The Helix Institute at MSC Masterclass 2 with Leesa Shrader, AgriFin Accelerate Program Director at Mercy Corps

In our second Master class series, we spoke to Leesa Shrader, the Director of the AgriFin Accelerate Program at Mercy Corps. She is a trailblazer in the financial inclusion space and specifically in the agriculture sector. She spoke at length about her professional journey, key achievements, challenges and lessons learnt and also leaves a few nuggets of wisdom for the future breed of women leaders.

This conversation goes deeper to focus on:

• The role of agricultural digital platforms in agricultural transformation, and inclusive financial systems in Sub-Saharan Africa. She gave us a walkthrough Digifarm, one of the successful cases of the agriculture digital platforms and lessons learnt in building future platforms
• Key lessons on partnerships and collaborations emerging from the current digital agriculture platforms
• The role of youth in agriculture digital ecosystems
• The medium to long-term impact of COVID-19 on inclusive agriculture finance systems and
• Recommendations for the players in the agriculture ecosystem

Click here to watch more of our master classes