Premal Shah believes your last name doesn't need to be Gates or Rockefeller in
order to make a real dent in global poverty. After leaving his job as a
Principal Product Manager at PayPal, it has taken Premal less then a year to
make good on Kiva's pledge that all it takes to become a micro lender is a
credit card and access to a computer. Raising money "Howard Dean Style" from
over 13,000 online lenders, Kiva has provided more than a million dollars in
low-cost working capital to small-scale entrepreneurs in less developed
countries from Bulgaria to Uganda.
As President, Premal leads Kiva.org's efforts to scale its partnerships and
member base. During his 6 year career at PayPal, Premal drove a number of key
initiatives including a year long project defining eBay's role in economically
empowering the global working poor. A number of corporate initiatives have come
out of this effort, including PayPal's support of Kiva.org. Prior to PayPal,
Premal was a strategy consultant at Mercer Management Consulting in New York.
Premal has had a long standing interest in microfinance. In 1997, he was
awarded a grant from Stanford University to research microfinance in Gujarat,
India. More recently Premal co-founded the Silicon Valley Microfinance Network
and spent 2 months in India working to refine / validate Kiva.org's model. In
2006, Premal was a featured speaker at the Clinton Global Initiative and Global
Microcredit Summit. Premal graduated with a B.A. in Economics from Stanford
University.
