Farms across Africa are divided into smaller and smaller plots with every generation. It’s become a poverty trap. Cinch Markets aggregates land to create commercial farms and improve incomes of smallholder farmers. They lease land from farmers, apply modern production practices, and invest in their land to boost yields (i.e. irrigate, fix soils, plant high-value export crops). Then they sell a more bountiful harvest to large scale exporters and share back the profits with the farmers through increased salaries and a dividend.

Alex worked as an organizational design consultant at Dalberg, and was director of policy at Tala (a fintech company that’s disbursed more than $1B to 4 million customers in low and middle income countries). He holds a masters in international development from Columbia and served in the Peace Corps in Cape Verde.