Inside the Babirukamu Home: A Kiln Where Leadership Was Forged by a Mother’s Tough Love — Tempered by a Father’s Steady Hand In the crowded Babirukamu household in Kampala in the 1980s and 1990s — where daily dawn Bible study, a mother’s uncompromising love and a family’s stubborn generosity, anchored by a father’s fierce tenderness, doubled as the family curriculum — a seedbed of leadership quietly took root. That home raised siblings who went on to shape institutions: Emma Ahumuza Mugisha now leads Retail and Digital Banking (African subsidiaries) at Access Bank Plc after serving as Executive Director and Head, Business Banking at Stanbic; Collin Babirukamu directs IT at the Bank of Uganda and once ran e-Government services at NITA-U; Pamela Babirukamu built Evolving Woman into a platform for coaching, authorship and movement-building. Out of prayer, market stalls, birthday-cake bus rides and hard losses the Babirukamus forged a “ruthless tenderness” — charity in practice, grit in action and moral clarity — that has rippled from the living room into churches, markets, boardrooms and public life.

Portrait and candid photographs of Emma Ahumuza Mugisha, Collin Babirukamu and Pamela Babirukamu in home, market and prayer settings, showing the siblings together, at work and in quiet moments — conveying family bonds, faith and the domestic roots of their leadership.

Left to right: Collin Babirukamu (Executive Director, IT, Bank of Uganda), Emma Ahumuza Mugisha (Head, Retail & Digital Banking — African subsidiaries, Access Bank Plc) and Pamela Babirukamu (CEO & co-founder, Evolving Woman). The three siblings laugh together on a sofa — a quiet portrait of the family ties that shaped them. Raised in a crowded, prayerful home and schooled at their mother’s Luwum Street stall, the Babirukamus learned presence, persuasion and practical care; those everyday disciplines have since rippled into churches, markets, boardrooms and public life.

Muhereza KyamuteteraDecember 10, 2025December 10, 2025

“Charity begins at home,” goes the proverb — and for the Babirukamu family, leadership does too. In a house that opened its doors to cousins, neighbours and strangers, where Bible study at six a.m. was non-negotiable, and the sitting room doubled as a dormitory, the habits of generosity, presence and service were not taught as theory but lived out in daily ritual. Those habits, the siblings say, became the quiet curriculum that shaped careers and character: Emma Ahumuza Mugisha is today Head, Retail and Digital Banking (African subsidiaries) at Access Bank Plc after previously serving as Executive Director and Head…

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