Tigist Techane

Ethiopian social entrepreneur empowering women through digital financial services

Tigist Techane (born 1986) is an Ethiopian entrepreneur whose work in financial technology is transforming women's economic participation in East Africa. As founder of Shego (2014), she created the first mobile banking platform designed specifically for women, offering microloans, savings accounts, and financial literacy training. Techane's platform has enabled over 500,000 Ethiopian women to access banking services for the first time, with a 92% repayment rate for microloans. Her 2020 partnership with Mastercard expanded services to Kenya and Tanzania through the Mastercard Women's Network. Techane's advocacy led to Ethiopia's 2021 Financial Inclusion Strategy, which now includes mandatory gender-disaggregated data in all banking policies. Her TEDxAddisAbaba talk Closing the Gender Gap in Finance has been translated into 12 languages. Techane's innovations are featured in the World Economic Forum's Global Gender Gap Report and the UN Women's 2022 Empowerment Index. She recently launched Africa's first blockchain-based savings app for rural women, now used in 14 countries. Techane's journey is chronicled in the documentary 《Shego: Banking the Unbanked》 and her upcoming memoir 《Breaking the Silence》 (2024).