Leadership and Team

Our team is global, representing
the diverse communities we serve.

Kiva Values

Impact
First

Be Curious
and Bold

Honor and
Integrity

Extreme
Ownership

Inclusion.
Equity.
Diversity.

Love and
Kindness
Always

Leadership Team

Vishal_global
Vishal Ghotge
Chief Executive Officer

Vishal leads Kiva as the CEO and is a product executive with 20+ years of experience in building and shipping technology products. 


Vishal is a product executive with 20+ years of experience in building and shipping technology products. Vishal brings to Kiva a wealth of experience in building consumer marketplaces, developing global fintech solutions and creating products for small business owners. More importantly, he brings to Kiva a passion for building mission-driven organizations and using technology to drive impact at scale.

Before Kiva, Vishal served as the EVP for North America at Remitly, a leader in cross-border remittances. There he helped build financial products to serve immigrants and their families worldwide. Prior to Remitly, Vishal served as Chief Product Officer at compensation software company PayScale, where he was responsible for overseeing the product strategy, user experience and technology for the company’s product portfolio. 

At Groupon, Vishal led several product teams to build two-sided marketplace experiences and connected consumers with local merchants. Vishal started his career as a product manager at Microsoft where he worked for over a decade on Windows and Windows Phone and brought several innovative products and platforms to millions of customers globally.

Vishal holds a Master’s degree in computer science from University of Illinois and a bachelor’s in computer engineering from University of Mumbai.

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Chad Sterbenz
Chief Investment Officer

Chad is responsible for Kiva’s international and U.S. lending and investing programs, and for oversight of Kiva’s credit and investment policies and operations.


Chad joined Kiva in 2013, and has previously served as the head of both Risk and Finance at Kiva. Previously, he lived and worked in Vietnam and Peru managing debt and equity impact investment funds, and in Washington, D.C., as an investment professional. He has traveled for work to dozens of low- and middle-income countries around the world.

Chad graduated from Bowdoin College, briefly explored the world as an archaeologist, and then completed a master’s degree in International Development at American University. He also served for 3 years in the Peace Corps at a university in Osh, Kyrgyzstan.

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Austin Choi
General Counsel

Austin has served as Kiva’s General Counsel since 2008 and is responsible for legal matters across Kiva’s operations. He oversees the negotiation of agreements with Kiva’s microfinance Field Partners, corporate supporters and donors, manages the organization’s regulatory compliance across multiple jurisdictions, and advises the Board of Directors on governance matters.


Austin came to Kiva with more than 10 years of legal experience working with global technology companies. He previously held positions in the legal departments of ArcSight, InVision Technologies/GE InVision and the law firm of Fenwick; West LLP. He also served as a judicial law clerk at the U.S. Court of International Trade.

Austin holds a bachelor’s degree in Economics from Harvard College, where he studied economic development issues, and a J.D. from Harvard Law School.

Liz Ray
Liz Ray
Chief Financial Officer

Liz is a finance professional with over 20 years of experience spanning FP&A, treasury, investor relations and banking.


Prior to joining Kiva, Liz held the role of SVP Finance at Freedom Financial, a privately held consumer finance fintech. In her role at Freedom, Liz led the controllership, tax, treasury and FP&A functions. During her tenure at Freedom, Liz helped scale the lending businesses (unsecured consumer loans and mortgages) and grow Freedom’s consumer credit fund. Prior to Freedom, Liz spent over a decade at Gap Inc. where she focused on capital structure, M&A, treasury and investor relations. She began her career at PricewaterhouseCoopers and also spent time in global banking at Citigroup where she covered financial institutions.

Liz earned her MBA from the Anderson School at UCLA and graduated with a BA in economics from Claremont McKenna College. She is a CFA charterholder.

DonCarter
Don Carter
Executive VP, People & Places

Don joined Kiva in January 2022 and leads the People & Places team.


Don brings a depth of leadership and experiences in HR service delivery, talent and organizational development, succession planning, and other areas that impact talent and organizational performance to Kiva. Don joins us from MatchJack LLC, a Phoenix, Arizona-based assessment, training, and coaching company he founded that focuses on helping leaders and teams improve their workplace engagement, communications, and effectiveness. Before MatchJack, Don served as Senior Director of Human Resources for Zebra Technologies and held roles responsible for the corporate functions, Global Sales, and leading the regional HR business partner teams in EMEA, Latin, America, and Asia-Pacific. Don’s career spans more than three decades in business and his prior service as a former US military officer.

Don earned his MBA degree at the University of Illinois Gies College of Business and attended New Mexico Highlands University where he majored in Finance.

AnnettePromes
Annette Promes
Chief Marketing Officer

Annette joined Kiva in January, 2022 and leads the newly realigned Marketing organization within Kiva.


Annette has worked in marketing for more than two decades and has held various leadership, analytics, and marketing positions at Amazon, Moz, Big Fish Games, Expedia, Microsoft, and AT&T/Cingular Wireless. Throughout her career, she has championed the value that marketing provides to the customer, especially when it is timely, relevant, and based on behavioral triggers. She has spent time in organizations of all sizes and stages of development, spanning both B2B and B2C industries.  

As a leader, Annette works to create environments that are rich with diversity and where people are empowered to bring their whole selves to work. She advocates to increase equity and representation in hiring, mentoring, and career development programs with a focus on increasing equity for black, Latinex, and Native American individuals. Annette has been a member of the advisory board for the University of Washington’s School of Professional and Continuing Education since 2018 and has been an instructor for the school’s Digital Marketing Certificate program since 2020. 

Annette has a Bachelor’s degree in English from the University of Washington and an MBA from the University of Phoenix.

Board of Directors

All board members, except Kiva’s CEO and Executive Chair of the Board, are independent voting members.

01 - Julie Hanna
Julie Hanna
Executive Chair of the Board, Kiva

Since 2009, Julie Hanna has served as Executive Chair of the Board at Kiva. She is an entrepreneur, investor and advisor working with purpose-driven technology companies to solve humanity’s greatest challenges.


In 2015, President Obama appointed her Presidential Ambassador for Global Entrepreneurship to help develop the next generation of entrepreneurs in the U.S. and abroad. 

Julie serves as special advisor to X (formerly Google X), Alphabet’s moonshot factory where breakthrough technologies are developed to solve problems impacting a billion people or more. She is a venture partner at Obvious Ventures, a venture firm that invests in technology companies addressing systemic problems in a profitable and scalable way. Hannah has been an early investor in numerous high growth technology companies including Lyft and Lending Club.

Hanna has been founder, CEO or founding executive of five Silicon Valley, venture-backed companies. Among them, Healtheon (now WebMD), onebox.com, Portola and open source innovator, Scalix. She has pioneered numerous groundbreaking technologies and products that are internet mainstays today, enabling tens of millions of people to connect, communicate and collaborate on a global scale. 

Hanna is an internationally acclaimed speaker and writer on purpose-driven profit and the democratizing potential of technology to create a more just, free and abundant world. In recognition of her vision and global impact on economic and social progress, she was named the United States Woman Icon of APEC and is a recipient of the 2016 Global Empowerment Award.  

“Serving as Kiva’s Executive Chair for the last 12 years has been the humbling honor of a lifetime. As a Coptic Egyptian, as a refugee of war, as an American immigrant, I have lived and witnessed the hope and dignity that is restored, and the human potential that is unlocked when we gain fair access. Especially fair access to capital.”

02 - Maya Chorengel
Maya Chorengel
Co-Managing Partner and Financial Services Sector Lead, The Rise Funds

Maya Chorengel is a Co-Managing Partner at The Rise Funds, the world’s largest, global impact platform committed to achieving measurable, positive social and environmental outcomes alongside competitive financial returns.


Founded by TPG in partnership with Bono and Jeff Skoll, and with more than $6 billion in assets under management, Rise invests in growth-stage, high potential, mission-driven companies that have the power to change the world.

Chorengel is a long-term impact, private equity and venture capital investor who believes that “billions, especially in low income communities, lack access to fundamental services that could meaningfully improve their lives, not because providing these services is commercially unviable, but because our generation has not applied their imagination and will to innovate and create commercially grounded solutions. Applying market approaches and capital to solving social and environmental challenges is not only possible, but also critical to achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.”

Prior to joining TPG, Chorengel was a co-founder of Elevar Equity, a leading impact venture capital firm with a track record of top quartile financial returns and meaningful impact on over 20 million low-income households in Asia and Latin America. Prior to Elevar, Chorengel was Managing Director of the Dignity Fund, a private investment fund focused on local currency debt financing for high-growth microfinance institutions globally, and was previously at Warburg Pincus. Chorengel serves as on the boards of Benevity, SEO, Varo Money, TPG Inc., and Nithio in addition to Kiva. She also serves on the Advisory Boards of CASE i3 at Duke University, the Harvard Business School Social Enterprise Initiative, and co-authored a Harvard Business Review article entitled “Calculating the Value of Impact Investing.” Chorengel earned an A.B. in Social Studies from Harvard College and an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School.

“Having known Kiva since its very early days, I was thrilled to join Kiva’s board in 2015. I believe Kiva serves a unique role, given its non-profit charter, in helping drive individual connectivity and massive scale to meet the goal of financial inclusion globally.”

As a board member, Chorengel is active on the organization’s audit committee and provides input on areas related to microfinance, emerging markets, capital formation and strategic issues.

04 - Andre Haddad
Andre Haddad
Chief Executive Officer, Turo

Andre Haddad is the CEO of leading peer-to-peer car-sharing marketplace, Turo, and was previously CEO of Shopping.com, the leading online comparison-shopping network before its $600m acquisition by eBay in 2005.


Haddad grew up in Beirut, Lebanon, where he witnessed the horrors of the civil war that tore that country apart for 15 years. He left Beirut in October 1989 after his home was bombed and has experienced the challenges encountered by immigrants and refugees seeking a better future. He pursued higher education in France where he graduated from HEC Paris in 1995.

In 1999, Andre co-founded iBazar, the pioneering European consumer to consumer e-commerce marketplace. iBazar became the leading marketplace player in Europe and was acquired by eBay in 2002. Haddad played several roles during his time at eBay, including GM in Europe, VP, International Operations, and VP, User Experience and Design, and Senior Vice President, Product, where he was responsible for product management, design, and research at eBay’s $50B+ global marketplace business.

In 2011, Andre became the CEO at Turo, the pioneering peer to peer car sharing leader. He has been building an exponentially growing business whose mission is to put the world’s 1.5B cars to better use.

“Over the past 14 years as a lender on Kiva, I have witnessed the magic of a $25 loan empowering an entrepreneur to pursue their dreams and change their life and their community’s lives for the better. It has left me with a profound connection to Kiva’s mission and admiration for its impact. I am incredibly excited to support the Kiva team in the next phase of growth, scale and impact. I strongly believe that Kiva has only scratched the surface of the opportunity it is pursuing and I am thrilled to share my 20 years of experience in building, growing and scaling marketplaces and in designing delightful consumer web experiences.”

05 - Reid Hoffman
Reid Hoffman
Co-Founder and Executive Chairman, LinkedIn

An accomplished entrepreneur, executive, and investor, Reid Hoffman has played an integral role in building many of today’s leading consumer technology businesses, including LinkedIn and PayPal.


He possesses a unique understanding of consumer behavior and the dynamics of viral businesses, as well as deep experience in driving companies from the earliest stages through periods of explosive, “blitzscale” growth. Ranging from LinkedIn to PayPal, from Airbnb to Convoy to Facebook, he invests in businesses with network effects and collaborates on building their product ecosystems.

Hoffman co-founded LinkedIn, the world’s largest professional networking service, in 2003. LinkedIn is thriving with more than 500 million members around the world and a diversified revenue model that includes subscriptions, advertising, and software licensing. He led LinkedIn through its first four years and to profitability as Chief Executive Officer. In 2016 LinkedIn was acquired by Microsoft, and he became a board member of Microsoft.

Prior to LinkedIn, Hoffman served as executive vice president at PayPal, where he was also a founding board member.

Hoffman joined Greylock Partners in 2009. He focuses on building products that can reach hundreds of millions of participants and businesses that have network effects. He currently serves on the boards of Airbnb, Apollo Fusion, Aurora, Coda, Convoy, Entrepreneur First, Microsoft, Nauto, Xapo, and a few early stage companies still in stealth. In addition, he serves on a number of not-for-profit boards, including Endeavor, CZI Biohub, Do Something, New America, Stanford’s Human-Centered AI Initiative, the MacArthur Foundation’s 100&Change, and Kiva. Prior to joining Greylock, he angel invested in many influential Internet companies, including Facebook, Flickr, Last.fm, and Zynga.

Hoffman is the co-author of three best-selling books: The Start-up of You, The Alliance, and Blitzscaling. Hoffman is the host of Masters of Scale, an original podcast series and the first American media program to commit to a 50-50 gender balance for featured guests.

Hoffman earned a master’s degree in philosophy from Oxford University, where he was a Marshall Scholar, and a bachelor’s degree with distinction in symbolic systems from Stanford University. In 2010 he was the recipient of an SD Forum Visionary Award and named a Henry Crown Fellow by The Aspen Institute. In 2012, he was honored by the Martin Luther King center’s Salute to Greatness Award. Also in 2012, he received the David Packard Medal of Achievement from TechAmerica and an honorary doctor of law from Babson University. In 2017, he was appointed as a CBE by her majesty Queen Elizabeth II.

“Entrepreneurship is economic self-empowerment, for individuals and for societies. Kiva brings the power of networks and marketplaces to enable individuals in many emerging parts of the world, to support themselves and their communities. I love Kiva’s mission, and my network and skillset is well aligned to work alongside.”

Silvija
Silvija Martincevic
Chief Commercial Officer, Affirm

Silvija Martincevic is the Chief Commercial Officer of Affirm–the technology company that offers a more transparent form of credit and has a mission to deliver honest financial products and improve lives. At Affirm, Silvija is focused on the creation and execution of strategic initiatives that drive growth and empower teams to scale responsibly..


Previously, Silvija was Chief Operating Officer and Chief Marketing Officer of Groupon’s International business where she partnered with Kiva and first “fell in love” with Kiva’s mission. Before her experience in consumer technology companies, Silvija spent a decade in the investment management industry where she focused on socially-responsible, female, and minority-owned funds. Silvija earned her B.A. in Economics at Beloit College and an M.B.A. in Econometrics and Statistics from the Booth School of Business at the University of Chicago.

Silvija has a longstanding passion for delivering economic empowerment to underserved communities. This passion was ignited based on her own experience growing up in Croatia during a communist era and immigrating to the U.S. at the age of 17 after the Balkan wars.

“I fell in love with Kiva while at Groupon after seeing the power of this global marketplace to engage employees and enable lenders to fund the dreams of borrowers. I am thrilled to bring my own passion and experience across investing for social impact and growing global marketplaces to Kiva and help this amazing organization scale economic access and empowerment in communities around the world.”

06 - John Muller
John D. Muller
Associate General Counsel, Facebook

John Muller is Head of Legal for Novi Financial, Inc., a subsidiary of Facebook. Novi is building mobile wallet and exchange services for the new Libra blockchain, with an emphasis on making it faster, cheaper, and easier for people to move money safely around the world.


Previously, Muller was General Counsel (2000-2013) and Vice President of Payments Policy (2013-2017) for PayPal. He helped PayPal through its regulatory licensing, acquisition by eBay, launch of merchant services and international expansion. Before joining PayPal, Muller was a partner at the law firm of Brobeck, Phleger & Harrison.

Muller previously served on the Board of WAGES (Women’s Action to Gain Economic Security), now known as Prospera, a nonprofit organization that raises capital and provides technical assistance to help low-income women operate cooperative businesses.  He spent 10 years growing up living in Guatemala and Paraguay.

“I’m excited to be on Kiva’s Board to help people around the world use their entrepreneurial energy to strengthen  their families and their communities. I’m focused on supporting the Kiva management team as they address the regulatory issues in delivering innovative financial services.”