Social Entrepreneur · Finance Professional · Civic Leader · Public Policy Advocate

Mansur
Kasali.

Closing the $1.7 trillion visibility gap in the global informal economy — building the institutional infrastructure to see, finance, and unlock the markets the world's capital systems have never mapped.

i. Youngest individual in the 82-year history of the World Bank–IMF Meetings to address the institution in a technical capacity (April 2026).

ii. Founder & Chair of the Board of EmpowerHer Capital — 40% revenue growth, 100% repayment, zero defaults across pilot cohort.

iii. Founder of CyberBridge — $1.2M public-private initiative, 5,000+ students reached, targeting 50,000 across the U.S. and Africa.

— The Thesis —

The defining economic question of our time is not whether opportunity exists, but whether the formal systems that allocate opportunity and capital are capable of reaching the billions operating in the global informal economy.

Mansur Kasali · World Bank–IMF Spring Meetings · April 2026

EmpowerHer Capital

Treating overlooked entrepreneurs as returns to be captured — not risks to be managed.

40%

Average revenue growth across cohort

vs. MFI sector avg. 18%

83%

Improvement in financial stability

vs. sector avg. 41%

100%

Repayment rate, zero defaults

vs. IFC benchmark 94%

Portfolio at risk

vs. sector avg. 5.2%

EmpowerHer Capital is a cross-border micro-capital and mentorship platform deploying structured financial access to women-led informal enterprises across the global informal economy.

At the center of the model is an AI-driven credit visibility framework — currently being presented to multilateral institutions — that uses alternative data to generate creditworthiness signals for entrepreneurs who have never held a bank account, credit score, or collateral asset.

Following a $15,750 Alpha Pilot, EmpowerHer is now scaling into advisory partnerships with Ecobank, IFC country offices, and Goldman Sachs 10,000 Women — on track to reach 6,000 entrepreneurs and generate $180 million in aggregate economic impact by 2028.

Geographies

Lagos · Ibadan · Accra
Scaling across West Africa

Institutional Partners

Ecobank
IFC country offices
Goldman Sachs 10,000 Women

Featured At

World Bank–IMF Spring & Annual Meetings
Clinton Global Initiative
Middlebury Projects for Peace

2028 Target

6,000 entrepreneurs · $180M impact

ii.

CyberBridge

Connecting underserved learners to the formal economy — before existing infrastructure displaces them.

5K+

Students reached to date

60% female participation

$1.2M

Public-private partnership secured

Three-year deployment

100

Digital training hubs targeted

U.S. & Africa

50K

Learner target by 2028

Top 25 globally — Cisco Innovation Challenge

CyberBridge — operating under the CyberSafe Youth Initiative — is a digital inclusion and workforce readiness organization built on a single argument: the next generation of workers in underserved communities should participate in the technology-driven economy, not be displaced by it.

Launched when Mansur was 15 — the same year he lost his father — the initiative has grown into a $1.2 million, three-year public-private partnership targeting 50,000+ learners across approximately 100 digital training hubs by 2028.

Founding funding came in part from a $10,000 Projects for Peace grant from Middlebury College. Current partners include Cisco, Net Impact, telecom providers, and technology firms across four countries.

Geographies

Four countries across the U.S. and Africa

Strategic Partners

Cisco
Net Impact
Telecom & technology firms

Origin Funding

$10,000 Projects for Peace grant
Middlebury College

Recognition

Top 25 globally — Cisco Innovation Challenge

iii.

Recognition

From Decorah to the Federal Reserve. From Ibadan to Bretton Woods.

April 2026

World Bank–IMF Spring Meetings
Civil Society Policy Forum

Panelist on AI, digital agriculture, and job creation in developing economies. Reported as the youngest individual to address the Meetings in a technical capacity since the founding of the Bretton Woods institutions in 1944.

October 2025

World Bank–IMF Annual Meetings

Participant and presenter, Washington D.C. Featured engagement on inclusive finance and informal economies.

September 2025

Clinton Global Initiative
Annual Meeting

Featured participant. EmpowerHer Capital presented as a model for scalable economic inclusion.

2024

Federal Reserve Board
Pre-doctoral Fellowship — Opportunity Insights

Research under Harvard economist Raj Chetty. Findings on COVID-era economic inequality presented to White House economic advisers and Federal Reserve policymakers.

2024

Nomura — 1 of 11 Sophomores Selected Nationally

Investment Banking & Global Markets Summer Analyst. Contributed to multibillion-dollar initiatives across investment banking and capital markets.

2024

Middlebury College — Projects for Peace

$10,000 grant recipient. EmpowerHer recognized as a model for economic inclusion at scale.

Ongoing

When We Grow Up Foundation
Board Observer

Appointed at age 19 to the San Francisco-based 501(c)(3). Originating partnerships with California public school districts, targeting career-access programming for 1,000+ underserved students by 2026.

Ongoing

Net Impact / Up to Us
Chapter Founder & President — Luther College

First fiscal policy student organization in Luther's 180-year history. Mobilized 54% of student body — highest per-capita chapter nationally. Recognized by Senator Chuck Grassley, President Pro Tempore of the U.S. Senate.

vi.

Origin

Why this work, and why now.

Ibadan, Nigeria — the city where the work began, in the hands of a single mother building an enterprise no system was designed to see.

"The most dangerous form of poverty is the kind where people work, produce, and build entire lives — but remain unseen by the systems that decide who gets capital and who doesn't."

Mansur's father passed away when he was 15, leaving his mother to raise him and his siblings alone in Ibadan, Nigeria. He watched her do it without the tools she deserved — and it shaped everything that followed.

The throughline — from his mother's enterprise in Ibadan to EmpowerHer's pilot cohort, from his research at Harvard to his remarks at the World Bank — is a single argument: the financing gap facing underserved communities is not a risk problem. It is a visibility problem. And the tools to close it already exist.

— Get in touch —

The work is only beginning.

Available for institutional partnerships, board engagements, speaking invitations, and conversations on inclusive capital markets, civic infrastructure, and economic visibility at scale.

kasalimansur@gmail.com LinkedIn → EmpowerHer Capital →

Mansur
Kasali.

Treating overlooked entrepreneurs as returns to be captured — not risks to be managed.

Connecting underserved learners to the formal economy — before existing infrastructure displaces them.

From Decorah to the Federal Reserve. From Ibadan to Bretton Woods.

In their words.

In his own words.

Why this work, and why now.

The work is only beginning.

MansurKasali.

Treating overlooked entrepreneurs as returns to be captured — not risks to be managed.

Connecting underserved learners to the formal economy — before existing infrastructure displaces them.

From Decorah to the Federal Reserve. From Ibadan to Bretton Woods.

In their words.

In his own words.

Why this work, and why now.

The work is only beginning.

Mansur
Kasali.