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Anne Juuko’s elevation from Stanbic Uganda’s Chief Executive role to Global Markets, Regional Head for East Africa, which CEO East Africa Magazine broke days ago has now been confirmed.
On February 23 2024, this magazine broke the story that following her impressive performance and given her rich experience in the global markets business, Juuko had been elevated to a regional role.
In a public announcement, Patrick Mweheire, the Standard Bank Regional Chief Executive for East Africa, under whose docket Uganda falls, told staff that “Anne Juuko has been appointed to a new leadership role as Global Markets, Regional Head for East Africa, effective 1 April 2024”.
“On behalf of the Management, I congratulate Anne on this skyward deployment within the Group Africa Regions Global Markets leadership where she will oversee seven markets including Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, DR Congo, South Sudan, Malawi and Zambia,” Mr. Mweheire wrote.
“We thank Anne and the leadership team in Uganda for the collaboration and for leading their respective teams to considerable success and delivering for both our customers and shareholders. I also take this opportunity to welcome Anne to the East Africa Region- an important growth vector in the Group’s business strategy and I am confident that she will steer the respective country teams to deliver on the set revenue, profitability and sustainability goals given her expertise, market networks and leadership experience. A successor to take on the responsibilities of the bank will be announced in due course,” Mweheire concluded.
The formal announcement ends weeks of speculation on Anne Juuko’s next move.
A trailblazing female leader
She succeeded Patrick Mweheire to become the first female Chief Executive of Uganda’s largest commercial lender in 2020 and is lauded for sustaining the bank’s profitability through some of the most challenging operating environments including two years of the global covid-19 pandemic.
Under her, the bank posted strong prosperity announcing a profit after tax of UGX 365 in 2022, up from UGX 242bn in her first year 2020. Performance results for 2023 are set to be released later this month.
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The Bank also registered considerable success in enabling access to affordable credit for smallholder farmer groups with the launch in 2021 of the SACCO financing and capacity building programme which has since enrolled over 6000 groups with a combined membership of 1.8 million people and deposits of over UGX 200 billion.
Collectively, the bank has lent over UGX 80 billion at 10% annual interest to SACCO groups which has indirectly benefited nearly 10 million Ugandans, with support from partners such as Abi Trust, Operation Wealth Creation. It also played a critical part in enabling the implementation of the government of Uganda’s led Parish Development Model.
In 2022, Stanbic Bank in partnership with the International Finance Corporation (IFC) launched Stanbic4Her, a special interest vehicle for capacity building and markets development designed to support access to affordable credit by women led local enterprises in Uganda.
Through Stanbic4Her, Stanbic has enrolled 19 000 women entrepreneurs of which 14 000 were new to bank and had disbursed over UGX 60 billion in lending to women led businesses at an annual interest rate of 15.5% as well as extending financial literacy training to over 54,000 women.
Beyond banking, Anne will, among others, be remembered for championing maternal and neonatal health having launched the Corporate Society for Safe Motherhood alongside other private sector actors, in partnership with the Ministry of Health. Nearly 100, 000 women have benefited from the effort since 2021.
During her time, the bank also invested in FlexiPay, a digital wallet that enables access to financial services without necessarily having a bank account. The digital channel has seen tremendous growth moving from 390, 000 wallets in 2022 to over 850, 000—nearly a million as of last year.
Anne Juuko holds a Bachelor of Commerce degree from Makerere University and a master’s degree in strategic planning from the Herriot Watt Business School in Edinburgh, Scotland.