Philippe is the founding member of PHB Development. He established PHB in 2006 with the vision to improve financial inclusion for the masses. He has more than 20 years of experience working with international development agencies, regulators, telecom and financial institutions.

He has succeeded to scale for impact in challenging contexts. In 2018 and 2019, he coordinated the early-stage digital transformation of a Microfinance Bank in Uganda with a 40% increase of the financial transactions; all conducted through digital channels (ATM, Mobile, Agents). This drove to increase outreach and savings mobilization with a limited increase in the operational costs.

In 2016 and 2017, he coordinated the market approach of MoKash, mobile saving and loans, in Uganda with MTN and CBA. One year after the launch, 2.5 million customers were registered, nearly 50% were actively saving (1.2 million) and 1 million loans disbursed for a total amount of USD 30 billion (US$ 8.3 million).

In 2014 and 2015, he supported the National Ebola Response Centre (NERC) in Sierra Leone to improve hazard pay to emergency workers: built and managed cloud-based database/payroll system of workers, transitioned from cash to mobile payments, introduced payments to accounts via bank transfers and established a Complaints Resolution System. According to BTCA, this saved lives and US$10 million by eliminating double payment, reducing fraud, removing costs of cash transportation, travel and security.

In 2012 and 2013, he coordinated with the World Bank and the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development the assessment of the delivery methods of the Productive Safety Net Program. He then defined and piloted the disbursement through MFIs, the Fintech M-Birr and agents. This conducted to the digital payment of 13,500 House Holds (65,000 beneficiaries) in 2015, 115,596 HH (577,980 beneficiaries) in 2016 and 394,900 HH (representing 1,974,500 beneficiaries) in 2017.

Prior to setting up PHB Development, Philippe has held various senior positions within mobile network operators in Africa and Europe. He was Vice President for Market Development at France Télécom (2005-06); Marketing and Communications Director for Sonatel Mobile in Senegal (2002-05), Commercial Director for Ikatel in Mali (2002) and marketing manager in Belgium (1998-2002).

He started his career at the Research and Development Centre of France Telecom on telecommunication network optimisations (1993-98) after a civil service with an NGO in the South of Chad (1991-93). Philippe has an engineer’s degree in Telecommunications & Computing from Ecole Centrale in France (1990). He also has Master’s degrees in Business Administration (1996), Economics (1997) and Microfinance (2010). He speaks French and English.

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Ciprian grew up in Romania’s picturesque countryside, in a region famous for its vineyards and hardworking farmers. After graduating from a military high school, he moved to France for his Economics and Corporate Finance studies. He is fluent in English, French and Romanian.

Ciprian has a strong sense of duty and applies high standards to himself striving to elevate the level of impact with each opportunity. He bonds with people who share similar values and supports the team’s effect to address concrete tensions. Curious by nature, Ciprian sees opportunities when others talk of challenges: a problem always has a solution to be uncovered. He chased an interest in the potential of technology to improve the quality of life for communities in need and feels the sense of mission towards pragmatic, business-driven development.

With his background in Finance and expertise in business modelling, Ciprian developed his critical thinking and expanded its application to various aspects of increasingly complex opportunities. Ciprian has expertise primarily in the Finance and Agriculture sectors, where he led or intervened in over 20 projects across more than 10 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, Southeast Asia and Pacific. His experience defining and implementing transformational digital strategies, whether in an advisory capacity or embedded in the organization and driving change management from within. He has worked extensively on, translating the needs of Social Transfers Beneficiaries, Farmers & Micro-entrepreneurs into concrete financial and operational terms, providing guidance for informed decision-making.

For Ciprian, success is reached when his work results in adoption at scale. Just look at his impact driving a portfolio of 5 agency banking projects for UNCDF in Uganda: 15 months after Agency Banking regulations were released by the Bank of Uganda, 3,445 agents were active, performing almost 4 million transactions (mainly deposits) worth U Sh1,475 billion (~400M US$) monthly.

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