About Us
We believe in a world where every entrepreneur, especially under-resourced and under-estimated communities, should be met with guidance, dignity, and tools to earn a living and achieve economic mobility.
Our Mission is to connect entrepreneurs, particularly women, young people and those on the move, with mentors - to build inclusive, scalable systems of support that meet entrepreneurs where they are - while providing mentorship infrastructure to the organizations that serve them.
Millions of people across low and middle income contexts are pushed into self-employment by necessity, automation, and fragile labor markets.
Over the next decade, 1.2 billion young people will reach working age. According to the World Bank, the world is on track to create 420 million jobs. That gap means that hundreds of millions of people will be compelled to make jobs for themselves. They will open a shop, take up a trade, sell online, farm a plot, drive a route. Most of them will do it alone, and most of them will do it because there is no alternative to create livelihoods for themselves and their families.
This is necessity entrepreneurship, and it is now the dominant form of entrepreneurship on earth.
The current support system does not consider entrepreneurship by necessity. It assumes the aspirational entrepreneur: the person with a plan, a network, a runway, and somebody to call. Someone who can apply for programs and participate in cohorts. For that person, for decades, billions of dollars have been spent building two things, capital and training. While both are important, they do not stand up to the same metrics of success as the under-utilized third lever - mentoring. The evidence shows that mentorship, the one we fund least, is the one that most reliably changes outcomes. It is also the only one we have never built as infrastructure.
Micromentor exists to proliferate that.
The Challenge
Self-employment
by necessity
Systemic gaps
(gender & climate)
Systemic gaps
(gender & climate)
Networks & social capital
Our Theory Of Change
The Opportunity
Economic
mobility
Women
and youth
Increase in
solopreneurship
Mobile-first
digital use
The Micromentor Solution
Design +
strategic levers
The Impact
Immediate—
long-term
Gender-
intentional access
Human + AI edge
Scalable service
Revenue generation
Digital tools
$: Skills
development
$$: Business survival,
revenue generation,
job creation
$$$: Economic mobility,
gender equity,
resilient communities
ROI
World Bank Economic Review found that every dollar spent on a mentored firm produced $1.63 in additional profit.
As a comparison, mentored entrepreneurs on Micromentor generate $4.01 in additional revenue
for every
invested in our initiative.
Read more about our Impact and how we measure it in our 2025 IMPACT REPORT and the powerful human stories behind it on our Blog.
Our Story
Micromentor was founded on a simple truth: starting and running a business is hard, and entrepreneurs don't need another course — they need connection, and the kind of practical, honest advice that only comes from someone who's been there. Launched in 2008 at the Aspen Institute and grown for over a decade under Mercy Corps, Micromentor has spent more than 15 years connecting entrepreneurs in under-resourced communities with experienced mentors, at no cost — building not a curriculum, but a conversation: easy to access, deeply human, and rooted in mutual respect.
In 2025, we became an independent social enterprise under Capital for Good USA, carrying that same mission forward. Today, Micromentor is the world's largest platform for business mentoring, having connected over 400,000 entrepreneurs with 120,000 mentors across 180 countries — and we're just getting started.
What Makes Us Different
Micromentor operates as a social enterprise nonprofit with a three-part value model: (icons for bullets)
free access for entrepreneurs and mentors
mission-aligned impact for philanthropic and delivery partners - via our strategic levers and localized geographic focus
Our signature Mentorship-as-a-Service (MaaS) solution. MaaS is ready-to-deploy mentorship infrastructure, which includes a global mentor bench, matching technology, and program support, that lets corporations, ESOs, and governments embed mentorship into their own entrepreneur and workforce strategies faster and at lower cost than building it in-house. MaaS also acts as a revenue generating mechanism for Micormentor, while solving for lack of scalable mentorship infrastructure in the Small Business ecosystem. Read more about MaaS on our Solutions Page.
Our ethos
• We Think Like an Entrepreneur
• We Mentor & Are Mentored
• We are Driven by Insights & Innovate for the Future
• We Work Hard & Live Fully
• We Own It. We Mean It.
Executive Team
Anita Ramachandran | CEO
Anita brings over 20 years of cross-sector leadership to lead Micromentor's spin-out from Mercy Corps into an independent organization, growing the platform from 5,000 to over 400,000 entrepreneurs and 120,000+ mentors worldwide.
Tatiana Perez-Petrone | Micromentor
A key architect of Micromentor's Mentoring-as-a-Service model, Tatiana draws on two decades in economic development and social innovation to champion mentorship as a lever for inclusion and income generation across the organization's regional expansion.
Guillermo Castells | Chief Product Officer
A former Micromentor mentor himself, Guillermo brings 12+ years of digital marketing, SaaS, and user-centered design experience to product strategy, driven by a belief that mentoring is one of the most powerful tools to unlock potential where opportunity is uneven.
Sara Fustolo Chief | Financial Officer
Sara brings over 30 years of finance and operations leadership across nonprofit and for-profit sectors, guiding Micromentor's transition into an independent entity with integrity and a commitment to sustainable, values-aligned growth.
Advisory Council
The MicroMentor Advisory Council is made up of volunteer entrepreneurs and mentors on our platform. They drive the product and program feedback loop that keeps our platform relevant, effective, and aligned with the real-world needs.
Members are selected through an application and evaluation process based with a strong emphasis on gender equity and representation across age groups, levels of experience, and diverse geographical contexts. Our council ensures that Micromentor’s impact is guided by the voices of our community. Current Council members represent key global regions, including Argentina, Colombia, Ecuador, Egypt, Haiti, India, Jordan, Kenya, Saudi Arabia, Mexico, Pakistan, and the United States.
Karen Doval-Grossman
President, Berkshires Strategy Group
Visionary leader who conceived and launched MicroMentor from the Aspen Institute in 2000.
Dr. Saurabh Lall
Associate Director of Impact, U. of Glasgow
Internationally recognized scholar in social entrepreneurship and impact investing.
Ken Geller
Director, Apollo Global Management
Investment & legal strategist; former Deputy General Counsel, Two Sigma Investments.
Harpinder “Pin” Collacott
Founder & Director, 4thought Social Ventures
20+ years leading global humanitarian development; former ED, Mercy Corps Europe.
Britt Rosenberg
VP Strategic Partnerships & Philanthropy, Mercy Corps, 15+ years building high-impact humanitarian and nonprofit partnerships.
Brian Vent
Seasoned exec (former COO, Build-A-Bear Workshop), Championing mentorship for African entrepreneurs.
Bharg Sivratsan
Director, Customer Success, AWS
Tech & growth strategy expert (AWS, McKinsey, Intel, Microsoft) and advocate for women in tech.
