Executive Communities brought the show to Kampala, to keep engaging the CFO East Africa community, and launch the Uganda chapter of CITO East Africa.
On 14 and 15 May 2026, Executive Communities hosted two summits in Kampala, Uganda, in keeping with its mandate to connect executives in information technology and finance leadership via regional expansion in East Africa.
Ugandan IT leaders get their first look at the CITO East Africa community
The inaugural Uganda Summit for CITO East Africa was a roaring success, drawing more than 50 CIOs from organisations across the country into an agenda-setting conversation. The aim? Building a community of trust, similar to the community chapters in Nairobi and Kigali, and of course also in the trademark Executive Communities style.
What sets Executive Communities’ networking events apart is the absence of “hard sell”: this is not a forum where marketing presentations and product demonstrations dominate, but a peer-level space where CIOs can relate openly and candidly about issues in their field, in a room full of colleagues, not public relations officers.
“It’s always so exciting to launch a chapter of the CITO East Africa community in a new country,” says community manager Sandra Mulluka. “We believe in the power of knowledge-sharing and networking, and it’s fantastic to see the penny drop for a whole new group of executives. The Uganda CITOs were no exception – and it was great to get to know them. We’re looking forward to our next engagement with them in August.”
The leaders spent the evening in high-level discussions around leadership, strategy, pressure, and transformation. It was, in the words of one attendee, “a breath of fresh air”. The elephants in every room, AI, digital transformation, and cybersecurity, received significant airtime, as did the fact that CIOs are increasingly being expected to move beyond operational support roles into enterprise leadership.
Artificial intelligence, as one executive noted, has the potential to fundamentally reshape how businesses operate – and the legislative environment governing matters such as cyber security law is also changing. In fact, the audience asserted, CITOs need to be involved in the drafting of that legislation! Technology experts can no longer be relegated to siloes or to a support function when their responsibilities have increased so exponentially.
A discussion point that is being raised across Executive Communities’ CITO networks Africa-wide is the recurring issue of the CITO-CFO relationship. Especially in the context of AI as a game-changer, CITOs expect to be drivers of innovation – which requires investment, and a move away from seeing technology as a cost centre and towards technology as an indispensable partner and strategic investment.
In fact, one executive felt so strongly about this that they said, “Whenever I hear that a CIO is reporting to a CFO, I do not believe that it is an organisation that takes technology seriously.”
Another said, “Sometimes you just need a room where people understand the weight of the role without needing an explanation.”
Feedback from Uganda’s inaugural CITO East Africa Summit was enthusiastic and clear: IT leaders are ready for more. Watch this space.
Ugandan CFOs share stories and explore emotional intelligence
When meeting a high-level executive, it is natural to wonder, how did they get there? What is their origin story, and indeed, to carry the comic-book analogy further, what is their superpower?
It is a delight, therefore, to be able to share a space with close to 100 chief finance officers, as happened on 15 May 2026 in Kampala, at the first CFO East Africa Leadership Summit in Uganda, to listen to precisely those sorts of leadership stories. Execs such as Hosea Kiprop from AAR Insurance and Timothy Musiime from I&M Bank Uganda shared advice they had received from their own mentors, such as the need for courage under fire.
Career-defining moments came under the spotlight, with Chalapathi Rao of Madhvani Group identifying blowing the whistle on fraud as such a moment in his career. Eunice Waweru of Hariss International said hers was transitioning from a global multinational company to a family-owned business without predefined processes and procedures. And Finca Uganda’s Robinah Siima said it was taking the plunge into entrepreneurship, which had in fact increased her empathy for Finca customers.
Keynote speaker Francis Kamulegeya, the renowned business leader, stayed on the topic of stories and lessons and spoke on emotional intelligence and effective communication.
And then it was time for awards! CFO East Africa Award judges Andrew Ssekamwa of Mpegen Advisory and Miriam Kaggwa of WPP Scangroup presented the Public Impact Award to Peter Ssenyange of Pearl Bank, and the coveted CFO of the Year 2025 (Uganda) Award to Andrew Bugembe of MTN.
“It was great to be back in Uganda, reconnecting with finance leaders in the country, and meeting new executives this time around,” says Executive Communities director for East Africa KC Rottok Chesaina. “The conversation flowed, connections were made, insights were shared, and the CFO East Africa community was further established as the networking and knowledge hub for Ugandan finance leaders.”
As the movie industry well knows, the best stories have happy endings. And so it was time to release the CFOs back into their real lives to begin to write the next chapters of their stories – so that they can share them at the next Executive Communities Summit, of course!
Next stop for Executive Communities in East Africa is Dar es Salaam. If you are a Tanzanian IT or finance executive who’d like to join the summits, reach out Executive Communities director for East Africa KC Rottok Chesaina at [email protected].