On Thursday, the ACCA and Deloitte Uganda Chief Financial Officer Awards were held at the Kampala Serena’s Victoria Conference Centre.
The gala, a premiere celebration of financial excellence and leadership, recognised financial leaders whose strides and contribution to the sector and their organisations can’t be understated.
This was in ten categories, which included the private and public sector, sustainability, financial transformation, and awards such as the young CFO of the year.
The top and most anticipated accolade was the CFO of the Year, which was won by Kate Kiiza of Dfcu Bank, who earlier on in the night had picked up another accolade for the Finance, Transformation, and Technology award.
Held annually, the awards over the years have celebrated 38 professionals who have won 55 CFO awards, of which 29 percent of these have been female, taking 27 percent of the awards.
Kiiza’s win at this year’s awards also continued a streak of banks dominating the awards; over the years; 36 percent of the awards have been won by the banking sector, with the corporate sector settling for 20 percent while the public sector and SMEs enjoy 15 percent.
Charlotte Kukunda, Country Manager ACCA Uganda, noted that the 8th edition of the CFO Awards is a celebration of success and growth because it has attained its objective of raising the profile of the CFO role and functions and continues to highlight the good business and finance practices that they’ve deployed to create more sustainable outcomes for their businesses.
Paul Ssali, Country Managing Partner at Deloitte Uganda, highlighted the significance of the theme “Pushing Boundaries, Exploring the Growth Mindset” that comes at a crucial time when CFOs are required to provide leadership on emerging issues and implored all CFOs to take advantage of the growth and mentorship spaces like the quarterly CFO network forums hosted by Deloitte & ACCA aimed at networking and discussing topical issues.
Delivering the keynote address on the event theme, Baker Magunda, Board Chairman of Stanbic Bank Uganda Holdings Ltd tasked finance leaders to improve themselves through continued effort, learning and persistence while building the right attitude, especially in the face of failure, create the right environment for success and believe that “Growth exists in the realm of reality”.
Before winning the top accolade of the night, Kiiza had been nominated in various categories, that her eventual triumph was almost expected.
Other winners were Umeme Limited’s Andrew Oyie who took home both the Sustainability and Young CFO awards, Jacqueline Kiwanuka of UEDCL took home the public sector award while Nirav Patel of Steel and Tube won the leadership award among others.