tax senior taking care of all statutory compliances for its clients, assisting in quarterly projections and annual tax planning strategy. At Deloitte, he actively participated in ‘Impact Days’- the company’s initiative to spread social, economical and philanthropic awareness by uplifting underprivileged communities.
Ishaq did his MBA from IBS in Management Finance and graduated in Commerce from Jai Hind College, Mumbai. He is passionate about decentralised finance and digging deep into digital currency protocols.
Ishaq is scrupulous and professionally valued for using agile methods in executing financial analysis. Driven, he targets to grow in leadership positions pertaining to finance. He enjoys watching sports and comedy.
Hiroko Watanabe
Financial Reporting / Accounting
Hiroko is a Certified Public Accountant and works at Gojo as a member of the finance team, primarily working on accounting and financial reporting.
She passed the CPA exam in Japan while studying at Keio University and after graduation, she joined PwC Aarata LLC, where she engaged in audits of the asset management industry, internal control verification services, financial regulatory advisory services, and experienced audits under IFRS and J-GAAP.
Outside work, she enjoys playing the clarinet and watching baseball games.
Works in: Japan
Gürol Sari
Chief Operating Officer
Gürol Sari joined Gojo in June 2020 as our Chief Operating Officer, and oversees the strategic and operational development of our partner institutions. Gürol has extensive leadership experience in retail banking, SME finance, microfinance & financial digitalization, as well as experience in turnarounds of several institutions. He has worked in the banking sector for over 30 years in many countries, including Germany, Austria, Myanmar, Turkey, Albania, Russia, Australia, and Tanzania.
From the start of his career, his interest was drawn towards innovation and impact: Gürol created the first fully automated online credit solution in Germany, easyCredit, which is ranked No.1 today in Germany. Prior to joining Gojo, Gürol worked as Chief Operating Officer of Vision Fund Myanmar, where he developed and implemented a fully digitized microfinance system that provided over 300,000 clients in extreme poverty with access to credit, savings, and education. He currently advises several international banks on digitization and change processes.
Gürol has a creative spirit and is always active. He is passionate about architecture, gardening, handicraft (particularly remodeling houses), and loves to bike and to play tennis. He dreams of sailing with his wife once his two children are independent.
Works in: Germany
Grace Leung Wing Yan
Financial Reporting / Accounting
Grace has joined Gojo & Company as part of the Finance team with a focus on accounting and financial reporting. She earned her Bachelor’s degree in professional accountancy from the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
Grace started her career with PricewaterhouseCoopers(PwC) Hong Kong and later relocated to PwC Japan in 2012. At PwC, she engaged in statutory audits and financial reporting advisory projects including IFRS/USGAAP conversions and accounting policy advisory. She was also seconded to the IFRS Foundation Asia-Oceania Office between 2014 – 2016, performed research on tax disclosure and IFRS reporting by jurisdictions. Just prior to joing Gojo, she spent 2 years at Japan Computer Vision Corp., an IT startup company where she was responsible leading the accounting and financial planning and analysis team.
Outside of work, she enjoys spending time outdoor with her family and she also loves watching soccer games.
Works In: Japan
Almira Zejnilagic
Outside Director
Almira has two decades of experience in risk and crisis strategy management, having worked as an advisor, board member and management, as well as having extensive Investment Committee experience. Most recently she was a senior executive in a global, fast-growing Web 3 financial services business and previously a Partner at FTI Consulting where she spent a decade and helped build and ran Global Risk and Investigation Practic in Europe, Central Asia and Africa.
During her formative years, as a Bosnian refugee, Almira experienced challenges relating to remittances and access to finance, which later shaped her keen interest in finacial inclusion and digital finance as well as broader issues of social justice.
Almira is a Young Global Leader of the World Economic Forum. She speaks English, Serbo-Croatian and Russian (as well as some basic Tajik). She enjoys reading and cooking with her family.
Abhishek Iyer
Regional Finance
Abhishek has joined Gojo & Company as part of the Finance team. He is a qualified Chartered Accountant with Institute of Chartered Accountants of India and have over 6 years of experience across banking and financial sector & has worked across housing finance, NBFC ,Micro Finance and fintech. He is originally from Mumbai (India) & currently living in the city of Bengaluru in the state of Karnataka in India.
Prior to joining Gojo, he worked at Rupeek Fintech which is asset backed gold lending co. At Rupeek he was responsible for managing the financial reporting & audits of Rupeek Fintech & its subsidary Rupeek Capital.
Outside of work he enjoys playing cricket ,badminton & loves cooking.
Works In: India
Kshama Fernandes
Outside Director
Kshama has three decades of experience in Capital Markets, Risk Management and Structured Finance, with the last 15 years focussed on the financial inclusion space in India. Respected for her knowledge and commitment towards the cause of unleashing the power of finance for the greater good, Kshama has been a member of various High Powered Committees setup by the Government of India and has worked on consulting assignments for the World Bank, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, Ministry of Finance, Government of India, and NSEIT. Through her innovative and pioneering work, she has been instrumental in creating and developing the market for debt for the underbanked in India. Kshama is recognised as a leading figure in the Indian financial markets, and in the world of impact investing. She is also the Vice Chairperson of the Northern Arc Group, a leading finance company in India that invests and connects underbanked institutions and businesses to capital markets investors.
She has a bachelors in Mathematics, a Masters in Management and a Ph.D. in Finance. An adventure sports enthusiast, Kshama is a trained mountaineer, sailor, sky diver and an ardent biker.
Yoko Matsumura
Legal & Compliance Officer
Starting in October 2023, Yoko is responsible for legal and compliance matters at Gojo. She is a qualified attorney-at-law in Japan.
After becoming a registered attorney-at-law in 2009, Yoko spent five years working in the corporate department of Clifford Chance’s Tokyo office. Subsequently, she joined Recruit Co., Ltd. right after its initial public offering, where she handled a wide range of legal matters, including major M&A transactions, venture investments, stock-based compensation, and disclosure requirements.
In her personal life, Yoko is a mother of two children. She aspires to balance her work at Gojo with parenting and actually enjoying the process. Yoko loves browsing stunning photographs from around the world while contemplating her next vacation destination.
Location: Tokyo
Charm Cai
Office Manager
Charm takes care of Gojo team members as the office manager. Having worked in various industries and a strong understanding of different cultures and people from all walks of life, she always strives to make a difference for others. In Gojo, she is dedicated to creating a positive, welcoming, and inclusive environment for everyone.
In her spare time Charm likes to cook, play with cats, doing volunteer work, and watch the sea. She is thankful for her peaceful life with family and friends.
Works in: Japan
Michelle Chang
Innovation Product Director
Michelle joined Gojo in September 2022 as the innovation product director. She is a seasoned technology and VC executive with pan-Asian experience at leading VC funds and diverse insight spanning e-commerce marketing, venture building, and finance.
Before joining Gojo, she was venture manager at Launcho Ventures focusing on scaling consumer brands focusing on SEA and the US market. Her career has included her significant time at Vertex Venture Holdings, a subsidiary of Temasek Holdings. In her four years at Vertex, she made investments across the SEA market and Taiwan. Before Vertex, Michelle was the first employee of Reebonz Taiwan, scaling a luxury e-commerce platform and led the growth of the digital business from the ground up to nearly $USD1 million in its first year. She also worked at the leading grocery startup Honestbee as C-suite manager
During her free time, Michelle enjoys doing yoga, reading, and listening to music.
Royanne Doi
Outside Director
Royanne Doi is the former Corporate Chief Ethics Officer of Prudential Financial Inc., and former Advisor for Global Legal, Ethics & Compliance to Yamaha Corporation.
Prior to Yamaha, Royanne held senior legal positions with major global financial institutions. At one point, she managed 200+ staff around the world, with business experience in North and South America, Asia, and Europe. During her tenure as a global ethics officer, Prudential Financial received Ethisphere’s designation as one of the World’s Most Ethical Companies for the first time in 2015, and multiple times thereafter. As a member of Gojo’s board, she will further accelerate the strengthening of internal audit and corporate governance to enable the sustainable growth of Gojo group.
Royanne has an undergraduate degree in Philosophy, from Washington University in St. Louis, graduating Magna Cum Laude, Phi Beta Kappa. She earned her Juris Doctorate from UCLA School of Law. She is married to her law school sweetheart and has lived in Japan since 1994. She has three passions: economic empowerment for women, Asia with an emphasis on Japan, and the intersection between neuroscience and behavioral ethics.
