José A. Quiñonez is a 2016 MacArthur Fellow and the founding CEO of Mission Asset Fund (MAF), a nonprofit that helps financially excluded communities, particularly low-income and immigrant families, to become visible, active and successful participants in the U.S. financial mainstream.

Through his work with MAF, Quiñonez is connecting lending circles — informal arrangements of individuals pooling their resources and distributing loans to one another — to the formal financial sector. Participants can establish or improve their credit history, giving them access to mainstream finance.

Expertise: Unbanked or underbanked households, banking in low-income and immigrant communities, lending circles

Location: San Francisco, Calif.

Email: jose@missionassetfund.org