Manoah Koletty

The Mastercard Foundation 2013 - 2014

Alumni

Legatum Fellow

From:

United States of America

Sector:

Financial Services

Location:

Jordan

Degree:

MBA, Sloan School of Management

Manoah Koletty is the founder of Bluelight, a company that is improving access to financial services for unbanked people in emerging markets using layaway.

Layaway, a multibillion-dollar per year save-to-buy platform, is common in the United States. Bluelight is attempting to make layaway payment opportunities as ubiquitous as prepaid scratch cards. It is a locally available save-to-buy platform that combines the business models for layaway and prepaid mobile. Using Bluelight, lower income families can save toward the purchases they need in exactly the same way they top up their mobile devices.

Prior to Bluelight, Manoah worked in the Sustainable Development unit of the World Bank’s Jakarta office from 2006 to 2008. While there he focused mainly on the vast Urban Poverty Project, travelling to cities throughout Indonesia, visiting impoverished urban communities and linking them with investment to eliminate constraints to economic growth.

After leaving the World Bank, he worked with a series of boutique private equity funds investing in new ventures in emerging markets, including Middle East and Asia Capital Partners and Castalia Capital. Most recently, he was with InfraCo Asia, a Singapore-based infrastructure developer investing seed equity to take control of and build early stage projects in countries with systemically low levels of private sector investment.

Manoah is pursuing an MBA from MIT Sloan School of Management as well as MPA/ID from Harvard Kennedy School; he is entering the third and final year of this dual degree program. He received an AB in Environmental Science and Public Policy from Harvard University in 2005.