About Us

Des Yaninen - Social Entrepreneur

Des Yaninen is a young Papua New Guinean social entrepreneur and business leader passionate about empowering Papua New Guineans through entrepreneurship. He has worked in the development finance industry for well over a decade He is currently the Founder and CEO of Pacifund - a new Peer to Peer Lending platform for the Pacific. Prior to that, he spent 13 years at the National Development Bank of PNG (NDB) in various senior roles including CEO of NDB Investments. Notable achievements were the development of their Women in Business and Young Enterprise Scheme concessional loan programs.

He is also sits on several boards and committees of the SME Corporation, Oil Search, PNG Institute of Directors and St John’s Ambulance.

Winner of the 2016 PNG Young Director of the year award, Des holds professional membership in CPA PNG, PNG Institute of Directors, Australian Institute of Company Directors and has qualifications in Accounting, Management and Finance from PNG and abroad.

Causes I Care About;

SMEs - Des grew up in a home supported by an SME. He later spent over a decade supporting the development of SME via the provision of concessional loans with his former employer the National Development Bank. He introduced the concept of Business Incubation Programs to PNG. He was Deputy Chairman of the SME Corporation of PNG from 2016 to 2020.
Consumer Protection - We have all been exploited by businesses in one way or another. Des personally lost K10,000 due to false advertising by a business and has since then taken it upon himself to ensure that other vulnerable consumers are not exploited the same way he was. He has founded the PNG Consumer Advocacy Network.