Dfcu appoints Katamba, announces Kisaame exit

Mr Mathias Katamba, Dfcu Bank's newly appointed Chief Executive Officer. COURTESY PHOTO  

In Summary

• He holds a Masters in Financial Management from the University of London and has also attended the John F Kennedy School of Education at Harvard University and the Advanced Leadership Programme at the University of Pennsylvania.
• Mr Mugerwa said in the statement the bank believes Mr Katamba is well placed to continue the progress of Dfcu by building on the successes of his predecessor to the benefit of all stakeholders.

By Dorothy Nakaweesi

Kampala. Dfcu Bank has appointed Mathias Katamba as the new chief executive officer effective January 2, 2019.
The announcement ends speculation about the bank’s leadership, which had suggested Dfcu was facing a leadership crisis.

Mr Katamba will replace Juma Kisaame, whose 11 year stint at Uganda’s second largest bank, will end in the first quarter of 2019. Dfcu has had major changes in this year alone, starting with the exit of CDC Group from the bank’s shareholding, which handed Arise Investments BV majority shareholding.

Arise Investments BV is a consortium of investors comprising of Rabobank, Norfund (NorFinance) and FMO.”
In a statement released Wednesday, dfcu chairman, Jimmy D Mugerwa, said Mr Kisaame had played a key role in assisting Dfcu Limited, the holding company, to realign the shareholding that brought on board strategic partners such as Arise Investments BV.

“He (Kisaame) also led the most successful acquisitions in the banking industry in Uganda,” he said, highlighting Dfcu’s acquisition of assets and some liabilities of Global Trust in 2014 and later Crane Bank in 2017.

During his time, Mr Mugerwa said Mr Kisaame had seen tremendous growth increasing shareholders value, key among which included dfcu becoming the second largest bank, which resulted in three-fold balance sheet growth to more than Shs3 trillion, a customer base of close to one million and a network of 65 branches.

Mr Katamba, who joins Dfcu from Housing Finance Bank, has more than 15 years of finance and banking experience, 12 of which have been at executive level.

He has previously worked at Finance Trust Bank, Orient Bank, Postbank and Barclays Africa.
He holds a Masters in Financial Management from the University of London and has also attended the John F Kennedy School of Education at Harvard University and the Advanced Leadership Programme at the University of Pennsylvania.

Mr Mugerwa said in the statement the bank believes Mr Katamba is well placed to continue the progress of Dfcu by building on the successes of his predecessor to the benefit of all stakeholders.

dnakaweesi@ug.nationmedia.com