Actionable insights.
Development impact.
We use systems-thinking to generate practical insights, addressing complex development problems.
Contact UsOur Services
We work with you to integrate actionable insights throughout the project lifecycle to prove and improve meaningful results.
Where We Work
MSA blends international expertise with local partnerships. Since 2009, we have worked with a wide variety of clients and partners in dozens of countries across six continents.
Project Spotlights
Advancing Women’s Empowerment | AWE
The 5-year USAID-funded Feed the Future AWE program provides targeted technical assistance to USAID missions, implementing partners, the Bureau for Food Security, and other USAID operating units to increase women’s participation, productivity, profit, and benefit in agricultural systems. MSA is a core partner and leading on Monitoring and Learning, Good Practices and the Research Agenda.
USAID Feed the Future Market Systems and Partnerships | MSP
The Feed the Future MSP program is a flexible buy-in mechanism integrating private sector engagement and markets systems development approaches into USAID programming to accelerate agriculture-led growth and food security. MSA is proud to be a key partner with DAI on this project, holding two core staff positions: the Senior Learning and Communications Advisor as well as the Social Inclusion Advisor. The base period runs until June 2023, with a two-year option.
Greyston Bakery’s Open Hiring TM model helps marginalized people, such as formerly incarcerated, disabled, recent immigrants and underemployed by hiring willing workers without any background check, applications, resume, or references, as long as they can provide proof of United States citizenship. MSA is a learning partner and supporting a formative evaluation of the Open Hiring model and its impacts.
Learn MoreWhat We Value
Excellence
We believe in sustainable development that improves lives across the globe. Our work and productivity reflect our passion.
Disruption
We’re here to do development differently – more empowering, more systemic, and with more proof.
Humility
We see self-awareness as a prerequisite to learning. Our mistakes are a means to improve.
Hustle
We are social entrepreneurs looking to implement solutions that drive forward social impact.
Collaboration
We’re better together, drawing on each other’s viewpoints and experiences to deliver for clients. Working as a teams is core to our identity.
Celebration
We work hard and life gets hectic – we take time to celebrate and enjoy the successes.
Who We Are
We are facilitators, strategists, economists, researchers and innovators. We are passionate about positioning local stakeholders at the heart of interventions to achieve lasting impact.
Ben Fowler
Principal and Founder
Ben supports MSA’s technical innovation and operations. Outside of work, Ben is happiest on his snowboard or kite board.
Erin Markel
Principal and Founder
Erin supports MSA’s business growth and technical innovation. Erin loves hiking, skiing Colorado powder and playing hide and seek with her daughters.
Vivekan Jeyagaran
Advisor
Vivekan is keen on exploring the intersection of systems thinking, complexity, and inclusion. He also appreciates every moment he can get in the mountains, with a hot cup of milk tea in hand, and a thought provoking book. He’s based in Toronto, Canada, where mountains are far and few between.
Fouzia Nasreen
Senior Advisor
Fouzia is currently a Senior Advisor with MSA. She contributes to research, design and implementation of market-based programming as well as in integrating gender and brings unique expertise in the practical field of market systems development.
Queena Li
Communications and Business Development Associate
Queena implements learning and dissemination strategies to promote evidence-based policy and practice. In her spare time, Queena is an avid reader, podcast enthusiast, and amateur baker.
Anna Garloch
Senior Market Systems Development Learning Manager
Anna is leading the learning agenda of MSA’s Feed the Future Market Systems & Partnerships project, shaping USAID’s thinking around MSD. She is a senior MSD and private sector development expert and joined MSA in 2021.
Carolina Pimentel Corrêa
Research Specialist
Carolina is based in Porto Alegre, Brazil, and joined MSA in 2020. Holding a Ph.D. in Sociology and Masters in Political Science, she is a long experienced qualitative researcher and has worked on developing tools to measure relationships, trust, and cooperation. She is a coffee lover and enjoys traveling, reading, and gardening.
Annet Namunane
Gender and Social Inclusion Advisor
Annet is a Gender Advisor on MSA’s Feed the Future project in Uganda. She is a seasoned Gender and Youth Specialist and a sports enthusiast – in her free time, she loves to exercise.
Miriam Namukose Siriri
Learning Advisor
Miriam is a Learning Advisor on MSA’s Feed the Future project in Uganda. She is a highly experienced MEL specialist and proud mother of four.
Laura Courbois
Advisor
Laura specializes in monitoring, evaluating, and disseminating learning for development interventions that aim to improve standards of living and foster resilient economies. She is part of our MEL team, and based out of Malawi.
Elizabeth Sheehan
Senior Operations Manager
Elizabeth leads MSA’s operations function, bringing a background in project management and operations for USAID programming. Based out of MSA’s Denver HQ, Elizabeth loves hiking, cooking, and reading fiction novels.
Marrium Khan
Senior Specialist
Marrium worked for over 7 years in international development focusing on sustainable and inclusive economic growth and supporting M&E efforts. She is a travel enthusiast and loves exploring new cultures.
Neha Shrestha
Senior Specialist
Khaled Khan
Technical Lead, Inclusive Markets
David Byiringiro
Senior Learning Advisor
David specializes in scoping, designing, implementing, monitoring, evaluating, and sharing learnings for inclusive economic development interventions
Conrad Buluma
Research Specialist
Conrad is a qualitative research enthusiast specializing in qualitative methods. He supports MSA’s research team across projects. In his free time, Conrad loves writing, reading and indulging in music.
Michele Christle
Business Development and Communications Associate
Michele supports MSA’s business development and communications. Michele enjoys reading, writing, and spending time in nature.
Who We Work With
Publications & Learning
Doing development differently starts with better evidence and learning. Discover how we’re applying actionable insights to unlock new solutions.
Shifting the Locus of Learning: Catalyzing Private Sector Learning to Drive Systemic Change
Learning is at the heart of the process of economic development—it drives more competitive, resilient, and inclusive firms and systems. Yet learning is less frequently seen as a critical function within systems that can catalyze and quicken systems change and enable adaptation. This brief makes the case that programs can and should shift the locus of learning from being only program-focused to system-focused.
Shifting the Locus of Learning: Catalyzing Private Sector Learning to Drive Systemic Change
Learning is at the heart of the process of economic development—it drives more competitive, resilient, and inclusive firms and systems. Yet learning is less frequently seen as a critical function within systems that can catalyze and quicken systems change and enable adaptation. This brief makes the case that programs can and should shift the locus of learning from being only program-focused to system-focused.
Measuring what matters: Monitoring and results measurement
In Chapter 4 from "Making Markets Work for the Poor," a recent edited work inspired by the life and legacy of Alan Gibson, MSA Founder and Principal Ben Fowler and co-author Jake Lomax examine the shift in M4P programmes from monitoring and evaluation to monitoring and results measurement to inform decision-making and understand system-level change.
MSA’s Commitment to Women’s Empowerment
As a woman-owned firm dedicated to supporting a more equitable world and proud signatory to the Women’s Empowerment Principles (WEP), gender equality is at the heart of everything we do.
By joining the WEP initiative, our entire team commits to integrating and promoting gender equality and women’s empowerment in our workplace, with the global clients we serve and the diverse communities with whom we work. We’re proud of our recent empowerment work and look forward to continuing to advance these issues.
