EXCLUSIVE: Ecobank taps Stanbic’s Grace Muliisa as its Uganda Managing Director

Grace Muliisa, the former Head Personal and Business Banking at Stanbic Bank, since July 2020, has been appointed the Managing Director for Ecobank Uganda Limited, CEO East Africa Magazine can exclusively reveal.

On approval by the Central Bank, Grace is set to replace Mrs Annette Kihuguru, the bank’s long-serving Executive Director, who has been Acting Managing Director, since July 2020. Annette, replaced, Mr Clement Dodoo, who left the Ecobank Group to take up the Group Director, Integrations role at Equity Group Holdings Limited in Nairobi.

We understand Annette is retiring from banking after a three-decade long banking career.

It is not yet clear when Grace reports at Ecobank,or when Annette will leave, but we can confirm that Grace has already signed out of Stanbic Bank.

“Grace has already left Stanbic Bank,” a source at Stanbic confirmed to this reporter last week. 

Grace brings to Ecobank, two decades of banking experience. At Stanbic Bank, where she has worked since September 2019, she has been in charge of driving the retail growth strategy and execution at Stanbic Bank Uganda.  

Before Stanbic Bank, Grace worked at Standard Chartered Bank Uganda as the Country Head, Retail Clients from November 2011 until 2016. Between 2017 and 2019 she worked for Standard Chartered Bank in Singapore in an operational risk role, before returning home in September 2019 to join Stanbic Uganda.

She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Social Sciences/ BA (Hons) from Makerere University acquired in 1995 to 1998. She’s a Chartered Banker CBMBA from Bangor Business School (2018).

At Ecobank, Grace has a challenge to deploying her rich banking experience and networks to translate Ecobank’s steady growth in assets- a Compounded Annual Growth Rate of 13% from UGX285.8 billion in 2015 to UGX673.6 billion in 2020 and a similar growth in Customer Deposits (from UGX2017.5 billion to UGX507.5 billion) into steady profits for the shareholders.

Over the last seven years, Ecobank has had mixed profit fortunes- recovering from a UGX 800 million loss in 2015, to a UGX800 million profit in 2016; UGX1.5 billion profit in 2017; UGX4.8 billion profit in 2018 and UGX4.1 billion profit in 2019.

In 2020, the bank made a UGX6 billion loss.

Who is Annette Kihuguru?

Annette, retires after an illustrious three-decade banking career that saw her rise from the then Uganda Commercial Bank where she started her banking career, and subsequently Stanbic Bank Uganda and Barclays Bank Uganda (now Absa Bank Uganda) from where she joined Ecobank Uganda as the Executive Director and Head Commercial Banking before being appointed Ag. Managing Director.

She holds a master’s degree in Management from The Uganda Management and Bachelor’s Degree in Arts (Economics and Political Science from Makerere University.