Paul Birkelo has extensive experience as an operations and project manager for impact-focused startups in emerging markets. Prior to joining the Powertrust team, he spent six years building an incubator for hardware and manufacturing companies in Nairobi, Kenya, that supported local entrepreneurs building solutions to local problems in sectors spanning health, water, sanitation, food and agriculture, connectivity, and energy access. He has worked as a monitoring and evaluations consultant on rural entrepreneurship programs in Ethiopia, and founded a US-based nonprofit that explored blended finance models to build capital-intensive social infrastructure projects across the Global South.