Michael Addisu Haile

Michael Addisu Haile has more than 8 years of experience in lecturing, consultancy and business management, with a focus on the financial sector. He worked in several positions before starting a new and pioneering microfinance institution called Nisir Microfinance. Nisir provides medium size and demand-driven credit, saving, micro-insurance, micro-leasing and business advisory services to medium sized enterprises. Michael was inspired to start Nisir when writing his Master’s thesis in 2006, when he discovered a large gap in the Ethiopian financial sector that was not being served; existing microfinance institutions focused only on the bottom segment and commercial banks mostly served high-end customers only. Michael Addisu Haile was able to raise over $800,000 from over 200 shareholders to establish his company. Upon returning to Ethiopia, Michael will continue to provide young entrepreneurs, including women-owned businesses and other emerging companies through business development and financial services. Michael has bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Finance and Accounting, and is currently a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) candidate from the CFA Institute.