Sourabh is the old man on the team; besides business development, he looks into our online marketing strategy. A second time entrepreneur, Sourabh, brings experience. He sold his previous startup MicroAppli, a media sharing mobile application company to OnMobile Global (BSE: 532944) where he defined product strategy and was responsible for revenues in excess of 1 million USD.

Sourabh graduated with honors in Computer Science from National University of Singapore (NUS). When not labouring, he likes to run. He has covered over 200Kilometres with 10 half-marathons and one full marathon in Singapore in 2010.

Sourabh is passionate about mass market activation for convenience in lifestyle. Milaap for him is an extension of this passion, an opportunity to involve the masses in bringing convenience to the poor with every loan made.

Anoj is our man on the field; he builds and maintains relationships with microfinance institutions, social enterprises, and funders from the development sector. A Starting Bloc Fellow for 2010, Anoj co-founded Milaap after working with SKS Microfinance in energy and water services. He has also worked at ReEx Capital Asia, a cleantech investment boutique in Singapore and served as a fellow at D.light Design, developing consumer financing & mapping models for rural electrification.

Anoj graduated from National University of Singapore. He is a founder member of the Microfinance Society in Singapore.

When Anoj witnessed first-hand the impact of a $10 solar lantern, sold on credit, to the extremely poor in tribal Orissa, it sparked in him the idea for Milaap - to connect with ease the struggling 700 million people of India with prosperous Indians and the Diaspora, thus, creating opportunities that change the playing field for the poor at an everyday level.

We are glad that Mayukh led the early stages of Milaap's operations and legal due diligence and owned the on-field aspect of our pilot. Prior to joining us he was a senior consultant in financial risk management at Ernst & Young, Dubai then he moved to D.light Design; a solar lighting start-up where he was responsible for distribution channels and financing partnerships across India.

Mayukh got his Bachelors in Electrical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras and an MBA from Indian Institute of Management (IIM) lucknow, India.

Shub handles the communications, content and PR at Milaap. She likes to call herself a reformed software engineer who saw the light before it was too late. After five years in the industry, she decided she wanted to do something a bit more inspiring. Since writing had always been a love, she jumped at the chance to work in an ad agency where she learnt the ropes of writing good copy under someone she considers the best boss ever. On a typical day at Milaap, she is found responding to emails, replying to PR questions, updating Twitter and running around like a headless chicken.

She spends her free time in trying to get off the internet and drinking tea.

Sarath is our web designer and go-to-guy for all things UI and website-related. If you need to convert a concept into a layout and a layout into HTML, Sarath is the man to approach. He hails from Palakkad in Kerala. He has worked as an application designer previously, creating usability websites and applications. He also has experience teaching Photoshop, Illustrator, HTML and various multimedia tools.

While he’s not working, or working out, he likes to read and go on long drives.

The in-house geek, Deepak Kannan is our lead developer. He is responsible for ensuring that the back-end of the Milaap website runs like a well-oiled machine. It means that he needs to see to it that all transactions are on track and keep everything running all the time. It also means that occasionally he’s up at night firefighting, fixing the odd bug – but we suspect that he quite enjoys that kind of stuff. Deepak was an early employee at Cleartrip, and that’s where his baptism into Ruby began.

Holding a Masters’ in Computer Application from Mumbai University, Deepak likes to code for fun. Apart from trawling the internet and reading, he likes to indulge in yak-shaving

Megha Rastogi is a young intern from BITS Pilani Goa. Pursuing her dual degree of Bachelor’s in Engineering and Master’s in Economics, Megha is part of the marketing partnerships and operations team at Milaap. She enjoys meeting new people, travelling and music. A gifted singer, she’s usually spends her spare time singing, or earnestly trying to convince people to listen to her singing.

Mary McKenna is an IDEX Fellow who graduated from the University of Notre Dame in 2012 with a BA in Political Science. At Milaap, she is working on Field Partner management in addition to U.S. Outreach. She has played a key role in developing the Milaap partner portal to ensure that the data flow from the field partners to Milaap and onto the website is seamless. Prior to joining Milaap, Mary gained experience in the microfinance sector working at ACCION Chicago.

This girl from Chicago enjoys running and dreams of running the Great Wall Marathon someday. Also on her list of to-run marathons is the Marathon du Medoc, where the course winds through some of the best vineyards in the world. If she runs half as fast as she speaks, we're pretty sure she'll be the first to finish. We will be cheering her on, and of course, hope to bully her into raising funds for Milaap on the occasion.

One of our IDEX Fellows from the 2012 cohort, Thomas Brown looks after risk management at Milaap. He has provided financial analysis on current and potential field partners. He is also the Co-Head of U.S. Outreach and has worked on designing and implementing strategies to capitalize on U.S. market opportunities and generate demand.

He is from Chattanooga, Tennessee and graduated from the University of Georgia in 2011. He is a huge Georgia Bulldogs fan and managed to watch the entire college football season at 3am on Sunday mornings in Bangalore. His other achievements include driving the Milaap team up the wall by playing the Barfi soundtrack on loop endlessly, for weeks. He is the biggest (and possibly, the only) patron of a tiny hole-in-the-wall restaurant called Grills n Rolls in JP Nagar. The quality of the food is still a myth because no other Milaap employee has attempted to set a foot in the restaurant.

Alister is one of the quietest guys in the office - but put him on Twitter or Facebook, and see how eloquent he gets. The voice behind our Social Media channels and the hand behind the campaigns, Alister is the youngest in the Milaap team. When he graduated from VIT, Pune in 2012, he was a man with a plan. He knew he wanted to work at Milaap, so he made his way to Bangalore and made it happen.

Apart from being on Facebook and Twitter, he loves listening to music, especially The Beatles and watching offbeat cinema. He's also into fashion - you can tell by the funky green shoes he wears. He dreams of starting his own social enterprise (and going to the gym) someday!