Anushka Ratnayake

Activist, Change agent, Explorer, Global soul, Social entrepreneur

Anushka is the Founder and CEO of myAgro, a nonprofit social enterprise based in West Africa that has pioneered a mobile layaway payment model enabling smallholder farmers to invest their own funds in high-quality inputs and training to significantly increase their harvests and income. She has worked in rural Africa since mid-2008, helping to increase food security and market access for small-scale farmers. Prior to starting myAgro, she developed key components of One Acre Fund’s core operation model, created management-training programs and traveled across Africa and South Asia in search of innovations in the microfinance and agricultural sectors. Before joining One Acre Fund, Anushka was an early employee of Kiva.org and created the Kiva Fellows Program. Anushka received her BA in Literature from University of California, Santa Cruz and her agricultural training from smallholder farmers in Bungoma, Kenya. Anushka is a 2018 winner of the Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship, a 2018 Young Global Leader of the World Economic Forum, a 2011 – 2013 Rainer Arnhold Fellow, a 2013 DRK Foundation Social Entrepreneurship Fellow, and a 2012 Echoing Green Fellow.

Reducing poverty in our lifetimes

Let's create a new way for small holder farmers to break the cycle of poverty.

Agriculture, Fintech, Small-holder farmers, Women's empowerment

Managing through a crisis