Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and Co-Founder

Under Boris’s leadership, Educate! has grown to become the largest youth skills provider in East Africa, meaningfully impacting over 390,000 youth across Uganda, Rwanda, and Kenya. With a team of over 240 staff and 300 youth mentors, the organization has received much acclaim for its work, including the 2018 Klaus J. Jacobs Prize and the 2015 WISE Award. Educate! was also highlighted by the World Bank’s S4YE's Impact Portfolio, The Brookings Institution as one of 14 case studies in their global scaling education learning initiative, the UN’s Generation Unlimited as one of 20 innovative youth solutions, and by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation as a Goalkeepers Accelerator.

As an immigrant from Latvia and a refugee himself, Boris believes in the power of giving young people access to mentorship and transformative learning experiences - both of which allowed him to move from starting in the US on welfare and food stamps to where he is today.

Before jumping into Educate! full-time, Boris worked at startup incubator Loeb Enterprises. Boris is a recipient of the 2011 Grinnell College Young Innovator for Social Justice Prize, and a two-time Forbes Top 30 Under 30 Social Entrepreneur.

Boris has been with Educate! since 2004.

Chief Product Officer (CPO)

Missy is one of Educate!’s leaders building and supporting our out-of-school solution strategy. She explicitly leads the development of NawiriPro, an African-led online skills learning, financing, and business advisory platform.

Missy’s background is in business development, and she has worked for companies around the world in Kenya, Tanzania, Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire, Somalia, and South Korea. She grew an education technology company in Africa from 140,000 to 4.7 million lifetime users in over four years. She is also the Co-Founder of the Nairobi EdTech community.

Missy is most passionate about scaling African technology worldwide and developing economies in Africa through mobile technology.

Missy has been with Educate! since 2019.

Chief Education Innovation Officer

Charlotte oversees design, innovation and scaling for our school system solutions. She is responsible for partnering with governments to put in place the systems and structures that empower teachers and leaders to change student lives.

Charlotte joined Educate! from Education Development Trust from a senior leadership role where she was responsible for the company’s global portfolio of education products. Over her 10 years there she worked with partners including government ministries, FCDO, the Education Commission and IIEP-UNESCO to catalyse new innovations and thought leadership on ‘what works’ to lead educational change at scale. With a background in organisational effectiveness and change management at Korn Ferry, Charlotte is passionate about helping leaders turn their dreams into real impact on the ground. Her professional interests are behaviour change and collaborative leadership, and she is a published author and thought leader in this field.

Charlotte is inspired by Educate!’s creative and focused solutions for youth employment, and commitment to scalable products that are designed to reach every single student and the very last mile. She loves meeting students and seeing the glint in their eyes as they talk about their new experiences.

In her spare time Charlotte loves any kind of live music she can get her ears and eyes on, and can often be found in the tablaos de flamenco in Barcelona, where she currently lives.

Charlotte has been with Educate! since 2022.

Deputy Chief Operating Officer

Kayode has spent the last 12 years building systems that enable organizational performance, operational efficiency and leading the execution of strategic projects across the industries of construction, ecommerce, business process outsourcing and education.

He started out as a cost consultant and project manager, after which he joined Jumia market as a pioneer Business Strategist and left as the Head of Strategy, Projects & Field Sales. He worked with Teleperformance’s TLScontact for over 6 years, building its operations from scratch in Nigeria -providing direction for a team of 150 people serving the UKVI and the Australian DIBP clients while delivering world-class service through a daily average of 1,000 physical customer interactions in the role of Country Manager. He was most recently the Director of Enterprise Transformation & Strategic Operations at African Leadership University (ALU) overseeing both Mauritius & Rwanda.

Kayode is an alumnus of the Obafemi Awolowo University, Nigeria; who has also obtained executive education from MIT Sloan School of Management & University of Cambridge’s Judge Business School in Design Thinking & Digital Transformation Strategies respectively. He is currently doing his Executive MBA at the Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University Rotterdam and he is a Brain-Based Certified Coach with the NeuroLeadership Institute.

He is a certified Project Management Professional (PMP), a member of the Project Management Institute (PMI) and a Fellow of the Institute of Leadership & Management.

He is passionate about working with the youth and working with Educate! brings together his passion and expertise over the years. His role at Educate! spans strategy & operations performance oversight, leading strategic initiatives and org-wide matrix coordination.

Kayode has been with Educate! since 2022.

Regional Director of Partnerships

Kamanda Kamiri is the Regional Director of Partnerships at Educate!, which prepares youth in Africa with the skills to succeed in today’s economy.

Kamanda is passionate about impacting younger generations through quality education in preparation for future opportunities. As a beneficiary of community support for his education, he feels greatly indebted. He seeks to give back to the community by supporting education systems and reforms for the advancement of youth.

Before joining Educate!, Kamanda was the Deputy Country Director at Gardens for Health International, where he attained deepened experience in HR Management, Operations, and Finance and Government Engagement. He holds a BBA degree in Finance from the School of Finance and Banking, Rwanda, and a master’s in Project Management from Mount Kenya University. He is also an alumnus of the Global Health Corps Fellowship and the Acumen Fund Regional Fellowship.

Kamanda has been with Educate! since 2018.

Rwanda Managing Director

Aissetou is a leader and expert in sales with close to 10 years of experience leading cross-functional teams. She has mastered managing diverse talents while paying attention to the end results.

Before joining Educate!, Aissetou was a Managing Director where she doubled as a Chief Sales Officer in a leading FemTech company and even started her career in banking account management. She holds a degree in Business Information Management from Glasgow Caledonian University and an MBA from Cardiff Metropolitan University. She is also an alumnus of the Female Future Leadership Program.

Aissetou is passionate about impacting people and growing them. She has done it all, from grooming junior employees to ascend for leadership posts to closing partnerships deals. Beyond work, she is your go-to problem solver, turning real-life challenges into success stories.

Aissetou has been with Educate! since 2023.

Global Director of Growth and Revenue

Alex Kelly is the Director of Growth at Educate!. He also oversees the External Relations team, as well as directs the finance and operations of the US country team. His unique value add is being able to guide a program in short-term implementation excellence, while simultaneously setting it up to reach concrete improvement milestones that allow for healthy growth.

Alex is an international development practitioner who has almost ten years of experience implementing programmatic work and overseeing growth-oriented strategy. He is excited to return to working on issues that directly impact youth, as he has always been perpetually impressed with the resiliency and potential of youth — and knows that with a little support they can do incredible things.

Before joining Educate!, Alex lived in western Kenya for six years, where he worked for One Acre Fund (OAF) to help provide sustained food security and pathways to prosperity for smallholder farmers. At OAF, he was most recently the director of the Kenya Field Operations program. In this role, he focused on growing the team and increasing impact, eventually reaching over 450,000 farmers throughout the country. Prior to his time with OAF, Alex worked in field-based roles at development NGOs in Nepal and El Salvador. He is also a returned Peace Corps volunteer who served in Costa Rica, where he focused on children, youth, and family programming.

Alex has been with Educate! since 2020.

Global Director of Research, Measurement, and Evaluation

Meghan Mahoney oversees Educate!’s performance monitoring systems and strategic learning agenda: designing evaluations and data systems, managing their execution, and processing the resulting data for learning.

Prior to joining Educate!, Meghan oversaw the youth and labor markets sector for the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) at MIT and evaluated a sustainable agriculture and micro-credit program in Nicaragua. Meghan also studied Development Economics and Program Evaluation at the Fletcher School at Tufts University and Economics and International Relations at American University.

Meghan has been with Educate! since 2016.

Director of Program Implementation

Emmanuel heads LEEP (Learning, Experiments, Eco-System Documentation and Program Model Design). In this role, he designs Educate!’s experience curriculum and youth facing materials. Additionally, he guides the learning strategy with a focus on the youth experience and implements program experiments to inform product iterations.

He has over 10 years experience working in and managing implementation of youth livelihoods, entrepreneurship and education programs.

Emmanuel has been with Educate! since 2015.

Director of Program Implementation, Rwanda

Diane Kayigi oversees the program teams in Rwanda that operate in all 30 districts of the country.

Diane is passionate about creating opportunities that impact the younger generation through education, technology and mentorship.

Prior to joining Educate!, Diane was the Country Operations Coordinator at Zipline Rwanda, an aerial logistics company using autonomous drones to deliver health commodities across Africa and the US.

Diane is currently pursuing an MBA with a focus in Strategic Management from Rushford Business School, Switzerland.

Diane has been with Educate! since 2022.

Regional Director of Program Implementation

Richard’s role entails program strategy oversight for program implementation in areas of implementation structures, systems, policies and resource efficiency that will enhance program quality in schools. He also plays a pivotal coordination role in aligning implementation and supporting departments to coordinate feedback, system alignment and communication, coupled with ensuring design oversight to meet school beneficiaries needs.

He is an MBA graduate who launched his career at Educate! as a mentor in 2010, after completing his undergraduate studies in Procurement and Logistics Management. His passion for community development motivated him to contribute to Educate!’s mission and has held various roles in the Programs Department, namely: Mentor, Alumni Coordinator, Program Manager, Head of Programs and now Director of Program Implementation.

Richard successfully led the program expansion strategy in the post-war Northern Uganda region in 2015 in his capacity as the Programs Manager. He has been at the helm of programs system development and improvements in program management capacity for the team to scale with minimal differences, from 400 to now over 800 schools of operation since 2016.

Richard is passionate about community empowerment and development and is grateful to Educate! for giving him the opportunity to contribute to this impact.

Richard has been with Educate! since 2010.

Director of Technology and Performance Metrics

Samson sets up data systems within the organization and working to help deliver the information and insights teams need to deliver impact on a day to day basis. He is passionate about using technology and human centered design to deliver on this mandate.

Prior to joining Educate, Sam worked with I&M bank as an Analytics Translator. In this role, he spearheaded a team of data scientists, developers and designers to deliver data science use cases for the bank. He has also worked in Komaza, a social enterprise headquartered in the coast of Kenya as a Data Design Associate.

When he is not working, Sam enjoys cooking, supporting Arsenal, and binge watching the latest movies.

Samson has been with Educate! since 2019.

Director of Field Operations

Shamid has over 9 years experience in driving projects and initiatives geared towards youth and female empowerment in areas of digitalization, asset finance, and skilling. Before joining Educate!, he worked with the Ugandan Ministry of Works and Transport in the procurement department. Additionally, Shamid worked with Tugende Limited for 6 years supporting in different capacities ranging from credit management, scaling and expansion, and managing operations across Uganda, Rwanda and Kenya. His most recent role was Director of Operations at KEIPhone Inc overseeing the development and commercialization of the operations strategy, streamlining operational processes, and managing partnerships and linkages in Uganda and Kenya.

Shamid holds a Bachelor's Degree in Procurement and Logistics Management from Kyambogo University, Uganda and is currently pursuing a Master’s Degree in Business Administration from Uganda Management Institute. He holds a postgraduate diploma in Leadership and Management from Amani Institute Nairobi, Kenya and a postgraduate certificate in Management for Microfinance Institutions, a certificate in Reconciliation and Reporting for Financial Institutions all from the Uganda Institute of Banking and Financial Services, Uganda. He is also in the process of finalizing his certification in Lean Six Sigma GreenBelt (Services) from Dr. Mikel J Harry Six Sigma Management Institute.

Shamid has been with Educate! since 2023.

Director of Marketing and Communications

Natasha is a strategic communications specialist and journalist with over 15 years experience. Her passion is using storytelling as a means to achieve social impact and equality.

Prior to joining Educate!, she was an adviser to conflict prevention foundation International Crisis Group, with a focus on peacebuilding in Latin America and the Caribbean, new forms of armed violence and women’s activism. She also spent four years as a campaigns and advocacy officer for the UK’s Commission for Racial Equality, transforming businesses and public sector organisations by mainstreaming diversity.

She has held senior management roles within the HELLO! / HOLA! global media group in Madrid, developing brand identity and content creation in coordination with teams across the world.

Natasha initially trained as a journalist with two years at ITN, the home of ITV News, Channel 4 News and 5 News in the UK, and another two at Spain’s El País newspaper.

Raised in Zambia, Nigeria and the UK, she takes a keen interest in the history and culture of the African diaspora. This led her to create the @1000blackwomen Instagram project, a series of interviews featuring women speaking from the heart about their lives and natural afro hair.

Natasha holds a Master's Degree in broadcast journalism from Cardiff University and graduated with a degree in Classics from Oxford University.

Natasha has been with Educate! since 2022.

Director of Program Implementation, Skill Up

Hellen began her Educate! journey as the Senior School Coordinator, influencing program implementation in Eastern Uganda, and later stepped into the role of Design and Experiments Manager.

Hellen has provided leadership to the Design and Experiments team, working with a experienced curriculum designers in developing strategy for product development and quick learning loops that yield proven solutions for youth empowerment at school level.

She joined Educate! after the Skills for Effective Entrepreneurship development (SEED) pilot with Innovations for Poverty Action.

Hellen has been with Educate! since 2013.

Director of Impact Evaluation

Phillip is a research and evaluation professional with experience in the non-profit sector. He has run multiple research and evaluation projects in Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda, with various organizations, spanning different sectors including education and skills development, financial inclusion, cash benchmarking and livelihoods among others.

Prior to joining Educate! Phillip worked as a research manager with IPA, collaborating with renown researchers from various academic and research institutions to design and implement cutting edge studies aimed at influencing development policy. His passion is in data, research, evaluation and capacity development in these areas.

Phillip has been with Educate! since 2021.

Director of People, Talent and HR

Marica describes her career as one that is best made sense of through Steve Jobs’ “connecting the dots backwards.” Each experience has enabled her to chase curiosities, explore different interests, and learn from new perspectives.

She started in marketing and communications for a professional soccer/football team and then for Team Canada for the Paralympic Games, spent time on a research team for Vancouver’s Economic Development Commission contributing to the Mayor’s plans to “green” the city, followed by a few years as the operations manager for skoah, a growing retail skincare company, helping to expand stores across Canada and USA. From there, she made the jump into the social impact sector, working at Wedu to design a mentorship program for young women in Southeast Asia. In 2015, she joined the Innovation Team at Acumen where she developed online courses and programs to engage and equip a global community of volunteers, learners and fellows with the tools to create a positive impact in their communities. Her recent work was in facilitating internal change management as the team rebranded the online courses and fellowship programs under Acumen Academy in 2020. Aspects of her role included overseeing the central operations of the fellows programs and leading the development and delivery of a network engagement strategy to accompany the fellows in the growth of their impact, organizations and initiatives.

Marica has a BComm from the University of British Columbia and is finishing her MSc in Digital Anthropology at University College London. When she’s not working you can find her at the (ballet) barre, browsing stationary shops in London, on FaceTime with her nieces and nephews.

Marica has been with Educate! since 2023.

Head of Strategic Projects

Sylvie holds a legal background with an LLB degree from the University of Manchester, and a Master’s degree in International Relations from United States International University (USIU Africa). She previously worked as a Fee Earner for various Personal Injury Law Firms within the United Kingdom.

She holds prior experience of working at the International Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY), gaining a vast wealth of experience in working within the international humanitarian systems.

For 6+ years she successfully spearheaded the Program Support Department with GrowthAfrica Foundation based in Nairobi, Kenya. She later joined MFS Africa as a Senior Account Manager, based in Tanzania tasked with stakeholder/partnership management.

She is extremely passionate about impact creation in Africa and specifically through youth empowerment. As the Head of Strategic Projects, her role is cross-cutting on various projects including ESS Tanzania expansion.

Sylvie has been with Educate! since 2023.

Head of Talent Acquisition

Patience is a seasoned HR professional with over a decade of experience in HR business partnering and global talent acquisition. With a strong background in targeted sourcing, process design, and system implementation within the people space, Patience has also served as a consultant for a recruiting agency. Patience oversees the Talent Acquisition function at Educate!, and is deeply committed to shaping a people-centric strategy.

Before joining Educate!, Patience made significant contributions to Komaza, a social enterprise located along the Kenyan coast. In her role as a recruiting associate, she played a pivotal role in scaling the company, achieving an impressive threefold increase in headcount. Patience's previous experience includes a stint at a subsidiary of Lafarge Holcim, Bamburi Cement, where she made valuable contributions to the HR department. Prior to that, she led the HR function at a civil and building engineering startup along the coast, successfully managing both field extension networks and office staff spanning six Kenyan counties.

Patience holds a Bachelor's Degree in Business Management with a major in Human Resources from Moi University and is currently pursuing an MBA at the University of East London.

Her vision revolves around leveraging organizational development frameworks to drive strategy through people. She excels in navigating complexities, championing organizational culture, and unlocking the full potential of individuals and teams.

Beyond her professional endeavors, Patience is an avid traveler, a boxing enthusiast, and a budding blogger.

Patience has been with Educate! since 2018.

Head of External Relations

As Head of External Relations, Bersi oversees Educate!’s fundraising team and managing partner relationships.

Prior to joining Educate!, Bersi worked in urban agriculture and youth development in communities across New York City and London, supporting a diverse set of projects. She is passionate about fostering agency amongst youth, especially young women and supporting inclusive methods to building equity. She aligns with Educate!’s diverse, flexible and solutions-oriented approach to driving real impact for youth on the continent.

Bersi holds an MSc from Kings College London in Sustainable Development and a B.A. from American University in International Relations. She’s been living in Kampala for 3.5 years and in her spare time enjoys traveling, gardening and exploring her growing interests in beekeeping, coffee and hot sauce!

Bersi has been with Educate! since 2021.

Head of National Programs, Community Service Learning

Sylvia is an education practitioner with experience drawn from the government and development sectors. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Education and an ongoing Masters’ in Public Policy and Administration. As a government officer, she worked in the departments of education administration and advisory, supervising implementation of education programs in Nairobi. During this period, she worked with different government agencies implementing education programs targeting various education stakeholders at the national level district level.

Sylvia’s interest in literacy development saw her participate in the curriculum review process where she was a member of the Literacy panel that developed the scopes and sequence and curriculum designs for Early Years Education.

While working with the government, her interaction with civil societies led her to transition to the development sector to work with the marginalized communities. She has worked in the informal settlements of Nairobi, rural areas in Eastern Kenya and the Coast region. Her interest is in creating opportunities for children and youth that will impact the livelihoods of their communities.

Sylvia is a believer that the future of Africa lies in the youth and is committed to supporting initiatives that will create lasting opportunities and interventions.

Sylvia has been with Educate! since 2022.

Head of Performance Metrics

Aloysie is currently Head of the Performance Metrics function within the Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) department. She plays a critical role in advancing data-driven strategies to optimize organization’s performance. Starting in the organization in 2017 as M&E senior officer, Aloysie was pivotal in ensuring the field team's data accuracy and timeliness through the effective tools creation and maintenance. This foundational role set the stage for a career marked by significant contributions to the development of global performance metrics standards, tools, systems and processes.

Aloysie holds a bachelors’ degree in Applied Statistics and masters’ degree Economic Sciences from the University of Rwanda and Kigali Independent University respectively. Prior to joining Educate!, she served at the Centre for Integrated Development Research and Action (CIDRA), as a statistician. She is also an alumnus of the Unlock Impact fellowship which strengthened her leadership skills.

She is so passionate to use data evidence to support team efforts, she embodies the combination of her analytical skills and visionary leadership to drive the Performance metrics function towards new heights of efficiency and impact.

Aloysie has been with Educate! since 2017.