Michel Losembe

Managing Director | Tshinu Consulting

Michel Losembe is a consultant for banking and financial institutions. With 28 years of banking experience across Africa, Michel is a seasoned banking CEO. During his career, Michel has worked extensively on matters involving financial regulations, economic and financial policymaking and financial institutions’ management and operations.

Michel joined Citibank in 1988 and occupied several positions in Congo as well as in French-speaking Africa, where he served as Regional Treasurer. There, he integrated the bank’s balance sheet and created a single Treasury operation across the CFA zone. Michel came back to DRC as Managing Director in 2002 aiming to turn around the business in the aftermath of the civil war. A recognized banker, Michel was sought out in 2013 by BIAC, DRC’s then-third largest bank, and asked to oversee, alongside with the regulator, the bank’s restructuring and recapitalization.

Michel was an early believer in mobile money. In 2004, he interrupted his tenure at Citi to briefly join Mo Ibrahim’s team in launching Celpay, Africa’s first mobile money operations company and became a frequent speaker on financial inclusion at conferences and press interviews in international media.

He served as Chairman of the Congolese Banking Association (ACB) for close to a decade, where he led efforts to grow the banking sector and reform regulations. In this position, one of Michel’s proudest achievements is the 2013 “Bancarisation” with the DRC Government, through which government payrolls are disbursed through banks for over a million civil servants, thus increasing bank penetration rate by 20%.

Michel also served as Deputy Chairman of the DRC Chamber of Commerce (FEC) in charge of finances, acting on behalf of the private sector to improve the investment climate in the country known as one of the worst worldwide.

Michel holds a Bachelor of Business Administration from the Institut Catholique de Hautes Etudes Commerciales (ICHEC) in Brussels, Belgium.