Rashmi Pillai contributes to CGAP’s work on resilient rural women at the intersection of agriculture and climate change.
Rashmi is a global executive with 19+ years of experience in impact investing, digital financial services, inclusive and competitive financial markets development, and financial markets policy and regulation across Africa and South Asia. Previously, she was the Anglophone Head of Public Policy for Wave Mobile Money and contributed to Wave’s operations in its six African markets. Prior to that, she was the CEO at Financial Sector Deepening Uganda (FSDU). Before FSDU, she served as a digital financial services technical expert to two organizations – CGAP, at the World Bank and the Better Than Cash Alliance at the UNCDF across multiple African countries. Rashmi is also the founder of the "Sankalp Forum" – the first major impact investment deal flow platform in India for for-profit social enterprises and took it to scale. The forum has now expanded across Southeast Asia and East Africa.
Rashmi has a master’s in public policy from Harvard Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University on a Fulbright Scholarship. She also holds another Masters in Spectroscopic Physics from M.S. University Baroda, India.