Premal Shah was born in India and grew up in Minnesota. After attending Stanford University and working for PayPal, he cofounded Kiva — a global poverty alleviation nonprofit that has raised over $2 billion for low-income entrepreneurs in 150 countries. He was named a Champion of Change by the Obama White House and one of Fortune magazine’s “40 Under 40.”
Kiva (the Swahili word for unity) provides the more than 1.7 billion unbanked people around the world with the financial services they need. Kiva works by crowdfunding loans from small donors to entrepreneurs; 8 in 10 loans go to women, and the repayment rate is 96 percent.
Shah’s interest in microfinance began at Stanford, then took root during a sabbatical from PayPal when he worked on a peer-to-peer loaning concept in India. After returning to Silicon Valley, Shah and three coworkers left PayPal to bring Kiva to life.
Asked what he considered his greatest success, Shah explained: “Somewhere along my journey I realized the difference between gaining a sense of achievement as an entrepreneur and gaining fulfillment. I realized my desire was not only to be an entrepreneur but a social entrepreneur … to measure my successes and riches through the lives I’ve touched and the positive change that I am lucky to be a part of.”
In 2019 Shah shifted from president to senior advisor at Kiva to become president of Branch International, which provides app-based microfinance services across India and Africa. In 2021 he cofounded Renewables.org, a “Kiva for climate,” which he chairs.
