Rani Deshpande

Senior Financial Sector Specialist

Rani Deshpande’s work with CGAP has focused on meaningful financial inclusion for youth and women, financial services for gig platform workers, and earlier in her career, pro-poor savings and money transfer services. Her consulting work spans applied research and analysis to inform the design of financial services and livelihoods programs for underserved populations, as well as policies conducive to their success.

Rani also has extensive experience in program management, serving as the Director of Save the Children’s $42M portfolio youth and off-farm livelihoods development work in over a dozen countries. Prior to that, she led YouthSave, an initiative that assisted over 150,000 teens to open tailored savings accounts and save over $1.2M. She has also served as a strategy consultant to US nonprofits at The Bridgespan Group, and provided direct technical assistance to MSMEs in India and West Africa.

Rani earned her undergraduate degree from Stanford University and a dual Master’s degree in International Affairs and Business from Columbia University. She is fluent in French and Marathi and speaks intermediate Spanish and basic Hindi.

By Rani Deshpande

Blog

Playing the Long Game: Women’s Platform Work and Financial Services

Tailored financial services could help women platform workers mitigate some of the downsides of this growing source of livelihood and translate new opportunities into greater security for themselves and their families over the long-term
Research

Women in the Platform Economy: Emerging Insights

Millions of women work in the platform economy but often face barriers that prevent them from capturing platform-based opportunities. Learn about female workers’ experiences and how financial services can help make platforms more inclusive.
Research

How Can Financial Services Support Platform Work? Insights from Five Emerging Markets

Based on research with platforms and their workers across five countries, this report describes the platform ecosystem in emerging markets, the experiences of workers and sellers in key sectors, and how financial services can help these workers improve their livelihoods.
Blog

Growing Up, Growing Informal: Gender Differences in Financial Services

Teenage men and women in Kenya and South Africa adopt formal savings accounts at similar rates. But when they hit their 20s, men continue to adopt formal services while women begin gravitating toward informal services. Why?
Blog

What Drives the Financial Inclusion Gender Gap for Young Women?

Ahead of International Women's Day, CGAP and the Global Findex team analyzed how the account ownership gender gap varies across regions and age groups.