Board of directors for FINCA Azerbaijan
Zar Wardak
Supervisory Board Chair
Zar Wardak
Zar Wardak is currently FINCA Impact Finance’s Vice President & Division Director for the East region, where she leads the network’s operations in 7 countries from Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and South Asia regions. Prior to becoming Division Director, Zar served as Regional Director for the Middle East and South Asia Region, where among other accomplishments she notably helped launch the mobile wallet app “SimSim”, currently used by over 100,000 bank clients of FINCA Pakistan. She also served as CEO of FINCA Afghanistan. Prior to joining FINCA, Zar worked as a financial services industry consultant in Afghanistan and also served as the Texas Regional Sales Integration Director for Citibank in the United States. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in International Business from Southwestern College in Kansas and a Master of Science in Peace Operations from George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia.
JERROLD SMELCER
Supervisory Board Member
JERROLD SMELCER
Jerrold has been responsible for driving strategic development with finance institutions engaged in rapid growth economies, and has led structural turnarounds to offset a host of countrywide operational challenges that included economic recession, significant local currency devaluations, and high levels of sector wide non-performing loans.
He has been recognized by the United States of America President’s Council on Service and Civic Participation for support of financial sector development in Azerbaijan, as well as IFC and Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation for his contributions in establishment of the first National Credit Bureau of Tajikistan.
Jerrold has attended universities in Austria, France, Sweden, and the United States; with an MBA from Thunderbird School of Global Management.
SRIDHAR SRINIVASAN
Supervisory Board Member
SRIDHAR SRINIVASAN
Sridhar is a financial services expert with nearly 30 years of experience at Citigroup across Asia, Africa and Europe. During this period he built, grew and transformed businesses, holding key country and regional executive positions including CEO for three countries, Corporate Bank Head for India, Transaction Services Head for Africa and Bank Services Group Head for Central, Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa. After his time with Citi, Sridhar joined Oliver Wyman as Partner and India Head, and is currently a senior advisor at the leading global management consulting firm. With strong personal integrity, passion, and relationship skills, he has built several winning teams comprising people from diverse cultural and professional backgrounds.
He is now an established non-executive board director/advisor with companies ranging from startups to the largest corporations in India. His deep experience and track record helps him to work with CEOs and boards in areas such as management strategy, business transformation, governance, shareholder interests, risk, and regulatory compliance. He is also an active angel investor and mentor for early stage startups.
Sridhar lives in Mumbai, India. He is a graduate of Delhi University and is also a Chartered Accountant.
FISNIK KEPUSKA
Supervisory Board Member
FISNIK KEPUSKA
Mr. Fisnik Këpuska joined Finca Impact Finance in FINCA Kosovo in July 2016 as a Chief Financial Officer for four years, later during 2020 he took the position of Chief Operating Officer in FINCA Kosovo. Mr. Këpuska also serves as a Director in Board of Directors of FINCA Bank Kyrgyzstan and FINCA Azerbaijan, as well as a member of the Audit Committees, IT & Digital Financing Committee at the same institutions. Mr. Këpuska has 24 years of experience in the financial and banking sector in Kosovo and the region. He served for four years as Deputy Chief Executive Officer at the Banka Ekonomike. His previous experience also includes working for international banks such as Raiffeisen Bank Kosovo, Nova Ljubljanska Banka Prishtina in various managerial and leadership positions including branch management, credit risk, operational risk, internal auditing.
Other work experiences include working as a Teaching Assistant of Marketing course at the University of Prishtina, serving as Deputy Chairman of the Board of Directors at the Association of Banks of Kosovo, member of the Audit Committee at SIGURIA Insurance company, as well as in the public sector as Chairman of the Board of Directors at a municipal owned company. His initial work experience began as a Management Consultant for the International Business Support Projects in Kosovo (KBS) and he continues to offer his consulting services pro-bono for CEED for young entrepreneurs.
Mr. Këpuska holds a Master’s degree (MSc) from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) since 2000 and he is a Graduated Economist from the Faculty of Economics at the University of Prishtina. Mr. Këpuska is fluent in Albanian, English, Serbian, and Croatian.
MERAL KURDAS
Supervisory Board Director
MERAL KURDAS
Ms. Meral Kurdas is the member of the Finca Azerbaijan Board of Directors since February 01, 2023. She started her career at Interbank in 1985. She worked across many functions like sales, marketing, credit analysis ,cash management and some branch leadership positions in Istanbul, Izmir and Bursa. Later she became executive vice president at Garanti Investment Bank responsible for sales, marketing and private banking .ın 1996 she has been transferred to Yapi Kredi Bank as head of change management and marketing and led many revolutionary innovation projects in banking. In 2002, she has been appointed as the CEO of Akemeklilik which was a leading company in life insurance and pension industry. In 2007, she became the CEO of Avivasa which was created by merging the industry leader in Turkey with Aviva ,one of the world leaders in insurance .
Following the IPO of Avivasa in 2014, she was assigned as an executive committee member of Sabancı Group responsible for Human Resources of 63.000 employees. She also sat on the Board of Aviva Spain and 8 largest industrial companies in Sabanci Group.
In 2018, she has founded management consultancy firm Busara Consulting to advise companies in the areas of organizational and change management, human resources, planning, finance, risk, audit and corporate governance.
She is currently acting as an independent board member and head of risk committee member at Medical Park Group, which is the largest healthcare group in Turkey, Banvit/BRF the largest Food company and Koleksiyon Mobilya leading furniture company in Turkey.
At FINCA she was the board member in Kyrgyzsztan and now she sits on the board of FINCA Azerbaijan .
She is also a member of the board of trustees at Istanbul Erkek Lisesi and Bosphorus University and KEDV.
She has an MBA at Manchester Business School and BA in Business Administration at Bosphorus University.
NORBERT BENKER
Supervisory Board Member
NORBERT BENKER
Norbert Benker has more than 16-year experience as Non-executive Director, CEO and COO, focused on building inclusive and sustainable organizations. Proven ability to build multi-stakeholder collaboration across functions and cultures. Strongly committed to the values of ethical and supportive leadership. Passionate about social impact, ESG and climate change, entrepreneurship, harnessing the power of the private sector, reimagining capitalism to address rising inequality, and pushing the frontiers of financial inclusion.
FINCA Azerbaijan Management Board
Our management board brings vast experience, professional skills and expertise from various industry backgrounds.
TIMOTHY TARRANT
FINCA AZERBAIJAN CEO
TIMOTHY TARRANT
Timothy Tarrant joined FINCA Azerbaijan in December 2013 as a Chief Executive Officer (CEO). Before joining FINCA Azerbaijan, Tim worked the last 12 years as CEO for 3 FINCA subsidiaries, including FINCA Siberia, FINCA Georgia, and the combined FINCA Russia (ZAO FINCA). He has also served on various FINCA subsidiary Boards and Audit Committees.
Prior to FINCA, Mr. Tarrant worked as a Director at the American Business Center, an organization that provided consulting and market research services to Western companies operating in the Russian market. He also worked as a Business Analyst in the Corporate Finance division of MCI, a global telecommunications company. Mr. Tarrant has over 20 years of management experience in Russia and the CIS countries.
Mr. Tarrant holds a MBA with a focus on International Management from the Thunderbird School of Global Management and a BA in International Relations from the University of Memphis. He also completed the American Bankers Association Stonier Graduate School of Banking in 2007. He speaks English and Russian.
Yadulla Rahimov
Head of Legal Department and Board Corporate Secretary
Yadulla Rahimov
Yadulla Rahimov joined FINCA Azerbaijan in March 2016 as a Senior lawyer, as of June 2016 he has begun to act as a General Counsel, as of November 2016, he was promoted the positon of Head of “Legal Support and High Level Litigations” division of the Legal Department. Effective from January 01, 2020 he was appointed General Counsel and member of the Management Board of the Company.
Before joining FINCA Azerbaijan, Mr. Rahimov worked the last 5 years in public and private sectors including Assistant judge in the Baku Appellate Court, Senior advisor of the International Relations Department in the Ministry of the Transportation of Azerbaijan Republic, Corporate lawyer in the Vision Fond “AzerCredit”, “Caspian İnvestment and Development” and “AAC” Limited Liability Companies.
Mr. Rahimov holds a degree with a focus on International Law from Kafkaz University. He has successfully passed short term courses on “Legal documentation” in the USA, on “Contact law” in the Great Britain. He also holds rank of civil servant”. He speaks English and Russian.
Zaur Nurmammadov
Chief Operations Officer
Zaur Nurmammadov
Zaur Nurmammadov started his career path at FINCA as a Special Projects Coordinator in 2005. In 2009 he was appointed Head of the Administration Department, and later in September 2010, he was asked to establish and develop the company’s Marketing Department as Marketing Manager. He was given the role and function of acting Chief Operations Officer in November 2019 and became the company’s full COO in June 2021.
Prior to joining FINCA in 2005, he held various positions in the fields of information systems management, community development, monitoring, and evaluation in international humanitarian organizations such as Care International and the International Rescue Committee.
Zaur Nurmammadov studied Information Technologies and Public Relations at Ege University in Izmir, and Ataturk University in Erzurum, Turkey.
He speaks the Azerbaijani, Turkish, English, and Russian languages.
Shahriyar Osmanov
Chief Commercial Officer
Shahriyar Osmanov
Throughout his career, he has gained significant experience in building and developing new business units and structures, and has participated in business process optimization & automation, risk management, cost control, training and development projects.
Shahriyar Osmanov holds a Master’s degree in Economics and Management from Yildiz Technical University of Turkey and a Bachelor’s degree from Anadolu University. Besides Azerbaijani, he speaks English, Russian and Turkish.
FINCA AZERBAIJAN SUPERVISORY BOARD
Our Board of Directors brings a breadth of expertise and dedication to providing access to responsible financial services.
FINCA IMPACT FINANCE GLOBAL LEADERSHIP
The FINCA Impact Finance leadership team manages a global organization of more than 12,000 employees