Jitendra works as Global Director, Program Design-Housing Finance System with Habitat for Humanity’s Terwilliger Center for Innovation in Shelter and is posted in Philippines. He supports financial institutions developing, testing and scaling affordable housing finance solutions, formulating global advisory solutions, managing portfolio relationships, and driving strategic decisions for the growth of financial institutions.
He also manages Habitat’s MicroBuild Fund (the first housing-focused microfinance investment vehicle dedicated to helping low-income families). He works closely with the fund manager and is responsible for its strategy and operations. He has 13 years of experience in advisory, consulting, and investment services in the financial inclusion sector, with special focus on thematic areas of microfinance, digital financial services, and housing finance.
Jitendra has worked with over 100 financial intermediaries in 12 countries across Asia and Africa. He has extended broad spectrum support to financial institutions advising the management on strategy, risk, operations, digital transformation, delivery channels , services and products. Before joining Habitat for Humanity, Jitendra was a manager for the inclusive finance and banking domain at MicroSave Consulting, where he led and delivered several consulting assignments across Asia and Africa, including a two-year full-time stint in Indonesia. Jitendra has a holistic and rich experience in establishing financial institutions from scratch using sophisticated policies, procedures, and technology.
Jitendra has a Master’s degree in Business Administration specializing in Development Management along with a graduation background in commerce.
He also has a professional certificate in Financial Modeling and Valuation Analyst (FMVA). Jitendra is currently pursuing a Diploma in Green Finance from the Frankfurt School of Finance and Management, Germany.
Q. How has been your journey from IIFM to this role?
A. IIFM has always had a unique value proposition for students where it prepares them with the realities of the ESG factors (Environment, Social, and Governance), which are of paramount importance in the development sector and their interactions with business and society. I am grateful to have received such exposure and understanding. In addition, every MBA institute’s value proposition is to provide a platform for its students to get attracted to the industry. IIFM being a niche institute had always had a wide array of organizations participating during the placements, and the fact that we were able to achieve 100% placements at a time when the industries were still recovering from the aftermaths of the 2008 financial crisis was an excellent achievement for the institute and its students.
I am grateful for the start I got with MicroSave Consulting, where I had the opportunity to work in the financial inclusion sector on a broad range of topics and gain exposure to various international geographies. I also had the opportunity to work with talented and hardworking individuals along the journey, including some of the alumni of the IIFM. After gaining significant experience in business advisory services, I moved to Habitat for Humanity International to work in the affordable housing finance industry, where I was also able to gain experience in investment services by supporting the growth of our impact investment initiative, the MicroBuild Fund. My role has evolved from the region specifically to the global role in this organization in the past six years and we have had great opportunities to develop, contribute, and scale some of the exciting innovations in the affordable housing ecosystem.
Q. What were some of the key milestones/learning in this journey that you would like to share with us?
A. Gaining field experience by working closely with financial institutions and spending time with direct beneficiaries has allowed following human-centered design approaches where the pain points of the customers are always at the center while designing solutions. Desirability is an essential factor in designing and scaling solutions; however, for a social business to thrive, the feasibility and viability of solutions are also equally important apart from the desirability factor. I have had a chance to learn this by participating in and executing various initiatives over the last 13 years. International experience allows you to test and reframe your biases and mental models; and experience in the investments space.
Q. What is the most satisfying part of your current role?
A. In addition to consulting work/business advisory services, I am also responsible for the scaling of conceptualized solutions with our partner financial institutions. So, it has a more accountability aspect compared to a typical management consulting job, and this process allows us to test our solutions and iterate until we have found the required scale and the product-market fit. In addition, contributing to the strategy and the management of the MicroBuild Fund has also been a very rewarding experience. Housing is one of the basic needs of a family, and it opens various socio-economic benefits to a family, and meeting that goal with the help of the private sector has been an enriching experience.
Q. Has your learning at IIFM helped in shaping how you approach your professional roles?
A. Of course, as I stated above, the awareness of societal challenges and finding an effective business or developmental model is something IIFM does effectively for its students. Awareness leads to adoption, and that’s why our alma matter has had various success stories in the development space.
Q. Who (or what) are the biggest influences or drivers in your careers. What would be your advice to freshers and IIFM graduates who are looking to choose similar sectors/roles?
A. For most professionals, going through the trajectory of organizational growth is an essential driver in their career journey, and I am no different. Similarly, positioning yourself as an expert in your field is also a driver that pushes you forward and helps you learn new things daily. The ideation of solutions and taking them to the entire journey of product development and implementation and involvement in end-to-end processes and decisions about such solutions is also a significant driver for me in the professional journey. The main insight I can share with other graduates is to be strategic and long-term in their thinking and be visionary, and make sure that every day is advancing them forward to their goals. The pace will vary, and sometimes the progress will frustrate us, but it is essential to keep moving forward.
Q. What are your favorite memories during your IIFM days?
A. Going through the classes of our esteemed professors such as Biswas sir, CVRS sir, CSR sir, Yogesh sir, and Ashutosh sir were always enjoyable and enriching. In addition to the classes, well, I used to play cricket a lot. Finding time after the classes and playing even across the hostel with the batchmates and seniors was always on the cards.
Q. In hindsight, what was the biggest contribution (courses, faculty, library, friends, and alumni. Anything else!!) or take away from IIFM that you think played a critical role in shaping you as an individual or professional?
A. I think the community network that IIFM brings in, particularly from the development sector, is something that is of immense help in the professional space. For example, our alumni, working across the length and the breadth and within various sub-sectors of the overall development sector. The support that I received from my colleagues and friends (and most of them were our alumni such as Anup Singh, Harsh Pandey, and Sachin Kumar, among others) in the very early days of my career was of immense help in setting up the strong foundations in terms of work ethics, accountability, and overall professionalism.
Q. The best friends / seniors /faculty at IIFM? Some memorable tidbits that you like to share.
A. Regarding best friends, Sharad, Sudhanshu, Mayank, Rewasa, Aatish, Sunpreet, Vikram, Ashish Tirkey. Some of my batchmates, like Nitish and Rajarshi became good friends later after college as we spent a significant time of our career with one organization and had deep touch points both professionally and personally. Other alumni with whom I have good connections include Anup from the 2006 batch, Satya from the 2007 batch, Sachin and Harsh from the 2003 batch, and of course, there have been other alumni as well who are still connected because of their similar work streams and existing professional relationships.
Q. As an alumnus, what is your advice to freshers or those are joining IIFM to get best out of the 2 years there?
A. I think we should focus on the internships’ part and be strategic about them while also showing intent to pursue them. There is no better experience and knowledge than actually getting industry insights and exposure.
Q. What is your typical day at the office?
A. My duties for the past year have been revolving around three dimensions: strategy, team management, and operations. A typical day includes project management of some of the strategic initiatives, calls with the team members and other colleagues, day-to-day coordination with the fund manager, responding to various emails, and advising the network branches and offices on strategy and operations.
Q. And how about weekends, Hobbies, Family and anything else you want to add?
A. Tennis is the thing that I have picked up well in the last one year, and I have been playing regularly. So often 3-4 hours in tennis over the weekend and playing and taking care of the kids (I have got two kids: a four-and-a-half-year-old and an infant who is eight months old), and household tasks that get generally accumulate over the week. Going out with friends and family friends for a weekly lunch or dinner also generally happens over the weekend.
Q. Favorite Books, movies, authors.
A. I like management books a lot. Currently, I am reading a compilation of letters from Jeff Bezos from Walter Isaacosn (Invent and Wander). In terms of the movies, I like drama and biopics mostly.
Q. IIFM is driven by alumni’s passion and commitments towards its goal. How would you like to contribute to IIFM or IIFM alumni, students?
A. Helping connect the students to the broader job ecosystem.
Q. What do you think is different at IIFM now vs when you studied there? What do you think is a positive change and what is not?
A. I do not have many insights on the current curriculum, but one I think I like now is that the number of students per batch has gone up compared to our times, and this is good for the network effect to take place.
Q. Any suggestions on who you want to get profiled/interviewed here?
A. Satyajit Das, Rajarshi Dutta Barua, Nitish Narain, Mayank Saraswat, Rewasa, Sharad Vyas, and Akshat Pathak could be some of the names you can consider.