Absa Bank (Uganda) Managing Director Kenneth Mumba Kalifungwa is favourite to become Stanbic Bank Uganda's new boss.
Stanbic Bank, the country’s largest lender by assets and profitability, is expected to announce a new chief executive officer before the end of the year, ending a troubled succession search that has run for almost 12 months.
Industry sources told Monitor on Tuesday that Mr Kenneth Mumba Kalifungwa, the current managing director and chief executive at Absa Bank Uganda, is the favourite to make the switch to the Stanbic Uganda Headquarters at Crested Towers.
“It’s all decided, pending an official announcement,” an official privy to the matter said on condition of anonymity because they are not authorised to speak for the institution.
In an emailed response to a Monitor inquiry about the ongoing search for a chief executive, Stanbic Bank’s spokesperson Kenneth Agutamba wrote: “We appreciate the media interest in when a Chief Executive for our largest subsidiary will be appointed. We are pleased to share that the Chief Executive’s recruitment process is drawing to a close, and an official announcement will soon be released, in observance of regulatory protocols given that we are a publicly listed business.”
“We assure our stakeholders that the bank has a solid management team and structures supporting its smooth operations to seamlessly serve our customers,” he added.
The official was not asked about identities of the individuals in the running.
Mr Kalifungwa was not immediately available for comment by press time Tuesday night.
But the imminent announcement will end a corporate succession process that has proven surprisingly complicated for the country’s biggest bank.
It all started last December when Stanbic Bank announced that its then-chief executive and the first woman to head the institution, Anne Juuko, had been tapped to head a regional position to head currency trading, based out of Nairobi.
Ms Anne Juuko, the new Global Markets Regional Head (East Africa) for Stanbic Bank Group. PHOTO | COURTESY | STANBIC BANK
In an interview with Monitor at the time, Mr Patrick Mweheire, the head of the bank’s regional operations and who had preceded Juuko at the helm of the lender, noted that the move was part of a transition that had also seen Francis Karuhanga appointed to head Stanbic Uganda Holdings, Standard Bank Group (SBG)’s holding company in the country.
What was meant to be a routine take-off and landing, however, soon ran into turbulence. In April 2024 SBG Chief Executive Sim Tshabalala and Board Chairman Nonkululeko Nyembezi flew to Kampala to meet with officials from the Bank of Uganda after the regulator refused to approve the nominated new chief executive officer, Kenneth Mvuselelo Fakudze, who runs the SBG bank in Eswatini.
The Central Bank did not give a reason for the decision, but the matter was picked up by Parliament after Otuke County MP Paul Omara demanded to know why the position was not being given to a Ugandan national.
More stories on banks: Did Equity Bank MD Anthony Kituuka get greener pastures?
Deputy Speaker Thomas Tayebwa, who was presiding, weighed in, noting, “We need managing directors from Uganda and at regional levels, let them have confidence in us”.
Following the development, Stanbic Bank appointed Samuel Mwogeza, its then head of personal and private banking, as interim chief executive. Barbara Dokoria was appointed as interim executive director.
Combo: Mr Samuel Frederick Mwogeza and Barbara Dokoria (R) who has been the bank's interim executive director. PHOTOS/ COURTESY
While these appointments might have pleased the nationalists in Parliament, they did not satisfy the regulator and in June the bank advertised the CEO position, attracting more than two dozen C-suite applicants from the industry and other corporate sectors.
Nationalist agenda
Opening the process did not end the behind-the-scenes pressure to appoint a Ugandan to the job, two senior government sources familiar with the matter independently told this newspaper.
“This is the biggest bank in the country and is of strategic importance to the government,” one of them said. “If, for instance, the President wants to speak to the top executive, it helps if it is someone, he is comfortable with, not someone from, say, Senegal.”
It was these considerations, the sources said, behind the Central Bank’s decision in September to refuse to accept the appointment of Phillip Madinga, a Malawian national and Stanbic Bank Malawi chief executive, who had come top in the interviews.
“It was always going to be hard to justify bringing in someone without local knowledge,” a senior politician familiar with the process told this publication. He asked not to be named because he was not formally involved in the process.
With the government insistent on having the biggest bank run by someone with local knowledge, and SBG officials not willing to have their hand forced into a local hire, Kalifungwa, a Zambian national with almost four years of local experience emerged as a compromise candidate after coming second in the interviews, sources said.
ALSO READ: Examining Uganda's recent bank closures
The official announcement is expected to be made as soon as Stanbic Bank receives official approval from the Central Bank.
Who is Kalifungwa?
A Zambian national, Mumba Kenneth Kalifungwa, qualified as an accountant and is a member of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants. He holds a Master of Business Administration degree from the Heriot-Watt University Business School in Edinburgh, Scotland, and took over the running of Absa Bank Uganda on April 1, 2020.
In this file handout photo shared by Absa Bank, its managing director Mumba Kenneth Kalifungwa speaks during an event in Kampala on April 16, 2024. PHOTO/HANDOUT
His career started in accounting with Coopers and Lybrand (which today is PricewaterhouseCoopers) and the Zambia Revenue Authority. He switched to banking in 1995 and worked with Barclays Bank (later Absa Bank) of Zambia and Botswana before his posting to run the bank’s operation in Uganda.
