text: Ms Tabitha Gathoni Mundia
  
  AIMS South Africa 2009
  Empowerment and equality for all through financial intermediation
  
  Ms Tabitha Gathoni Mundia, graduated from AIMS South Africa, where she acquired knowledge on mathematical problem solving and programming skills that were most needed to establish a quantitative department in Equity Bank Group (the largest micro-finance and retail bank in East and Central Africa by customer base), from which she had taken a sabbatical leave to attend AIMS.
  
  When she returned to Equity Bank Group, she immediately began using her newly acquired knowledge, including taking a lead role in developing the world’s first ever mobile money statistical scorecard MKesho that Equity Bank used to grant credit to the un-banked population in Kenya. She also mentored a team of 10 young mathematicians that she led on the statistical techniques used in risk modelling using R programming language, a language that she learned at AIMS.
  
  “My day to day work revolves around capital projections and economic modelling and validation, using various mathematical tools and statistical packages, skills that were imparted and grounded at AIMS!”
  
  In November 2012, she joined the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the private sector arm of the World Bank Group and arguably the most diverse work place in the world, as a risk analyst, a position she currently holds in the headquarters of the bank in Washington DC. Tabitha commented: “At IFC I’m part of a highly experienced group of quantitative risk analysts who help drive the mission and vision of the IFC: the end of extreme poverty by 2030 and boost shared prosperity – in every developing country. My day to day work revolves around capital projections and economic modelling and validation, using various mathematical tools and statistical packages, skills that were imparted and grounded at AIMS!”