Bigwigs share tips on how to succeed in business
MORE than 500 delegates from the Commonwealth nations are at Sheraton Kampala Hotel for the Commonwealth Business Forum. <br>The forum, which attracts global business leaders, heads of government and industry leaders, will help highlight Uganda and East Africa’s position as a trade and investment
MORE than 500 delegates from the Commonwealth nations are at Sheraton Kampala Hotel for the Commonwealth Business Forum.
The forum, which attracts global business leaders, heads of government and industry leaders, will help highlight Uganda and East Africa’s position as a trade and investment hub.
Vision Reporters bring you the profiles of speakers expected to talk at the summit.
ALEXANDER CUMMINGS
By Roger Mugisha
Alexander B. Cummings is president and chief operating officer of the Africa Group of The Coca-Cola Company. He is responsible for the company’s operations in Africa, which encompasses 56 countries and territories in Africa.
The Coca-Cola System in Africa has 888 million consumers and employs 55,000 people in 160 bottling plants. Born in Liberia, Cummings split his early years between his home country and the US. He joined The Coca-Cola Company in 1997 as regional manager in Nigeria. In 2000, he was named president of the Company’s North and West Africa.
He assumed his current role in March 2001. Coca-Cola is one of the world’s most successful companies. It is the largest consumer goods’ provider in Africa.
Prior to joining the company, Cummings held several positions with The Pillsbury Company in the US. As vice-president of Finance for Pillsbury International, he had financial responsibility for a growing $1.2b international branded food business with operating companies in 16 countries.
As chairman of the Coca-Cola Africa Foundation, Cummings is also on the Boards of the African-America Institute, Africare and Clarke Atlanta University. He has served on the Advisory Board of The African Presidential Archives and Research Centre, The Corporate Council on Africa and The Centre for Global Development’s Commission on US Policy toward Low-Income Poorly Performing States.
He is also a member of the Executive Leadership Council. Cummings holds a B.S. degree in Finance and Economics from Northern Illinois University and an MBA in Finance from Atlanta University.
ALBERT ESSEIN
By Emmanuel Ssejjengo
Albert Essien, the executive director of Ecobank Transnational Incorporation (ETI), will present a paper on Access to Commonwealth markets at the Commonwealth Business Forum. And he is one man who will attract any business-minded ear.
He has held the position in such a highly-regarded bank since 2005. This gives him authority over the group’s subsidiaries in the West African Monetary Zone. It is not only that position that will make his voice highly regarded during the forum. Essein is also responsible for the development t of Ecobank’s business in Eastern and Southern Africa.
His visit should yield immediate results and could mean opening up an Ecobank branch in Uganda soon.
The bank is a leading private Pan-African banking group with subsidiaries in 18 West and Central African countries. It was established in 1988. By 2005, it had grown to 162 branches with 2,602 employees across 13 West and Central African countries.
The same year, the group generated over $236m (about sh400b) in revenues from wholesale and retail banking services and products and had a balance sheet of $2.2b (sh3,700b).
Essien has steadily been growing in the world of business. Prior to his current position, he served as the country head, deputy managing director; country risk manager and manager of the corporate Banking Department of Ecobank Ghana Limited.
JAMES SMITH
y Nigel Nassar
James Smith is the man who loses a great deal of sleep everyday trying to figure out ways of keeping Shell UK afloat. As the oil group’s chairman for the entire United Kingdom market, Smith’s normal day does not involve only sitting there and being the boss.
He has to oversee all the operations of Shell UK, a thing that involves a lot more than just writing the employees’ annual letter communicating the company’s previous year’s performance and sitting in meetings.
Smith has worked with Shell since 1983. Throughout his stay, he has worked in all the group’s major businesses, including oil, business development and gas production.
His recent designation was head of executive resourcing, which mainly involved ensuring there is a highly talented and diverse group of leaders for the top 200 jobs in Shell.
Until the end of 2003, he was on the global board of Shell Chemicals as head of technology, strategy and sustainable development — a role he took on after building a career in upstream oil and gas production.
He lived for four-and-a-half years in Southeast Asia, in Malaysia and Brunei. He has been extensively involved in Shell business in a number of Middle Eastern countries and in the US. In addition, he was managing director of Shell’s downstream business in Brunei and chaired Shell’s global catalyst business during a period of restructuring for profitability. Smith has a degree in physics and is a chartered accountant.
He worked with Accenture before joining Shell. Married with one son, his hobbies include golf, skiing and hill-walking. One of the most important ventures Smith is undertaking is trying to find sources of new energy as part of Shell’s scenario planning strategy; following the anticipated doubling of energy requirements in the world in the coming decades.
MAGGIE KIGOZI
By Irene Nabusoba
DESTINY has its way in people’s lives, but no one can understand this better than Dr. Maggie Kigozi. As a graduate of medicine from Makerere University, Kigozi practiced her profession in Uganda, Kenya and Zambia, but made a successful U-turn to the private sector, riding her way to become the executive director Uganda Investment Authority (UIA) in 1999.
Founded in 1991, UIA is a government body that promotes and facilitates investors in Uganda. Kigozi has added a plus to women empowerment by steering UIA to great heights. To date it has licensed over 2,000 companies, with a total planned investment of about $5.87b (sh9,980b) and a total of 192,684 planned employment.
Having worked as a marketing director of Crown Bottlers (Pepsi) Ltd, Kigozi was elected board member of Uganda Manufacturers Association, where she played a key role as chairperson of the Sector Committee in advising government on private-sector-friendly policies.
She overseas 20 professionals in charge of attracting and facilitating investment from specific countries in priority sectors. UIA also won the Corporate Location Prize for the best investment promotion agency in Africa and the Middle East recently.
The Commonwealth Head of Government Meeting will simply provide a one-stop shopping centre for investors — a game she has grown to master. “There are over 1,000 people expected to attend the business forum,†she says. “It is the time to showcase Uganda’s potential.â€
Kigozi knows that the authority’s work is crucial in the economic development of Uganda and she is proud of the investors she has ‘individually pulled to Uganda.’ But she has had her own challenges, like losing her husband, Eng Daniel Sserwano Kigozi and having to play the single-working-mother. “Facing your challenges and working hard at what you believe in enables one to overcome challenges,†she says.
But who inspires Maggie, the true package of ‘beauty and brains’, as her fans picture her? Nelson Mandela “He was able to guide South Africa through the difficult period when there were many changes taking place,†she explains.
True to her word, responsibilities have not deterred Maggie from taking on several other roles. She is a girl guide, a passion that once saw her hold the position of chief commissioner of the Uganda Scouts Association. Kigozi urges young entrepreneurs to have a vision for the people in their countries, as well as the continent.
DONALD KABERUKA
By Arthur Baguma
THE accumulation of priorities in Africa makes heads of many people spin, but not Kaberuka’s. The man at the helm of Africa’s development comes forth with a clear plan and vision.
He is goal-oriented and believes there are specific African problems which Africans alone should address. While still serving as Rwanda’s finance minister, Kaberuka advised African leaders not to expect miracles from outsiders. He pointed out that African leaders had come to appreciate this reality.
A few years later, he would be in charge of ensuring that African countries take charge of their own destiny.
Kaberuka was elected in June 2005 with 78% of the votes for a five-year term, renewable once. He over sees a bank that has a total of over $50b shares.
He is one of the most outstanding individuals in Africa. He gives interviews laced with elaborate explanations on the best options to transform Africa.
With an attractive face, stoutness, a piercing fighter-like gaze, the boss of the continental bank has impressed the international community.
Despite his leadership skills, he is a low profile man and a vivacious banker with many attributes.
He is an outstanding economist, a skillful finance specialist and unequalled strategist who goes from achievement to achievement and continues to amaze people by the quality of his analyses and the relevance of his arguments in the light of global economic challenges.
In 1997 he was given a delicate assignment to rebuild Rwanda after the 1994 genocide that destroyed the country and caused the GDP to drop by 65%. President Paul Kagame entrusted him with the country’s shattered economy. Before Kaberuka left Rwanda, the country’s economy had undergone a miraculous overhaul.
Referring to Rwanda’s steady growth path, he said Africa as a continent needs to pursue sound and prudent economic policies, and further sustain the substance of its economic reforms.
He added that the ultimate objective is to bring about Africa’s faster economic growth and effective integration in world trade and investment. Kaberuka has the required experience to take up challenges, now that he is at the head of Africa.
PATRICK BITATURE
By Conan Businge
“IT is a pleasure, but a burden. I feel honoured because I did not expect it,†said Patrick Bitature, the chief executive officer of Simba Telecom. He was speaking during a function after being chosen among the five business leaders of the future in last year’s Most Respected CEO survey conducted by Pricewater-houseCoopers.
Bitature has since received numerous congratulatory messages from various individuals and companies, including commercial banks, insurance and telecommunication companies.
He is not a mere business fellow. Bitature is also involved in a number of other programmessuch as the organisation of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting.
He says this summit will be a chance for the whole world to see what Uganda is all about.
“No one can deny our chequered history. Since we gained independence we have had ups and downs.
“After the devastating turmoil of the 1970s and 1980s whose repercussions still reverberate today, through CHOGM, we are beckoning the world to Uganda,†Bitature says.
About the Commonwealth Business Forum, Bitature says he expects it to build a network between the big and small businesspersons. “If you stay in an institution with so many civilised people or educated ones like lecturers, doctors and professors, eventually you assimilate their conduct. You look up to them for mentorship,†he notes.
His company, Simba Telecom, with an MTN dealership in Uganda, has spread its operations to Kenya, Tanzania and Nigeria. In the survey of the ‘Most Respected Companies and CEOs’, MTN Uganda emerged ninth overall. “That the recognition is coming now shows we must be doing something very well,†however, he notes adds that the firm still has a long way to go. He attributes the success of his company to hard work and sticking to the business code.
The 42-year-old CEO says success in business revolves around honesty, hard work, loyalty and common sense. Bitature was forced to abandon his studies at Makerere University because security operatives kept following and harassing him for being a supporter of President Yoweri Museveni’s Uganda Patriotic Movement in the 1980 presidential election.
He fled the country and went to the UK. When he returned to Uganda after the fall of Milton Obote in 1985, he started a business on Kampala’s Luwum Street. “I did not stay long in this particular business and abandoned it to start a night club.†he says. Bitature started importing vehicles from Dubai and Japan. He however, gave up this business. When Uganda liberalised foreign exchange operations, he opened a foreign exchange bureau, Simba Forex, which he still operates.
In 1991, he abandoned the night club business and opened Simba Tours and Travel. He later moved into the real estate business.
When MTN was given the second national operators licence in 1998, he was working with Celtel telecommunications.
MTN offered him a better deal which he took. He took a big gamble and sold all his property to raise funds to open up shops, which were to sell MTN products. A new market soon opened up in Tanzania and Simba Telecom became an agent of Vodacom, one of the mobile telephone operators in the country. This provided him with an opportunity, of becoming a Safaricom agent.
Bitature’s business empire includes agriculture, microfinance and foreign exchange operations. He is also a director of Radio West and a member of the board of The New Vision.
Prof FIRMINO MUCAVELE
By Vision Reporter
Prof Mucavele, the chief executive officer of New Partnership for Development (NEPAD) has authored many publications in his field.
He holds a PhD in food and resource economics from the University of Florida. He is a member of the International Association of Agricultural Economists and a number of other professional associations. Mucavele also serves as a special advisor to the president of Mozambique. He has served as consultant for USAID, OXFAM Belgica, World Bank and PricewaterhouseCoopers in missions of food security analysis, environmental economic analysis, agricultural markets liberalisation in Mozambique and rural development.
In his distinguished career Mucavele was invited in 2000 by the United Nations to integrate a team of experts to map out a development programme for a rapid transfer of technologies to the developing countries. This served as basis for the third conference on science and technology for the development of least developed countries organised by the United Nations.
In February of 2001, he was invited to integrate the Steering Committee of African Economists to develop the Millennium Africa Recovery Programme. This programme was approved by the heads of African States in Lusaka, Zambia in July 2001 and became the New African Initiative. On October 23, 2001, in Nigeria, it was designated the NEPAD.
RAHUL BAJAJ
Bajaj, the chairman of the Bajaj Auto Ltd, has been at the forefront of business for over five decades and has, for two eras, taken part in India’s industrial development.
Approachable, articulate and forthcoming, as well as outspoken, he is one of India’s corporate elder statesmen. For nearly 40 years, he provided transport for the world’s second most populous country.
Bajaj has now handed the reigns of the $7b (sh1,700b) Bajaj Auto to his son Rajiv, to spend more time in politics. But he is still chairman of the company he himself took over from his father in 1968.
In a business landscape that is increasingly run by hired executives, family succession at Bajaj remains as strong as ever.
Recently when asked by CNN on how difficult it was to let go, he said: “It was not at all difficult. I was dying to do it. To succeed, you need to have a hunger in your belly. You need a fire in your belly and I had that for all of those years. And they have it now and I do not have that fire in my belly for Bajaj Auto, but I have that fire in the belly and that hunger to do something — whatever little I can do for my country. And that was one of the reasons why I got into the Rajya Sabha, which is our upper house of Parliament.â€
He talks about what it was like for those aspiring to make a success of business in the pre-liberalisation days. And, more typically, what the business could and should be like in the days to come.
He was the managing director of Bajaj Auto Ltd., until March 31, 2005 and the deputy general manager of Bajaj Tempo Limited.
SUSAN MUDHUNE
By Tony Barigye
ANOTHER speaker at the business forum is Mudhune, the chairman of Kenya Commercial Bank (KCB). With experience of about 25 years in the banking sector, Mudhune will talk about her banking experience.
Prior to joining KCB, she worked for other local banks in Kenya for 20 years. In May 2001, Mudhune was declared director of KCB by the bank’s shareholders.
In April 2003, she registered her name into Kenya’s history books; she was elevated to the position of board chairman, making her the first Kenyan woman to chair the board of a national bank. She holds the same position to date.
A few months as board chairman of KCB, Mudhune was recognised for her outstanding achievements by Kenya Institute of Bankers with the Fellow of the Institute of Kenya Bankers Award in December 2003.
Mudhune largely attained her education from Kenya and holds a Bachelors of Arts degree in Education and an MBA.
Now 57 years old, and the fifth year running as board chairman, she has played an enormous role in KCB’s glory.
The forum, which attracts global business leaders, heads of government and industry leaders, will help highlight Uganda and East Africa’s position as a trade and investment hub.
Vision Reporters bring you the profiles of speakers expected to talk at the summit.
ALEXANDER CUMMINGS
By Roger Mugisha
Alexander B. Cummings is president and chief operating officer of the Africa Group of The Coca-Cola Company. He is responsible for the company’s operations in Africa, which encompasses 56 countries and territories in Africa.
The Coca-Cola System in Africa has 888 million consumers and employs 55,000 people in 160 bottling plants. Born in Liberia, Cummings split his early years between his home country and the US. He joined The Coca-Cola Company in 1997 as regional manager in Nigeria. In 2000, he was named president of the Company’s North and West Africa.
He assumed his current role in March 2001. Coca-Cola is one of the world’s most successful companies. It is the largest consumer goods’ provider in Africa.
Prior to joining the company, Cummings held several positions with The Pillsbury Company in the US. As vice-president of Finance for Pillsbury International, he had financial responsibility for a growing $1.2b international branded food business with operating companies in 16 countries.
As chairman of the Coca-Cola Africa Foundation, Cummings is also on the Boards of the African-America Institute, Africare and Clarke Atlanta University. He has served on the Advisory Board of The African Presidential Archives and Research Centre, The Corporate Council on Africa and The Centre for Global Development’s Commission on US Policy toward Low-Income Poorly Performing States.
He is also a member of the Executive Leadership Council. Cummings holds a B.S. degree in Finance and Economics from Northern Illinois University and an MBA in Finance from Atlanta University.
ALBERT ESSEIN
By Emmanuel Ssejjengo
Albert Essien, the executive director of Ecobank Transnational Incorporation (ETI), will present a paper on Access to Commonwealth markets at the Commonwealth Business Forum. And he is one man who will attract any business-minded ear.
He has held the position in such a highly-regarded bank since 2005. This gives him authority over the group’s subsidiaries in the West African Monetary Zone. It is not only that position that will make his voice highly regarded during the forum. Essein is also responsible for the development t of Ecobank’s business in Eastern and Southern Africa.
His visit should yield immediate results and could mean opening up an Ecobank branch in Uganda soon.
The bank is a leading private Pan-African banking group with subsidiaries in 18 West and Central African countries. It was established in 1988. By 2005, it had grown to 162 branches with 2,602 employees across 13 West and Central African countries.
The same year, the group generated over $236m (about sh400b) in revenues from wholesale and retail banking services and products and had a balance sheet of $2.2b (sh3,700b).
Essien has steadily been growing in the world of business. Prior to his current position, he served as the country head, deputy managing director; country risk manager and manager of the corporate Banking Department of Ecobank Ghana Limited.
JAMES SMITH
y Nigel Nassar
James Smith is the man who loses a great deal of sleep everyday trying to figure out ways of keeping Shell UK afloat. As the oil group’s chairman for the entire United Kingdom market, Smith’s normal day does not involve only sitting there and being the boss.
He has to oversee all the operations of Shell UK, a thing that involves a lot more than just writing the employees’ annual letter communicating the company’s previous year’s performance and sitting in meetings.
Smith has worked with Shell since 1983. Throughout his stay, he has worked in all the group’s major businesses, including oil, business development and gas production.
His recent designation was head of executive resourcing, which mainly involved ensuring there is a highly talented and diverse group of leaders for the top 200 jobs in Shell.
Until the end of 2003, he was on the global board of Shell Chemicals as head of technology, strategy and sustainable development — a role he took on after building a career in upstream oil and gas production.
He lived for four-and-a-half years in Southeast Asia, in Malaysia and Brunei. He has been extensively involved in Shell business in a number of Middle Eastern countries and in the US. In addition, he was managing director of Shell’s downstream business in Brunei and chaired Shell’s global catalyst business during a period of restructuring for profitability. Smith has a degree in physics and is a chartered accountant.
He worked with Accenture before joining Shell. Married with one son, his hobbies include golf, skiing and hill-walking. One of the most important ventures Smith is undertaking is trying to find sources of new energy as part of Shell’s scenario planning strategy; following the anticipated doubling of energy requirements in the world in the coming decades.
MAGGIE KIGOZI
By Irene Nabusoba
DESTINY has its way in people’s lives, but no one can understand this better than Dr. Maggie Kigozi. As a graduate of medicine from Makerere University, Kigozi practiced her profession in Uganda, Kenya and Zambia, but made a successful U-turn to the private sector, riding her way to become the executive director Uganda Investment Authority (UIA) in 1999.
Founded in 1991, UIA is a government body that promotes and facilitates investors in Uganda. Kigozi has added a plus to women empowerment by steering UIA to great heights. To date it has licensed over 2,000 companies, with a total planned investment of about $5.87b (sh9,980b) and a total of 192,684 planned employment.
Having worked as a marketing director of Crown Bottlers (Pepsi) Ltd, Kigozi was elected board member of Uganda Manufacturers Association, where she played a key role as chairperson of the Sector Committee in advising government on private-sector-friendly policies.
She overseas 20 professionals in charge of attracting and facilitating investment from specific countries in priority sectors. UIA also won the Corporate Location Prize for the best investment promotion agency in Africa and the Middle East recently.
The Commonwealth Head of Government Meeting will simply provide a one-stop shopping centre for investors — a game she has grown to master. “There are over 1,000 people expected to attend the business forum,†she says. “It is the time to showcase Uganda’s potential.â€
Kigozi knows that the authority’s work is crucial in the economic development of Uganda and she is proud of the investors she has ‘individually pulled to Uganda.’ But she has had her own challenges, like losing her husband, Eng Daniel Sserwano Kigozi and having to play the single-working-mother. “Facing your challenges and working hard at what you believe in enables one to overcome challenges,†she says.
But who inspires Maggie, the true package of ‘beauty and brains’, as her fans picture her? Nelson Mandela “He was able to guide South Africa through the difficult period when there were many changes taking place,†she explains.
True to her word, responsibilities have not deterred Maggie from taking on several other roles. She is a girl guide, a passion that once saw her hold the position of chief commissioner of the Uganda Scouts Association. Kigozi urges young entrepreneurs to have a vision for the people in their countries, as well as the continent.
DONALD KABERUKA
By Arthur Baguma
THE accumulation of priorities in Africa makes heads of many people spin, but not Kaberuka’s. The man at the helm of Africa’s development comes forth with a clear plan and vision.
He is goal-oriented and believes there are specific African problems which Africans alone should address. While still serving as Rwanda’s finance minister, Kaberuka advised African leaders not to expect miracles from outsiders. He pointed out that African leaders had come to appreciate this reality.
A few years later, he would be in charge of ensuring that African countries take charge of their own destiny.
Kaberuka was elected in June 2005 with 78% of the votes for a five-year term, renewable once. He over sees a bank that has a total of over $50b shares.
He is one of the most outstanding individuals in Africa. He gives interviews laced with elaborate explanations on the best options to transform Africa.
With an attractive face, stoutness, a piercing fighter-like gaze, the boss of the continental bank has impressed the international community.
Despite his leadership skills, he is a low profile man and a vivacious banker with many attributes.
He is an outstanding economist, a skillful finance specialist and unequalled strategist who goes from achievement to achievement and continues to amaze people by the quality of his analyses and the relevance of his arguments in the light of global economic challenges.
In 1997 he was given a delicate assignment to rebuild Rwanda after the 1994 genocide that destroyed the country and caused the GDP to drop by 65%. President Paul Kagame entrusted him with the country’s shattered economy. Before Kaberuka left Rwanda, the country’s economy had undergone a miraculous overhaul.
Referring to Rwanda’s steady growth path, he said Africa as a continent needs to pursue sound and prudent economic policies, and further sustain the substance of its economic reforms.
He added that the ultimate objective is to bring about Africa’s faster economic growth and effective integration in world trade and investment. Kaberuka has the required experience to take up challenges, now that he is at the head of Africa.
PATRICK BITATURE
By Conan Businge
“IT is a pleasure, but a burden. I feel honoured because I did not expect it,†said Patrick Bitature, the chief executive officer of Simba Telecom. He was speaking during a function after being chosen among the five business leaders of the future in last year’s Most Respected CEO survey conducted by Pricewater-houseCoopers.
Bitature has since received numerous congratulatory messages from various individuals and companies, including commercial banks, insurance and telecommunication companies.
He is not a mere business fellow. Bitature is also involved in a number of other programmessuch as the organisation of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting.
He says this summit will be a chance for the whole world to see what Uganda is all about.
“No one can deny our chequered history. Since we gained independence we have had ups and downs.
“After the devastating turmoil of the 1970s and 1980s whose repercussions still reverberate today, through CHOGM, we are beckoning the world to Uganda,†Bitature says.
About the Commonwealth Business Forum, Bitature says he expects it to build a network between the big and small businesspersons. “If you stay in an institution with so many civilised people or educated ones like lecturers, doctors and professors, eventually you assimilate their conduct. You look up to them for mentorship,†he notes.
His company, Simba Telecom, with an MTN dealership in Uganda, has spread its operations to Kenya, Tanzania and Nigeria. In the survey of the ‘Most Respected Companies and CEOs’, MTN Uganda emerged ninth overall. “That the recognition is coming now shows we must be doing something very well,†however, he notes adds that the firm still has a long way to go. He attributes the success of his company to hard work and sticking to the business code.
The 42-year-old CEO says success in business revolves around honesty, hard work, loyalty and common sense. Bitature was forced to abandon his studies at Makerere University because security operatives kept following and harassing him for being a supporter of President Yoweri Museveni’s Uganda Patriotic Movement in the 1980 presidential election.
He fled the country and went to the UK. When he returned to Uganda after the fall of Milton Obote in 1985, he started a business on Kampala’s Luwum Street. “I did not stay long in this particular business and abandoned it to start a night club.†he says. Bitature started importing vehicles from Dubai and Japan. He however, gave up this business. When Uganda liberalised foreign exchange operations, he opened a foreign exchange bureau, Simba Forex, which he still operates.
In 1991, he abandoned the night club business and opened Simba Tours and Travel. He later moved into the real estate business.
When MTN was given the second national operators licence in 1998, he was working with Celtel telecommunications.
MTN offered him a better deal which he took. He took a big gamble and sold all his property to raise funds to open up shops, which were to sell MTN products. A new market soon opened up in Tanzania and Simba Telecom became an agent of Vodacom, one of the mobile telephone operators in the country. This provided him with an opportunity, of becoming a Safaricom agent.
Bitature’s business empire includes agriculture, microfinance and foreign exchange operations. He is also a director of Radio West and a member of the board of The New Vision.
Prof FIRMINO MUCAVELE
By Vision Reporter
Prof Mucavele, the chief executive officer of New Partnership for Development (NEPAD) has authored many publications in his field.
He holds a PhD in food and resource economics from the University of Florida. He is a member of the International Association of Agricultural Economists and a number of other professional associations. Mucavele also serves as a special advisor to the president of Mozambique. He has served as consultant for USAID, OXFAM Belgica, World Bank and PricewaterhouseCoopers in missions of food security analysis, environmental economic analysis, agricultural markets liberalisation in Mozambique and rural development.
In his distinguished career Mucavele was invited in 2000 by the United Nations to integrate a team of experts to map out a development programme for a rapid transfer of technologies to the developing countries. This served as basis for the third conference on science and technology for the development of least developed countries organised by the United Nations.
In February of 2001, he was invited to integrate the Steering Committee of African Economists to develop the Millennium Africa Recovery Programme. This programme was approved by the heads of African States in Lusaka, Zambia in July 2001 and became the New African Initiative. On October 23, 2001, in Nigeria, it was designated the NEPAD.
RAHUL BAJAJ
Bajaj, the chairman of the Bajaj Auto Ltd, has been at the forefront of business for over five decades and has, for two eras, taken part in India’s industrial development.
Approachable, articulate and forthcoming, as well as outspoken, he is one of India’s corporate elder statesmen. For nearly 40 years, he provided transport for the world’s second most populous country.
Bajaj has now handed the reigns of the $7b (sh1,700b) Bajaj Auto to his son Rajiv, to spend more time in politics. But he is still chairman of the company he himself took over from his father in 1968.
In a business landscape that is increasingly run by hired executives, family succession at Bajaj remains as strong as ever.
Recently when asked by CNN on how difficult it was to let go, he said: “It was not at all difficult. I was dying to do it. To succeed, you need to have a hunger in your belly. You need a fire in your belly and I had that for all of those years. And they have it now and I do not have that fire in my belly for Bajaj Auto, but I have that fire in the belly and that hunger to do something — whatever little I can do for my country. And that was one of the reasons why I got into the Rajya Sabha, which is our upper house of Parliament.â€
He talks about what it was like for those aspiring to make a success of business in the pre-liberalisation days. And, more typically, what the business could and should be like in the days to come.
He was the managing director of Bajaj Auto Ltd., until March 31, 2005 and the deputy general manager of Bajaj Tempo Limited.
SUSAN MUDHUNE
By Tony Barigye
ANOTHER speaker at the business forum is Mudhune, the chairman of Kenya Commercial Bank (KCB). With experience of about 25 years in the banking sector, Mudhune will talk about her banking experience.
Prior to joining KCB, she worked for other local banks in Kenya for 20 years. In May 2001, Mudhune was declared director of KCB by the bank’s shareholders.
In April 2003, she registered her name into Kenya’s history books; she was elevated to the position of board chairman, making her the first Kenyan woman to chair the board of a national bank. She holds the same position to date.
A few months as board chairman of KCB, Mudhune was recognised for her outstanding achievements by Kenya Institute of Bankers with the Fellow of the Institute of Kenya Bankers Award in December 2003.
Mudhune largely attained her education from Kenya and holds a Bachelors of Arts degree in Education and an MBA.
Now 57 years old, and the fifth year running as board chairman, she has played an enormous role in KCB’s glory.