While in a middle school geography class about non-governmental organizations and nonprofits, Gobhanu Sasankar Korisepati learned about microfinance, the giving of small business loans to low-income individuals who would otherwise not have access to funding.
That lesson spurred him to co-found the nonprofit Sustaining Women in Financial Turmoil (SWIFTmfi) while in high school. Now at Penn, he continues to help lead the organization even as he pursues his studies as a second-year in the Huntsman Program in International Studies and Business.
Korisepati, who was born in India and grew up in Oman, says that he started and led a microfinance club in high school, selling cookies and pizza on campus to raise a few thousand dollars. He found that these microloans could have an enormous impact, especially for women in developing countries where “there is clear gender disparity in addition to economic disparity.” SWIFTmfi was founded soon after a member of the school’s board of directors made a substantial donation to the effort.
In the five years since it began, SWIFTmfi has expanded to 77 countries, giving out nearly $500,000 in microloans, Korisepati says. These funds have enabled more than 3,200 women to start and sustain their businesses while fostering financial independence and contributing to the economic development of their communities. In 2023, the nonprofit introduced SWIFTconnect, an online platform aimed at enhancing financial literacy.
SWIFTmfi’s impact has attracted attention from the media and led to several awards. Korisepati was one of 20 young people globally to receive a 2024 Diana Legacy Award, presented to him by Britain’s Prince William, in recognition of social action or humanitarian work. In 2022, Korisepati was named a United Nations Volunteer of the Year.
Korisepati says the attention has helped to raise money and get more people involved in the cause, it is nice affirmation that “our idea is working,” he says. “We’ve been making a positive impact all around the world. We’ve really changed millions of lives.”
While at Penn, Korisepati continues to serve as the executive chairman at SWIFTmfi, even while a full-time student, involved in several extracurriculars. “It’s something I really believe in,” he says. “I have a high-level, strategy role. I take the high-level decisions. I run the board meetings and help set the direction for the future of the organization.”
He says he chose Penn for the Huntsman Program in the College of Arts and Sciences and the Wharton School that allows Korisepati to pursue a bachelor of arts in international studies, as well as a bachelor of science in economics with a dual concentration in finance and entrepreneurship.
“A traditional economics degree from Wharton is incredible, but I want to do more, to explore this in the global context,” he says.
To meet the language requirement, he chose Hindi because he plans to focus his research on the history of India and the South Asian world, where he also plans to study abroad. Hindi is one of the five languages Korisepati speaks, along with Arabic, English, Tamil, and Telugu.
The Huntsman Program has been “critical” to his work with SWIFTmfi, as well as to new endeavors, he says. “You can’t impact people in 77 countries and not understand global policy. And every class that I take is tactically chosen to build a skill or enable me to do more,” he says.
Interested in FinTech, he took a Wharton course, Finance 2800, taught by Shimon Kogan, adjunct associate professor of finance, which led to him joining Kogan’s research team last semester. “Gobhanu was clearly passionate about the intersection of technology and finance, and it showed during many of the in-class discussions that we had,” Kogan says. The research project is on “the application of AI to personality assessment using facial images and its ability to predict labor outcomes,” Kogan says. Korisepati’s role involved merging of data about individuals in the sample across different data sets.
And Korisepati is a FinTech fellow at Penn through the Finance Department’s Stevens Center for Innovation in Finance. “That allows me to be very flexible and be able to research, dig deeper into innovative finance, he says. “SWIFT, inherently, is an innovative play on finance.”
He also is sampling different courses in the College. One was Jews in the Modern World taught by Beth S. Wenger, the Moritz and Josephine Berg Professor of History.
“His impressive work in founding and leading SWIFT aligns perfectly with the spirit of inquiry that he demonstrated in class,” Wenger says. “In a history course that covers an expansive geographic and chronological sweep, Gobhanu consistently displayed a desire to understand diverse cultures and to immerse himself in a time and place different from his own.
“Gobhanu’s accomplishments testify to what Penn values: intellectual curiosity coupled with deep engagement and entrepreneurship in the most pressing global concerns of our time,” Wenger says.
Among his many extracurricular activities on campus, as president of Penn Microfinance he helped revive and restructure the student club, which had about 40 members as of 2024. The group aims to teach the Penn community about microfinance and to get students involved with SWIFTmfi. The club and the nonprofit donate side by side to borrowers. “If we’re able to motivate some of the smartest people in the world who go to Penn to get involved with the social change, then it is extremely worth it,” Korisepati says.
He also participates in the Penn Debate club, Huntsman Student Advisory Board, Wharton Investments and Trading Group, Wharton Undergrad Entrepreneurship Club, and Wharton Undergraduate Finance Club and is vice president of the Wharton Alumni Connections Council.
“I’m just pursuing things that I’m curious about; I think that's where most things start,” he says. “Taking the time to just meet new people and put myself in situations where I wouldn't be comfortable is super inspiring, and that's what I try to do with quite a few organizations.”
Looking ahead, Korisepati says he plans to explore as much as possible while at Penn, with his sights set on an entrepreneurial career. “My goal for my time at Penn is to be open-minded,” he says. “I've always been very entrepreneurial in nature. I think this is a core value of Penn, in the sense of questioning everything, and being undeniably curious.”
