Rahma Hersi LL.M., ’08)
A leading Islamic finance lawyer and advocate for economic justice in Africa. She has over 15 years of experience working across several markets in the Middle East, Sub-Saharan Africa, North America, and Europe. Ms. Hersi works closely with regulators, multilateral organizations, development agencies, and public and private sector companies.
Kenya
Ms. Hersi has been instrumental in pushing the agenda of Women in Business and Financial Inclusion for marginalized communities in Kenya and other African countries. She currently serves as a board member of a leading microfinance institution in Somalia – the first woman to be appointed to this position in Somalia.
She has developed inclusive products and policies to ensure women’s voices are heard and not excluded in the marketplace. Ms. Hersi was instrumental in drafting the Central Bank of Oman’s regulations in the area of Shari’a governance and general obligations, to name a few. Ms. Hersi is the only advisor on Islamic finance in the Financial Review Panel appointed by the Capital Markets Authority (CMA). This was set up to ensure financial inclusion and to guarantee that access to financial products and opportunities are open to all in order to reduce poverty and create a more productive society.
Ms. Hersi is an international speaker and writer, authoring “The Islamic Finance Handbook: A Practitioner’s Guide to the Global Markets,” the first comprehensive handbook on Islamic finance and its growth in Kenya, which was published by the John Wiley Islamic Finance Series.Ms. Hersi was also featured in the 1st Women in Islamic Finance Report (2016) that was launched at the World Islamic Banking Conference, where she discussed breaking the cultural barriers in the industry. In 2017, Ms. Hersi received an inaugural Distinguished LL.M. Alumni Award from IU McKinney during the 15th anniversary of its LL.M. Program. In 2018 The Islamic Commercial Law Report published her article on Islamic microfinance in Kenya and she conducted the first groundbreaking research on the “Prospects and Challenges of Microfinance in the IGAD Region,” published in May 2018.
Ms. Hersi is fluent in four languages – including Arabic, Somali, English, and Swahili - and possesses a working knowledge of Urdu.
