Kiva reviews

4.2

95% would recommend to a friend

(110 total reviews)
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Vishal Ghotge

100% approve of CEO

60% positive business outlook

Kiva has an employee rating of 4.2 out of 5 stars, based on 110 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have an excellent working experience there. The Kiva employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Financial Services industry (3.7 stars).

Reviews by job title

110 reviews
1.0
Jan 2, 2020

Warped leadership

Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

a) Great opportunity and platform to address deep poverty and inequality issues around the world; b) Committed,long-serving and knowledgeable staff (who unfortunately are leaving at a fast rate); c) High credibility with funders

Cons

a) Cocky executive leadership and spreading to some sycophants in the senior cadres; b) Sycophancy and boot-licking seems to be the way to remain in the organization; c) No commitment to several of the so called core values e.g. inclusion,equity and diversity manifested in "hidden" racialism and clear discrimination of certain people groups from ascending beyond certain levels in the organization. Other wise how do you explain somebody having worked for ten years but has only risen one step beyond the entry level yet has not been rated poorly in performance or even been suspended if s/he is that bad yet their bosses are persons who joined at much lower levels? c) Very inhumane HR practices where one can be dismissed at the whims of their manager for just being disliked; d) Poorly trained and equipped senior leadership/management staff : they anyway have ascended there through politics and boot-licking; e) Hypocritical leadership - the same person who has responded to some of the posts here claiming how deeply she cares about the people and the organization left after slightly below a year after literally wrecking havoc on long-serving staff through a high-handed approach in leadership...It wont be long after when other members of the Executive Leadership Team will not be sure what was the goal for all the changes they have brought about!

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Kiva Response
5y
Thank you so much for your feedback. We are doing our best to change the culture of Kiva and I am happy to share this with senior leadership.
5.0
Oct 19, 2019

Intern

Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Great people, mission, overall structure. You feel like you’re making a true difference.

Cons

None that I can think of.

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Kiva Response
6y
Thanks so much for your review. The leadership team at Kiva appreciates all of the work of our interns and fellows and intend for each of you to have a career enhancement experience during your time at Kiva.
1.0
Jul 23, 2019
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

-- Kiva used to be an amazing place to work -- incredible team, warm culture, passionate about the "old" mission: "Connecting people through lending to alleviate poverty". -- Strong brand.

Cons

-- The founder stepped away as CEO a few years ago. After a long transition period, another CEO was appointed by the board, but lasted less than 2 years. Then there was another long transition period, and then another new CEO was appointed. The new CEO has no non-profit experience. And the board did not really consult existing employees before making the appointment (again). So there has been a lot of CEO transition, with the accompanying disruption and lack of clarity. -- More importantly, the new CEO has destroyed the culture of Kiva, and misunderstood what was special about Kiva's business. He changed Kiva's mission to remove the part about "connecting people", which was Kiva's unique selling point. And he objected to one of Kiva's values being "Respect". Literally half the staff has turned over since the new CEO arrived. -- After all the radical shake-ups, strategy changes and mission update, growth dropped in 2018 vs. 2017. I guess this is what happens when all the staff leave.

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Kiva Response
6y
Thanks for your feedback. I’m sorry that as a valued alumni you aren’t as excited as I am about Kiva’s new mission to expand financial access to help underserved communities thrive. We definitely do this through kiva.org the platform that does connect borrowers and lenders as well as other new impact lines that will allow us to serve even more people globally. Thanks for the contributions that you made to Kiva during your long tenure and I wish you the best.
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