Uganda Breweries elevates Emmy Hashakimana to Commercial Director Role

After doing what Uganda Breweries says is a “fantastic job leading the marketing team”, Emmy Hashakimana has been promoted to the role of Commercial Director. The new assignment is effective October 1st 2023.

Prior to the promotion, Emmy has been the Marketing & Innovations Director since November 2020. According to an internal announcement this reporter has seen, the customer marketing function has also been transitioned from the marketing department to the sales department and will also report to the Commercial Director.

A prolific and collaborative team leader, Emmy is hailed for “creating and executing a consumer-focused portfolio expansion strategy that doubled the number of brands with marketing plans which was integral to the UBL Total Beverage Alcohol (TBA) market share growth from 51% to 60% in the period and the business net sales value growing by +50%”.

Some of the key executions include the successful innovation launches of Guinness Smooth, Tusker Cider, Smirnoff Pineapple, Tanqueray Flor de Sevilla and Captain Morgan commercialisation. 

“The quality of UBL marketing execution has been elevated to world-class with UBL getting Diageo global and Uganda Marketing Excellence awards recognition for Johnnie Walker and Guinness execution. The local jewels⏤Bell Lager, Pilsner, V&A and Bond 7 also got refreshed positioning and visual identities while memorable brand campaigns and platforms were created for Tusker Lite, Singleton and Uganda Waragi growing Brand equity across,” adds the internal announcement.

Some of the memorable campaigns launched under his leadership, include Mpola Enjoyments (Bell), Turn on Your Lite (Tusker Lite), Behold the Finest (Tusker Malt), Your Time is Now (Pilsner Lager), Walkers Tours (Johnny Walker), We love UG (Uganda Waragi), Share Your Flair (V&A), Smirnoff Fiestas (Smirnoff), Black Shines Brightest and This will be Good (Singleton).

“Emmy also created a new digital implant team in marketing that now stands at 7 people and introduced shopper marketing roles in the customer marketing team. Emmy’s proudest achievement however is the work with growing people; this included exporting Ugandan marketing talent to the UK, Kenya and Tanzania as well as promoting within the team. He also built a strong diverse multicultural team where everyone can be their best selves, and this is reflected in the best-ever marketing team engagement scores,” adds the announcement.

Emmy isn’t new to commercialisation. He spent 5 years as Head of Africa Innovation Commercialisation based at the London Diageo Headquarters where he worked with the Commercial Directors in the markets across Africa-Nigeria, South Africa, Ghana, Kenya, Ethiopia, Cameroon, Angola, Uganda and Tanzania on the innovation agenda. He was also Head of Customer Marketing at UBL in 2012 with the function reporting to sales where “he transformed it from tactical promotions-focused function to the engine of commercial execution with a clear business rhythm and customer-centric category growth drivers”. 

Emmy started his career with Unilever where he held various Sales Representative roles in Hoima, Jinja, Mukono and Kampala. His last role at Unilever was Country Sales Manager for Rwanda and Burundi where he revamped the RTC and grew the business by 70% in 12 months.