Olaf Kula

Program Manager, West Africa Regional Office

Olaf Kula serves as program manager for ACDI/VOCA's West Africa regional office. Drawing on 30 years of experience in 45 countries, Mr. Kula provides technical support to ACDI/VOCA's worldwide activities in enterprise development, trade, agricultural competitiveness, rural financial services and microfinance. He also provides intellectual leadership and practical solutions for ACDI/VOCA’s research in value chain approaches to accelerate growth and poverty reduction. Currently, he is responsible for technical and administrative coordination among all ACDI/VOCA and ASI projects and programs in Ghana and senior corporate-level representation within West Africa. He also leads the regional technical management team and new business efforts in the region and provides technical assistance to various programs. Prior to joining ACDI/VOCA, Mr. Kula consulted for the World Bank, USAID, UNDP, European bilateral donors and World Trade Center organizations. He has worked with commercial banks, established a factoring program for microfinance loans, and created a rural loan brokerage service, an inventory credit facility, and multiple loan products adapting best practice to local environments. He has managed several microenterprise and SME development projects and a U.S. credit union. As emerging market manager for a trading company, Mr. Kula successfully provided U.S and European market access for a number of African companies. He has an M.S. in agricultural and natural resource economics and a B.S. in agricultural economics from the University of Missouri. He is fluent in French.