By Hensley Carrasco
Sisay Lelissa MPA/ID 2026 was not trying to add another credential to his resume when he arrived at Harvard Kennedy School.
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He had already built a meaningful career in Ethiopia, working at organizations including United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), Save the Children, and the International Organization for Migration. At UNDP Ethiopia, his work included initiatives focused on startup and small and medium-sized enterprise finance, blended finance, and financial innovation in partnership with institutions such as the National Bank of Ethiopia and the Ethiopian Capital Market Authority.
By many measures, Lelissa was doing well. He had a strong professional career, a path to advance within the UN System, and little obvious reason to leave. Friends and colleagues questioned his decision to step away.
“Everyone was telling me, ‘Why are you leaving?’” he says. “You are working for the UN.”
But Lelissa had reached a point where professional success alone did not feel enough.
“I was looking for a place where I can find space to think, to reflect, and to make a plan on what I want to do next,” he says. “Working at the UN was great, but I wanted to find a place where I could use my full potential.”
That search brought him to the Master in Public Administration in International Development (MPA/ID) Program at HKS. Two years later, as he prepares to graduate, Lelissa leaves with more than a degree. He leaves with Secure Africa Partners—an investment and advisory firm he helped build—a clearer vision of the work he wants to do, and a commitment to expand opportunity for communities and workers across his home continent of Africa.
“For me, commercial success and development impact go hand in hand. If the company succeeds, it means we are helping more people access the security, opportunities, and financial resilience they deserve.”
Lelissa was born and raised in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s capital, and completed most of his education in the country. From an early age, he was interested in questions of opportunity and development—why some people are able to realize their potential while others, equally capable, never get the same chance.
His upbringing was rooted in a working-class family that did not offer material privilege but gave him a lasting sense of possibility.
“My parents gave me confidence,” he says. “We did not have much materially, but they always made me believe that circumstances did not define what was possible. If I was willing to work hard, I could achieve as much as anyone else.”
After completing his bachelor’s degree at Mekelle University in northern Ethiopia, Lelissa worked with local and regional organizations before pursuing a master’s degree in agricultural economics at the University of Hohenheim in Germany.
Germany expanded his sense of what was possible. He studied the language, became involved in diaspora organizations, supported Ethiopian and Eritrean refugees through integration efforts, joined the African Good Governance Network, and began working with GIZ. The experience broadened his exposure to international development and helped shape the interests that would later define his career: development economics, entrepreneurship ecosystems, public institutions, and development finance.
Harvard had not been part of his original plan.
That changed through his development work. His friend and former UNDP colleague, Dr. Eyob Tesfaye, encouraged him to pursue graduate studies, and Melesse Tashu, an MPA/ID alum who Lelissa worked with on capital market development initiatives in Ethiopia, thought the MPA/ID Program would be an excellent fit. At the time, Lelissa was increasingly interested in the intersection of economics, development finance, and institution building. The MPA/ID Program offered an opportunity to deepen those interests while learning from practitioners and policymakers from around the world.
Many of Lelissa’s interests came together at HKS. The program challenged him academically and helped him examine development through economics, public policy, finance, and implementation.
The people mattered just as much. Lelissa describes the MPA/ID community as one of the most meaningful parts of his time at HKS, and is especially grateful to the program team, Carol Finney, Sarah Olia, and Erin Meade, for their support throughout. He says his cohort of 76 students from more than 40 countries and territories contributed different experiences and perspectives on development. His classmates, he says, are some of the “smartest and kindest people” he has met.
His two years at HKS were personally transformative, too. Lelissa got married after his first semester, and he and his wife, Kristin, later welcomed a daughter.
Only weeks after becoming a father, he began building Secure Africa Partners, an investment and advisory firm focused on expanding financial and social protection for informal workers and underserved communities in sub-Saharan Africa. Lelissa co-founded the firm with Makhubalo Ndaba, a Harvard Advanced Leadership Initiative fellow from South Africa, and Eldayag Mustafayev MPA/ID 2026, his classmate from Azerbaijan.
The idea grew through conversations in classrooms, over coffee and lunch, and in the HKS Library. The question they kept returning to was a practical one: what kinds of institutions, systems, and partnerships could create more opportunity for people who are often left outside formal structures?
For Lelissa, informal workers are central to that question. Across sub-Saharan Africa, taxi drivers, street vendors, and others who form the backbone of local economies often lack access to pensions, insurance, and broader social protection.
“They make up the majority of the working population, yet they do not have any social protection, no pension, no insurance, nothing,” he says.
Through Secure Africa Partners, Lelissa hopes to support startups and public-sector actors building pension, insurance, and financial solutions for informal workers. He sees the company not only as a commercial venture, but as a development project rooted in dignity, security, and opportunity.
“It is a company focused on addressing social inequality and expanding social protection,” he says. “For me, commercial success and development impact go hand in hand. If the company succeeds, it means we are helping more people access the security, opportunities, and financial resilience they deserve.”
Lelissa says HKS helped him turn his experiences into a more concrete path forward. He found support from faculty, classmates, the Harvard Innovation Labs ecosystem, and a Harvard Law Entrepreneurship Project that provided legal advisory support. He also credits Professor Henry Lee and his course, DEV 209: Management, Finance, and Regulation of Public Infrastructure in Developing Countries, with shaping his thinking and helping spark new ideas.
“If there is one thing I leave HKS believing, it is that opportunities like this come with responsibility. I am incredibly fortunate to study in a place like this, and I think that privilege should inspire us to become multipliers for others.”
Lelissa defines success less as status than as service. He often thinks about the public investment that shaped his path. His education was made possible by a public university in Ethiopia, a scholarship in Germany, and fellowship support at Harvard.
“I was given all of these opportunities,” he says. “So, it only feels right to give back.”
After graduation, Lelissa plans to work full time on Secure Africa Partners. In the longer term, he remains interested in public service and contributing to Ethiopia’s development.
For him, meaningful development means expanding opportunity by helping more people realize their potential, participate fully in society, and contribute to their communities.
“If there is one thing I leave HKS believing, it is that opportunities like this come with responsibility,” he says. “I am incredibly fortunate to study in a place like this, and I think that privilege should inspire us to become multipliers for others.”
Banner and portrait images by Steph Stevens. Personal photos courtesy of Sisay Lelissa.
