Who We AreMeet the Team

GEMicro is headed by Dr Ralf M. Kroessin, a development economist with over 20 years’ experience working with development and financial institutions. He formerly worked with Chambers of Commerce/Training & Enterprise Councils  and the Centre for Enterprise in the UK. Before this he was Assistant CEO of Muslim Aid and then Head of Islamic Relief’s Global Islamic Microfinance Unit.

He holds a Masters in International Economy (University of Kent), a Masters in Development Administration (Westminster Business School), and a PhD in International Development Economics (University of Birmingham) where he also was a research associate. He was also a visiting research fellow at Aston Business School where he focused on microfinance impact assessment. He is also a founding lecturer of the Frankfurt School of Finance & Management course “Certified Expert in Islamic Microfinance”.

As an experienced strategic leader, as an Associate Member of the Chartered Institute for Securities & Investments and with the ‘Islamic Finance Qualification’ under his belt, he currently serves on the board of two Islamic microfinance institutions in Bosnia and Kosovo. He has also worked with Islamic financial institutions in Africa, Asia, the Middle East and Europe.

Rahal holds a Post Graduate Diploma in Governance, Risk and Compliance from the University of Manchester Alliance Business School and BA Honours in Marketing from the University of Arts London. He formerly worked for a number of financial services firms in the capacity of operations management and program management and as the Head of Personal Loans for Fair Finance, London. He has managed and delivered multiple projects focusing on change management, systems deployment, corporate strategy and has provided technical advice to organisations seeking FCA authorisation on regulated activities.

In his role as Head of Compliance at GEMicro Group, Rahal is responsible for the regulatory and ethical integrity of the company, meeting compliance demands and managing enterprise risks across the group. He is a Professional Member (MICA) of the International Compliance Association, is an approved Independent Institutional Assessor by the Professional Risk Managers International Association PRMIA (formally Risk management Initiative in microfinance-RIM), is an Associate member of the Chartered institute of Securities and Investment (ASCI) holds the CISI Islamic Finance Qualification and is a Prince 2 practitioner. Rahal currently sits as an independent Audit committee member for START Microfinance in Kosovo, and engages in a number of working groups belonging to international best practices standard setters in Microfinance Industry.

Yasir holds a Bachelor’s degree in IT from NUST (Pakistan) and a Masters in Finance from University of Bedfordshire, UK, and has extensive experience managing Islamic microfinance programmes, including development and deployment of innovative and award winning Islamic financial products.

Yasir was previously appointed by the Ministry of Finance of Pakistan to the Committee for the development of the Prime Minister’s Interest Free Loan scheme, which aimed to provide over £300m in social finance over a period of five years. He has also served as the Chief Operating Officer of the Wasil Foundation, where he developed innovative products including a Master Salam product, for which the Wasil Foundation won the CGAP ‘Islamic Microfinance Challenge’ in 2014. Yasir has also worked with microfinance in west, east and southern Africa.