The Securities Exchange is a reflection of the economy; when the economy does not perform well, the markets do not do perform either.

The automation of the stock trading at the Uganda Securities Exchange (USE) in late August 2015 was highly anticipated to turn around the fate of the stock market. At the same time, it would act as an eye-opener for Uganda’s stock market to foreign investors.

Despite the slow growth of the capital market in Uganda, CMA has made progress on various fronts. In a conversation with Summit Consulting Ltd, Mr. Keith Kalyegira, the Chief Executive Officer shares his excitement about CMA’s future, explains the company’s role in setting the pace of capital markets development and the contribution to the NDP III.

  1. Who is Mr. Keith Kalyegira? How did your early training and roles prepare you to win in your current job as the CEO of CMA?

Keith Kalyegira is a father and husband. He is a Christian. He is passionate about the development of Uganda’s economy particularly the role of finance in economic transformation. That has always been my vision to ensure that there is justice in the disbursement of capital.

Am an early investor, my first investment in 2000 in the shares of a gold company in South Africa. This was at the beginning of my MBA at the University of Cape Town. That marked the journey of my equity investments. I went on to invest in other companies like Iron and steel, magnet manufacturing, and ICT between 2000 and 2003. This helped expose me to financial markets in developing African economies. This excited me about the power of financial markets.

When I returned to Uganda, I joined the privatization unit and one of the exciting roles in that job was restructuring of parastatal pension funds. This involved introducing the role of independent fund management for pension funds, particularly for the Uganda Communications Employees pension scheme. The task was to improve its performance for the benefit of members who were staff of Uganda Telecom, Post Bank, and Uganda Posts

I went on to briefly manage NSSF investments and ended up as an independent adviser on the NSSF Investment Committee. I also served as the Chief Executive Officer of an investment advisory firm that was fully licensed by the Capital Markets Authority. My interest was developing the equity market.

Read the full Interview here, Click here to view