Elijah Chol Yak Diu Yak
Managing Director
South Sudan Microfinance Development Facility
Mr. Yak has served as the Managing Director of the South Sudan Microfinance Development Facility since August 2013. He was previously a Microfinance Specialist at the Frankfurt School of Finance & Management from 2010 to 2011. He also has experience as an accountant and worked at KPMG (Kenya) in 2009, all based in South Sudan. Mr. Yak holds an MBA degree from Kenya Methodist University (KeMU) and a Bachelor of Commerce (Finance) degree from Kabarak University in Kenya.
Mr. Yak played a crucial role in the drafting of the Microfinance Bill in 2010 and played a key role in the formulation of the National Microfinance Policy (NAMIPO) in 2012. In 2012, he was appointed as a secretary of a multi-stakeholder Central Bank select committee that was tasked to lead the adoption of the Credit Reference Bureau that was to be based at the Bank of South Sudan. This has since been established and become operational. In August 2015, Mr. Yak was selected to be among an eight-member Central Bank committee tasked with the formulation of Mobile Money regulations. Mr. Yak is an alumnus of The African Board Fellowship (ABF), Harvard Kennedy School’s Rethinking Financial Inclusion: Smart Design for Policy and Practice, and Harvard Business School-Accion Program on Strategic Leadership in Inclusive Finance.