Towards the end of 2013, Japheth Katto, announced that he would be retiring as Chief Executive Officer (CEO) at the Uganda’s Capital Markets Authority (CMA), after serving in the same position since 1988 when CMA was founded. A search for a substantive CEO begun, and in November 2013, Keith Kalyegira was appointed as Katto’s heir and officially assumes office January 2014. The CEO’s Taddewo Senyonyi interviewed Kalyegira about his priorities at CMA and a broad range of issues related to capital markets. Below are the excerpts:
Who is Keith Kalyegira?
Keith Kalyegira was born 43 years ago and is married with three children. I am a graduate of Makerere University where I completed a Bachelors of Commerce (Accounting) degree in 1993, the ICSA course in 1997 and an MBA at University of Cape Town in 2002. I worked with Shell now Vivo Energy in Uganda and South Africa in various senior managerial roles (in the commercial, operations and finance departments), in the Public Enterprise Reform and Divestiture Program of the Ministry of Finance where I headed the Parastatal Monitoring Unit, in NSSF as Chief Investment Officer, in Momentum Consulting (a company I founded and operated) and as Managing Director of First Renaissance Securities, a Zimbabwean owned firm that was licensed by the Capital Markets Authority as a broker/dealer, and later on as an investment advisor. I invest in listed equities in the region and real estate directly and through a couple of investment clubs I am part of, where we are considering private equity investments as a source of faster growth.
What interested you most in the CMA job?
Anastacia Tshesane to become PwC SA CEOI reasoned that taking up the job of CEO of CMA provided me with an opportunity to play a leading role in the growth of Uganda’s capital market, given my vast private and public sector experience, part of which involved providing financial oversight to the work of several public sector institutions, and as a licensee and member of the governing council of the Uganda Securities Exchange. I have had the opportunity of setting up a sub national regulatory body in the region. The industry and its setting is therefore relatively familiar territory. I was also attracted by the theme of the three year strategic plan which is “Driving Growth”.
I think this role provides me with a very good opportunity to motivate potential issuers of listed and unlisted fixed income, equity and property investments to come to the market, for their own benefit, and that of individual and institutional investors. I look forward to the challenge of contributing to the growth of the capital markets, together with all key stakeholders like the Central Bank, Ministry of Finance, the Private Sector Foundation Uganda, the Uganda Manufacturers Association, chambers of commerce, mines & petroleum and other bodies and associations, existing and new market intermediaries, and all the other market players. This is an effort that involves all of us and I am convinced Ugandans have the skills to contribute to making Uganda’s capital markets the most vibrant, efficient and competitive centre for investment, in Africa.
You are replacing Japheth Katto, the “God father
