One-on-one with Donald Twesiga – Airtel Uganda’s new IT Director Donald Twesiga, an IT professional with over 24 years of experience, joined Airtel Uganda as IT Director this February 2021. The Information Technology department at Airtel Uganda is responsible for enabling the business in digitizing, automating and business process reengineering and usage of data and computers. As IT Director, Donald heads the six IT functions, namely, Service Delivery & Project Management; Business Intelligence; Business Support System; IT Governance; Airtel Money Portfolio Management and IT Security & infrastructure. CEO East Africa Magazine, caught up with Donald, on his new role at one of the country’s leading telecoms.

Congratulations on your new role. First, tell us about yourself- who is Donald?

I am Donald Twesiga. My friends call me Don, DT, Mr T and Don T while my siblings simply call me Donnie. I am from a humble family of 4 siblings. I am a family man with 3 children, and I live in Mbuya.

I hold an M.Sc. in Information Systems Management from the University of Liverpool and my passion is mainly in IT and how it can make a difference in people’s lives. I am also qualified in advanced project management.

On weekends you will find me having a light moment with like-minded friends and I am always happy to meet new people.

Briefly, what is your previous experience in the business and profession?

I started work at Infocom in 1998 as a systems engineer. I could easily say, we/Infocom were the pioneers of the Internet in Uganda. At the time, we only offered email and had a 64k satellite link to serve the whole country.

I then went on to work for MTN Uganda just when it was starting in 1998 in the IT department and later went on to work in Zambia as the CIO at MTN Zambia for 1 year. I then returned to MTN Uganda to start Mobile Money as the technical lead. In 2010 I went on to join Safaricom as the head of their IT department until 2016.  For two years, I did Mobile Money/IT consultancy in South Sudan, Ethiopia, Uganda, Rwanda and Kenya before joining Telkom Kenya in 2018. This February 2021, I joined Airtel Uganda as the IT Director.  

What are your hobbies?

Golf, Watching F1 and occasionally extreme sport (I have done rafting on the River Nile)

It has been about six months in your new role as IT Director at Airtel Uganda, how is the journey so far?

The six-month journey at Airtel Uganda has majorly been full of learning while running at 1000mph! I joined when Ugandans were returning from the pandemic lockdown and there was a lot to be done. The EC team has been very helpful in navigating the deep waters especially dealing with Airtel Group that is so vast.

There are still areas of improvement that I am working on, but generally, I have a grip on the strings, despite getting about 240 emails a day! I would have liked to interact with staff a lot more but the work tight schedule, combined with the pandemic has not helped.

What is your role and vision for Airtel as the IT Director?

My role is basically to provide the direction of IT in Airtel Uganda, ensure the business gets the best service from IT as an enabler as well as interface with the wider Airtel Group team. I also ensure my team gets all the business’ requirements — internal and external and translate them into IT deliverables, and then go ahead to deliver them to the best of my and the team’s abilities.beylikdüzü escort

Speaking of innovations, any key IT highlights so far?

All the innovations I have up my sleeve are mainly to improve and transform how we and customers interact. My key focus areas are analytics— ensuring that we have data at our fingertips, securing our computing environment so that our customers can work from anywhere (digital workspaces), as well as contactless convenience such as biometric or phone channel access to services.

As a leader, what would you say are your values, that gives you the professional compass?  

Authenticity, Compassion and Commitment

Any last words?

Well, to my team, I would like to say that Airtel Uganda is growing into a very big company; there is a need for us to grow as individuals and mirror the company’s ambitions and the opportunities before us. There shouldn’t be silos of knowledge because we depend on each other. We also need to look at our customers not only as people who give us money, rather we need to focus on how we can transform their lives through providing relevant services to them such as supporting telemedicine, produce trading portals, E-learning etc. The revenue will come naturally if our customers feel we are adding value to their lives every day.