Author: Brenda Ntambirweki

Our final episode for our first season features Emuron Alemu, one of the most recognizable faces in advertising in Sub-Saharan Africa. Emuron is a multiple award-winning advertising creative who has created campaigns across a range of categories and disciplines. Presently, Emuron is the Chief Creative Officer at Betika. com and has won several Loeries, African Cristals Awards, MSK awards and Cannes Lions.

This podcast features Isaac Kwaku Fokuo Jr., a leading Ghanaian adviser to governments, investors, and leading multinational companies on navigating and expanding in emerging growth markets. Isaac is the Founder and Principal of Botho Emerging Markets Group, an investment and strategy advisory firm with offices in Nairobi, Dubai, and Chicago and the co-founder of the Amahoro Coalition, an initiative convening private sector firms in Africa to accelerate the economic inclusion of refugees. With two decades of experience working in 20 markets across North America, Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Middle East, Isaac has an extensive and successful track record in investment facilitation, strategy consulting, and policy advisory across sectors including Finance, Technology, Healthcare, Education and more. Isaac is also an angel investor to start-ups based in Africa and the Middle East. Isaac is a 2014 Archbishop Desmond Tutu Fellow, a Trustee of Hanover College, advisor to the China Africa Tech Initiative, and serves on several boards.

There is an undeniable gender gap in the workplace. Research shows that women in particular are underrepresented at every level, and women of colour are the most underrepresented group of all, lagging behind white men, men of colour and white women. Women are also less likely to be hired into entry-level jobs than men, and as employees move up the corporate ladder, the disparity increases with fewer women being promoted to high level roles, compared to every 100 men. The solution to this gender gap seems simple: commitment to gender diversity and inclusion and intentional actions on the part of organizations to enlist women in the workforce, at all levels.

This podcast features Flora Katusiime, a New York based global communications and diversity and inclusion strategist.  Flora has a global and diverse background working with several organizations in the private sector and with non-profits to create equitable and inclusive spaces. Flora has had considerable success in shaping policies and initiatives that drive engagement and advance organizational transformation to ensure that those with varied cultural backgrounds are more easily noticed, recognized, appreciated, and promoted.

Our latest podcast features David F.K. Mpanga, the Deputy Chairman at Bowmans, a top tier Africa-wide law firm, and co-founder of top tier law firm, A.F. Mpanga Advocates (now Bowmans Uganda) on his book, The Politics of Common Sense. David is a barrister of the Honourable Society of the Middle Temple and an advocate of the courts of Uganda with almost three decades of experience. David is also the Minister for Special Duties in the Buganda Government, an institution headed by the Kabaka of the Kingdom of Buganda.

Africa holds a huge proportion of the world’s natural resources. The African Development Bank estimates that 30% of the world’s mineral reserves, 8% of the world’s natural gas reserves, 12% of global oil reserves are found on the continent. It is therefore not entirely shocking that extractives are a major source of revenue for many African countries and that demand for these natural resources remains untamed. According to the United Nations Environment Program, the amount of minerals, fossil fuels, and biomass consumed globally per year could triple between today and 2050. 

This episode features Paul Lwiindi, an industry expert from Zambia in the extractives sector with a career spanning over 20 years. Paul has held senior roles in Glencore’s Africa operations, national roles in the UK’s Network Rail Infrastructure Limited and a pan-European role at Coca Cola Great Britain & Northern Ireland among others. Paul’s particular focus in the roles he has had is on operations and transformation and change.

In this episode, Brenda chats with Angelo Izama, a Ugandan journalist, writer, analyst and frequent contributor on current affairs for local and international publications and broadcasters, on the history and social impact of oil exploration in Uganda.

Angelo discusses the history of oil exploration in Uganda spanning the 1900s to present, the social impact the East African Crude Oil Pipeline is likely to have on the communities on its route, the under-discussed environmental issues, and why he thinks that the Ugandan oil story will not be the stereotypical “oil curse” story.

Africa has a unique opportunity to develop its competitiveness through artificial intelligence (AI) and there is a general sentiment that new digital technologies such as AI should be leveraged to drive large-scale transformation. AI is widely seen as a key to innovation and there are varying levels of confidence in the ability to widely deploy the technology in certain areas of the continent. A few countries on the continent, notably South Africa, Mauritius, Seychelles, Rwanda and Senegal have been noted in as taking different approaches in their efforts to lay the groundwork for innovation in AI.

This episode features Nomsa Nteleko, an award-winning entrepreneur from South Africa with 15 years’ experience in the ICT space. She is the Founder & CEO OS Holdings Ltd, and the Chief Commercial Officer at Amathuba AI. Nomsa’s experience is specifically in business and financial management systems, primarily assisting organizations in automating their business processes from HR, Payroll, Supply Chain and Municipal Standard Chart of Accounts.

In this episode, Brenda hosts Robert Kabushenga, one of the most prolific C-Suite executives from East Africa. Until his recent retirement from the corporate world, Robert was the chief executive at the Vision Group in Uganda, which, under his stewardship, progressed from a print media house into the media conglomerate that it is today. At present, Robert, a self-described obsessive farmer, is the owner  and administrator of Rugyeyo Farm, a coffee and banana farm located in Central Uganda.