Livingstone Nkuusi

Livingstone is the Program lead MSME Finance at the Mastercard Foundation where he is responsible for working with different partners within the MSME support ecosystem to develop and deploy affordable and accessible finance, BDS and access to market program for MSMEs. He has over 15 years of diverse and rich experience in SME development and financing. prior to joining the foundation,

Livingstone was the head of Branches Coordination at the Business Development Fund in Rwanda and the SME development senior officer at the Rwanda Development Board where he was overseeing the implementation of the National SME development policy.
Livingstone has been a key player in the SME and entrepreneurship ecosystem in Rwanda and he has developed different alternative financing vehicles like quasi equity, blended youth in agribusiness startup loan facility, leasing, and micro leasing facility, among others and mobilized more resources for the credit guarantee and Macro financial institutions refinancing.

Livingstone was the founder of get in the ring investment battle Rwanda chapter for SME and the co-convener of the East African growing SMEs conferences, Livingstone is passionate about startups and entrepreneurship financing, and he believes in mobilizing the whole eco-system to play a significant role in supporting and empowering SMEs. he has been a moderator and a panelist in many platforms and conferences that focus on SME financing and entrepreneurship both in Rwanda and other countries.

Livingstone holds a Master of Business Administration from Oklahoma Christian University (USA), a Postgraduate Diploma in Human resource management and development from Uganda management institute and an honor bachelor’s degree in social sciences from Makerere University -Uganda.

Livingstone serves on the board investment committee of Access to finance Rwanda, a Rotarian, and the current president -elect of the rotary club of Kigali Virunga and a member of the access to finance community of practice.