Biography

Lee’s interest in development work started as a little boy reading his father’s “Development & Cooperation” magazine subscriptions and has since developed into a passion throughout his life. He has six years’ experience working in poor communities focusing on economic development, particularly empowerment of micro-entrepreneurs. As Business Development Manager at the Church Alliance for Social Transformation (CAST), he led teams training business skills to micro-entrepreneurs for three years. He also coordinated micro-credit programs, assessing viability of micro-enterprises and disbursing micro-loans to qualifying entrepreneurs. In 2014, he traveled to the United States for an internship at the Denver Rescue Mission in Denver, Colorado. In May 2015, he joined another non-profit focused on economic development, Paradigm Shift, on a full-time basis, serving as the International Programs Manager (Africa), tasked with assisting the organization expand into 10 other African countries, which included traveling to Uganda, DR Congo, Kenya, Ghana & Liberia. In 2017, he was promoted to Executive Director (Africa) at Paradigm Shift, tasked with casting vision, setting goals and strategy and ensuring structure and leadership for the organization’s current & future endeavors. He holds a Bachelor of Commerce degree from Rhodes University, a Post Graduate Diploma in Business Management plus several certificates on Leadership and Academic merit. In 2018, he was admitted at the University of Cape Town to pursue a part-time Masters in Commerce (Development Finance).