Lezanne Anderson

Lezanne is an Engagement Manager at Cenfri, where she focuses on advancing inclusive financial integrity, MSME development, digital transformation and capital market development. Since joining Cenfri in 2020, she has worked with financial regulators, development partners and financial service providers across Africa, Asia and the Middle East to address market barriers and identify opportunities for more inclusive and sustainable economic growth.

Her work combines market research, regulatory analysis and stakeholder engagement to understand how financial systems and markets can better serve businesses and individuals. She has explored how value chains can inform the development of financial solutions that strengthen MSME resilience, including through the segmentation and market sizing of women-led microenterprises. In financial integrity, she has supported efforts to improve access to financial services while strengthening risk management, including helping regulators move towards principles-led, risk-based approaches and developing complementary regulatory instruments. Her work also spans digital innovation across sectors such as financial services, tourism and agriculture, as well as examining how to unlock venture capital for African businesses and mobilise domestic capital, including savings and pension funds, to support development.

Key Cenfri projects 

• Enhancing financial inclusion: Improved remittance access across Africa by refining know-your-customer (KYC) protocols, customer due diligence, and risk management frameworks, thereby expanding financial services to low-income, rural households, and women. Developed a toolkit to extend these impacts to additional regulators and financial service providers.
• Pioneering Legal Entity Identifiers: Co-ordinated the pilot project to introduce Africa’s first legal entity identifier agent, successfully issuing the first identifier to an MSME. This initiative is exploring ways to empower female-owned MSMEs with greater access to trade finance.
• Strengthening MSME resilience: Tested innovative approaches to developing holistic resilience solutions aimed at securing the vital role of MSMEs in development and exploring commercial opportunities within this underserved market.
• Digital transformation in tourism: Managed a digital diagnostic of Ghana’s tourism sector, identifying opportunities to harness technology and data for job creation and economic growth.
• Strategic policy support: Conducted scenario exercises with regulators and policymakers to enhance their ability to leverage data for informed decision-making and strategic planning.
• Shaping fintech futures: Collaborated with policymakers and regulators to craft a forward-thinking fintech policy and strategy, positioning regions for sustainable digital advancement.

Qualifications 

• MSc State, Society and Development, SOAS, University of London
• BSocSci (Honours) in Political Science, University of Cape Town
• BSocSci in Politics and Industrial and Economic Sociology, Rhodes University