The evolving role of the CFO to Chief Value Officer has taken centre stage in recent years with organisations and CFOs themselves demanding to take more and curving out more action in the running and transforming of their organisations.
Alongside that conversation has been the rise as well as, of the need for CFOs with an entrepreneurial mindset⏤ a way of thinking that emphasizes innovation, creativity and taking calculated risks⏤ instead of the traditional mindset that is more preoccupied with financial management and risk mitigation.
Entrepreneurial CFOs are willing to challenge the status quo, and are open to continuous learning and improvement, as well as how best to create value for the entire stakeholder spectrum.
But Fiona Nuwamanya FCCA, Rocket Health’s Chief Finance Officer, she has taken the entrepreneurial mindset a little further⏤ by being an entrepreneur and playing right at the centre of the action.
In 2016, she left a stable and well-paying job with Medical Access Uganda Limited to join friends⏤ Dr. Davis Musinguzi, Hope Fortunate Achiro, Dr. William Lubega and John Mark Bwanika , founders of Rocket Health.
Rocket Health is a Telemedicine company that offers convenient doctor consultations through chat /voice/video calls coupled with last-mile lab sample collection, testing, and pharmacy prescription delivery.
Well, Rocket Health back then was not the thriving telemedicine provider that we know today, but it was just the shared purpose improve access to healthcare that kept the founders together, through thick and thin, including the 2020-2021 Covid-19 pandemic.
As CFO and Director, Fiona has been instrumental in transforming how the organisation works and interacts with the finance team; identifying and creating value points that created an impact within and outside the business while eliminating waste. She has also been a strong pillar of connection between the business and external stakeholders including managing investor relations.
More importantly, she has been at the forefront of driving business productivity performance monitoring and enabling the survival of the business, especially during and post-pandemic.
ACCA Africa CFO of the Year 2023
It is this fortitude, outstanding leadership and transformational impact that caught the attention of the judges during the 2023 ACCA Africa CFO Awards, earning Fiona the ACCA Africa CFO Of the Year Award.
ACCA is a global body for professional accountants and has over 240,000 members globally and of these, over 18,000 members are in Africa.
The Africa CFO Awards is a collaborative regional initiative that seeks to recognise excellence and the essential role that finance functions play in helping to build resilient organisations and sustainable business models and nurturing CEOs or business leaders for today and tomorrow.
A total of 129 nominations from 16 countries were up for consideration in 5 categories, namely Micro, Small and Medium Enterprise; Young CFO; Public Sector; ESG and Financial Services CFO of the Year awards.
Winners went through a very rigorous process that involved among others, a panel of distinguished judges that included Chembe Chakalashi, the CFO of Citi Bank Zambia; Unguu Sulay the MD of Coca-Cola Kwanza Tanzania; Audrey Naa Dei, the MD of AudreyGrey and Sanjay Rughani, the CEO of Standard Chartered Bank Uganda.
From these nominations in the various categories, once finalists were identified, the overall winner i.e. CFO of The Year was selected by the judges from the finalists of each category. The judges looked out for leadership and real evidence of transformation for consideration for the Africa CFO Award.
According to ACCA, this special award goes to a CFO or head of finance who has demonstrated financial leadership and outstanding performance over several years, excellence and foresight in leadership for themselves, team members and their organization. The individual should have demonstrated great courage and ability to navigate significant disruptions in their organization.
Fiona Nuwamanya was crowned Africa CFO of the year 2023 at an exciting Awards Gala Dinner during the Africa Members Convention in December 2023 in Johannesburg. This is a bi-annual convention that brings together finance professionals from across the continent.
The 2023 convention centred on exploring the pivotal role of the accounting profession in Africa in fostering economic recovery, sustainability, and social governance.
Commenting about her recognition, then, Fiona said her achievement was a “testament of the diligent support I have received from my team at Rocket Health over the years, as they keep challenging me to go further”.
“I’d like to take the opportunity to thank Dr. Davis Musinguzi, the founder and CEO, for inviting me to join him and the team on this very exciting journey of revolutionising healthcare in Africa. It has been quite a journey of learning, and re-learning. The journey has tested everything in me,” she added.
Fiona also reiterated that there was a “need to build more businesses in Africa to exploit the potential and skills across all sectors”, adding: “I wear this badge with honour and invite finance professionals to harness their role and create the much needed and desired value in every business”.
“When all is said and done, I hope people remember my passion for the finance profession,” she emphasised.
A multi-faceted finance professional
Fiona is a Chartered accountant with over 14 years of finance and management experience acquired from diverse industry sectors. She has previously worked as an auditor for Ernst & Young (a global audit firm) and as a Financial Controller at Medical Access Uganda. She has worked in over 15 countries and gained experience working with various donor programs.
She is a Fellow of The Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (FCCA) holds a Bachelor of Science in Business Statistics from Makerere University, an MBA from Edinburgh Business School, and has additional qualifications in global health procurement and supply chain management, and in Digital Finance and Innovations.
When she is not working, Fiona participates as a mentor in various mentorship programmes as a way of giving back to her community and sharing skills and knowledge. She strongly believes in training, coaching and mentorship of people around her to enhance their employability and readiness for opportunities. She has mentored youths under the 40 Days Over 40 Smiles Foundation (commonly known as 40-40), Zimba Women Mentorship Programme, and 101 2moro Alive youth project supported by Rotary Club of Acacia Sunset. In 2020, she was a nominee in the Top 40 under 40 competition run by The New Vision Newspaper – Uganda’s leading daily.
Fiona has attended Worship Harvest Ministries Church since 2018 and is plugged into a missional community for service.
About Rocket Health
Rocket Health is a service of The Medical Concierge Group, founded in 2012 and is the leading telemedicine provider in Uganda, offering an end-to-end healthcare experience to over 100,000 individual patients.
Rocket Health’s solution leverages technology to provide 4 integrated services – remote consultations, medicine delivery, home sample collection for laboratory diagnostic testing and physical specialist clinic consultations – with a focus on quality, convenience and affordability. Users can access their services via a simple USSD dial (*280#) on any mobile platform. The company is also currently is in partnership with over 15 insurance companies including Prudential, UAP Old Mutual, Jubilee, and Liberty among others.
In March 2022, Rocket Health closed a $5m Series A funding round to facilitate expansion of its telemedicine and last-mile healthcare delivery model. Since then, the company has opened a new hub, with a clinic, pharmacy, laboratory and vaccination center in Kyetume, Gayaza. The company has also ventured into the wholesale supply chain, opening a warehouse in Bugolobi to serve retail pharmacies, clinics, and hospitals across the country.