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When it comes to entrepreneurship, Aga Sekalala Senior has been there and done that.
Starting out, Aga Sekalala Sr. worked alongside his father in a home-based coffee processing business in the 1950s.
In the 1960s, he went to the UK and studied journalism at the London School of Journalism. London.
When he came back, he dabbled in a number of jobs including working for Radio Uganda and Uganda Television before serving as an information officer in government.
It was his stint on television and on radio that opened his ears and eyes to business. He hosted a popular programme “Doube Your Money, where he dished out business advice to aspiring entrepreneurs.
With this wealth of business knowledge, Sekalala decided to strike it out on his own.
One of his first business ventures was a petrol station Esso, along Jinja Road in Kampala. It is that was located opposite Udyam House and because of its popularity, that particular place came to be known as Esso Corner.
Yet it was in 1992 that Sekalala senior came into his real business element when he founded Ugachick Poultry Breeders Uganda Limited, commonly referred to as Ugachick, a poultry breeding and marketing company in Magigye, Gayaza.
When the company first began, it was co-owned by Aga Sekalala Sr, James Mulwana, and their Dutch partner, Hans Blasberg. In 1997, Ugachick Poultry Breeders was in dire financial straits. Mulwana and Blasberg withdrew and sold their shares to Aga leaving him as the sole owner.
He has grown the company by leaps and bounds within Uganda and in the East African region so that when one talks about chicken breeding in Uganda, the name that comes to mind is Ugachick.
Besides the chicken and fuel business, has been involved in a variety of other ventures including catering and hospitality (with Lion Hotel, which later became Lion Shopping Centre), steel tool manufacturing (with S- Engineering), vanilla and fish farming (at Magigye and on the shores of L.Victoria), and agrochemical importation with Sekalala Enterprises Ltd.
Succession
There is no doubt that Sekalala Senior currently in his 70s has left an indelible mark on Uganda’s business landscape.
Although he is still active in his ventures, in 2010, he handed the day to day work to one of his sons, Aga Sekalala Junior an entrepreneur in his own right.
Sekalala Junior studied Chemical Engineering at the University of New Mexico in the US. In the mid 1990s, Sekalala Junior and his business partners launched one of the most popular night clubs, Club Silk.
He also managed Radio Simba, one of the most listened to radio stations in which his family has a stake. Therefore he has got a lot of managerial experience under his belt.
By handing over the reins of the business to his son, Sekalala Senior has opened up a clear path to a smooth transition and succession rarely travelled by many business owners in Uganda.
In one of his interviews after a few years at the helm of Ugachick, Sekala Junior said the most important issue when it comes to succession is to handle the expectations of the original founder especially as far as utilizing company resources is concerned.
“If you understand that as a caretaker, the spotlight is on you, there might not be as much urgency to want to dig your hand into the coffers,” he told Robert Kabushenga in 2022.
He says succession in business especially when it involves a family member is a safer bet.
“Family is easy to work with in terms of trust and loyalty and being able to make long-term plans. If family is involved, you accumulate more capital, relationships, networks. These groups are the go-to, even when an external player wants to come into the market they will partner with them. It’s become the safe bet, really,” he told as US interviewer.
Yet Sekalala Junior says running a family business is not a cup of tea.
“Sometimes you’re worn out. Sometimes you are tired. Sometimes you fail. sometimes you have to go backwards. You have more balls to juggle. You have owners, shareholders, employees and then the family. You need to be very ready for a very long slope,” he says.