Richard Yego the Managing Director of MTN Mobile Money Uganda Limited. PHOTO/FILE/HANDOUT
There is this joke that Richard Yego smiles while sleeping. When I met the MTN Mobile Money (MoMo) managing director, it was easy to see why the joke has gained wider currency.
Yego needed little invitation to wear a radiant smile. Behind the smile, though, is a brilliant, focused, and determined gentleman willing to put in extra shifts to achieve a goal or purpose.
His climb up the corporate leadership ladder says as much. At MoMo, Yego is charged with providing strategic leadership.
A huge part of that is in the deployment of technology meant to improve and automate financial services in the country. This is in addition to harnessing relationships to develop the financial and mobile money ecosystem, where MoMo is a major Fintech sector player.
Under his watch, MoMo closed 2024 with nearly 14 million active subscribers in Uganda, just shy of a 14 percent increment.
Not one to take adulation, he insists all the achievements registered are a result of great teamwork. And because of the wonderful team, the Fintech company offering digital financial services closed its account in 2024 with a record-breaking 4.3 billion transactions.
This is no small beer, not least because it amounts to Shs158.6 trillion. This was an increase of 27 percent compared to previous years. Additionally, the platform not only saw a significant growth in monthly active users, reaching 13.8 million, but also grew its merchant and agent network to nearly 300,000 thanks to Yego’s stewardship.
Carrot, stick approach
I meet him over lunch, determined to find out what constitutes his winning formula. Beaming with pleasure, Yego disclosed that he believes in a reward system. His approach is such that desired behaviour, actions or achievements are encouraged and recognised by providing incentives or benefits. When people you supervise feel wanted and appreciated, they are more likely to give their all for the cause.
At the same time, Yego believes that those working to the contrary should be held accountable before their behaviour affects the achievement of the overall organisational goal. And that is why the carrot and stick approach is a model he happily deploys. “I believe in honest, open discourse. Let’s talk about it and try to address the issue immediately before it degenerates into something ugly."
“I am so passionate about service excellence, I don’t want to see gaps in the market. That takes away my smile and changes my face until we have it fixed. So I use a bit of the stick, but in most cases the carrot. “This is why empowerment is something I like to do.
I send different team members to represent me in different events because I need to position them in good stead, give them exposure and build their confidence levels. This I think, is part of building leadership capabilities, not just for yourself but also your team as well.
“Having a meal with your team means so much. It can even be on a quarterly basis. Understand them outside the office. Appreciate them. Greet them when you come to the office – and it shouldn’t matter the level of the employee. This is important because everybody plays a role in the well-being of the organisation.
Imagine a life without the person who cleans the office every single day to create a workable environment for you. “So humility is important for a leader. You don't have to scream at people for them to do their work. Once you empower them, they will be able to deliver with minimal or no supervision at all,” he says.
Engagement
Importantly, the company’s engagement score has improved from 89 percent in 2023 to 91 percent last year. Yego is looking to improve this score further, saying it’s a priority for him. For the last three years at the helm, Yego has essentially been preoccupied with building the operations of the mobile money platform alongside what he describes as a “dedicated team and proper organisational support”.
“I think it’s been quite a journey,” he says in an interview. When Mr Yego assumed responsibility as the managing director of the mobile money platform in February 2022, the company was separating operations. Within 10 months after separating from the telecom operations following the enactment of the National Payment Systems (NPS) Act a year before and the subsequent licensing of MTN MoMo, Yego was called into action.
And so there was a need to ensure efficient separation. Right recruitment. And assemble a proper team. A year later that process wasn’t completed yet the business had to continue operating without excuses and profitably.
Full separation was eventually completed just before close of last year with the recruitment of the executive team. Before that, Mr Yego had to play multiple roles which he won’t anymore with full composition of the senior management team. “This now means that I will have more time to do much more stakeholder engagement and management,” he says.
Delegation
Last year was particularly a difficult one for Yego, who had to balance between studies and work. “I recently graduated from Harvard Business School. And it has been very tough balancing studies with work. “And I must add that I'm very thankful to the team we have because without their effectiveness this education journey would have been difficult for me. “Actually, I realised what a strong team we have here,” he says.
To achieve both ends, Yego deployed a delegation. And it paid off. This leadership skill he deployed not only freed precious time to allow him to focus on his studies but also empowered his team, and importantly, the business operations continued flawlessly.
He says: “Normally when the head is not around, there is a chance that things could fall apart. But what I saw was a flawless operation. It is now obvious to me that I have a wonderful team capable of rising to the occasion – what more can one ask for.”
When it gets tough
When the going gets tough, Yego becomes the shock absorber. He says: “When there is a lot of pressure, I condense it because the worst thing you can do is to apply that pressure on your team without sieving it.
“So, each time there is pressure, I don’t release it with the same kind of intensity. I release it in proportionate form. I get my team to understand where we are at and what we need to do to make things happen. “The first thing I do in the morning is to find out how we performed yesterday.” He looks at the Key Performance Indicator (KPI), including revenue and related numbers, and compares them with previous performances to understand the nature of gains or losses made before analysing pressure points with the view to plugging leakages if any.
He then quickly looks at his emails and WhatsApp messages. And by nine o’clock in the morning, he is done with the review and early morning business.
What follows are a couple of meetings with both internal and external audiences, with some stretching to lunchtime meetings. His work tends to go on till late. This explains why he finds the evening coffee break quite challenging. In terms of keeping in shape, Yego prefers walking as a form of exercise to going to the gym.
Significant growth
MTN Mobile Money (MoMo) closed 2024 with nearly 14 million active subscribers in Uganda, just shy of a 14 percent increment.
Not one to take adulation, he insists all the achievements registered are a result of great teamwork. And because of the wonderful team, the Fintech company offering digital financial services closed its account in 2024 with a record-breaking 4.3 billion transactions, which amounts to Shs158.6 trillion.
This was an increase of 27 percent compared to previous years. Additionally, the platform not only saw a significant growth in monthly active users, reaching 13.8 million, but also grew its merchant and agent network to nearly 300,000 thanks to Yego’s stewardship.
What good leaders do...
Richard Yego says: "Work environment. Everybody plays a role in the well-being of the organisation. Imagine a life without the person who cleans the office every single day to create a workable environment for you...So humility is important for a leader. You don’t have to scream at people for them to do their work. Once you empower them, they will be able to deliver with minimal or no supervision at all.’’
