Nadia Namken
Senior Technical Director, Financial Services
Ms. Nadia Namken is a microfinance and financial services development expert with 13 years’ experience managing a wide range of projects in the United States, Eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union, the Middle East and Southeast Asia. Ms. Namken currently serves as senior technical director for ACDI/VOCA’s financial services practice area. She has conducted numerous financial institutional assessments, and her small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) experience includes designing agricultural consulting services and promoting cooperative development. Ms. Namken set up the Georgia Rural Development Fund, which required a detailed understanding of legal, regulatory and good governance issues along with superior financial modeling skills. A qualified trainer of trainers in USAID Poverty Assessment Tools and a trainer in Microfin, a financial modeling tool for MFIs, she has designed and conducted trainings in several countries. Most recently she served as chief of party for ACDI/VOCA’s Access to Credit in Northern Governorates of Iraq project, before which she was ACDI/VOCA’s director for the Iraqi MFI Al-Thiqa. During her service in Iraq, Ms. Namken received a certificate of performance from the USAID Tijara program for her outstanding contribution to the development of the Microfinance Industry there during 2008-2009. Under Ms. Namken’s leadership in 2009, Al-Thiqa was named microfinance institution of the year by the USAID Tijara program and received a financial transparency awards from the Sanabel Microfinance Network of Arab Countries. Ms. Namken was also recognized by the USAID Tijara program for her contribution to improving the NGO Law in Iraq. In Azerbaijan, she also has been actively involved in the governance of the Azerbaijani non-bank financial institution CredAgro. She earned her M.B.A. from the Jones International University in Colorado and her B.S. in marine architecture from the Marine Technical University in Russia. She speaks native Russian and is fluent in English and proficient in Ukrainian.
