As Vice President, Middle East and Africa, Raliat oversees advisory engagements and the expansion of key partner relationships in the region. She provides advice on digital financial inclusion strategy, MSME finance and other business-related areas for a wide range of Accion partners such as banks, Fintechs and development finance institutions.

Raliat helps to design and roll out innovative solutions at the intersection of financial services and the real economy, for undeserved customer groups including women, smallholder farmers and refugees.

Raliat brings 25 years of experience working across Sub-Saharan Africa, Middle East and the USA; collaborating with business leaders, policy makers and donor agencies to lead and execute successful projects that solve big issues in areas such as financial inclusion and MSME growth.

Prior to joining Accion, Raliat was Head of Product Optimization at M-KOPA where she was instrumental in launching innovative products and services for underserved rural populations in East Africa. Raliat has also held leadership positions at IBM where she was responsible for building new partnerships and delivering transformative engagements for clients in Central, East and West Africa. Previously Raliat was Senior Manager for Services Delivery for regional telecommunications giant MTN, where she led the delivery of innovative projects that underpinned the company’s rapid expansion.

Raliat has a Global Executive MBA from INSEAD, a Master’s Degree in Computer Science from Johns Hopkins University and a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from University of Maryland Baltimore County.