James Vancel

James was Co-founder and CEO of the Busara Center for Behavioral Economics from 2014-2020, based in Nairobi. James oversaw Busara’s expansion from 8 employees and $100k in revenue to 135 employees with over $12 million in annual sales, and led their expansion into 20 markets including Nigeria and India.
Following Busara, James served as COO to BankOnit, a venture-backed digital bank aiming to disrupt financial services on the continent.
Before Busara, he was a Research Manager and Project Associate with Innovations for Poverty Action running large scale randomized trials in Kenya. James holds a BA from University of Arizona, where he majored in Economics and Mathematics. He pursued his MBA at Stanford for a year before dropping out to focus on his role at BankOnit and subsequent ventures.