Women In IT Excel At The 6th Edition Of CFO Awards 2022

The Chief Finance Officers (CFO) 6th Edition awards held on Thursday 27th October, at the Kampala Serena Hotel saw women in Information Technology (IT) excel in the awards winning.

Susan Lamunu Shereni , Head of the Finance and Administration Department at, an IT guru in Infectious Diseases Institute, is the overall winner of the Chief Finance Officer – CFO of the Year 2022. She is also the winner of the Sustainability Award.

The CFO awards aim at recognizing the role that CFOs and finance functions play within organizations, highlighting good business and finance practices while raising the profile of this strategic role.

This year, the awards categories include CFO of the Year Award; Young CFO Award; Strategy Execution Award; Finance Transformation Award; Public Sector Award; SME Sector Award; Not for Profit Sector Award, and the Sustainability Award.

“I’m so excited, I’ve been a CFO for years and this is so amazing. I wish to inspire young aspiring CFOs to keep in their best short, anything is possible,” Susan Shereni, the biggest winner of the day, said.

Ms. Shereni has over 10 years of experience in project management, Finance, and accounting in not-for-profit organizations. In this role, she is responsible for the organization’s continuous Enterprise Resource Planning system improvement, systems of internal control, human resource management, procurement, financial reporting, and budgeting.

From her first hands-on IT experience working with local and international partners, Shereni recognizes and appreciates the complexities around managing financial resources from local and international partners and strives to achieve organizational objectives in an effective, efficient and transparent way.

She is a certified Accountant, a fellow of the Association of Chartered Certified Accounts UK, and holds a master’s degree in business administration with a specialism in strategic planning from Herriot Watt University.

The awards were organized by the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants – ACCA Uganda in partnership with Deloitte Uganda. The Awards intend at recognizing the role played by CFOs in transforming businesses.

“We resolved to award excellence thus the idea of CFO awards was mooted. We’ve witnessed a global transformation in many ways, digital, economic, environmental, and many more”, said Norbert Kagoro, Country Managing Partner at Deloitte.

He added that through the years, their agenda has been both insightful and futuristic for the role financial professionals play in transformation.

“Now the next journey is to make sure that the quality of nominees is enhanced and over and above we have embarked on a journey of knowledge transfer through CFO forums. We also embarked on a journey of having CFO Master Class to assist the CFOs of the future,” said Ms. Charlotte Kukunda – Country manager – ACCA Uganda.

This year, they received 164 nominations which were slightly less than the previous two years.

“Observations show that there was an improvement in the functional categories, finance transformation, and strategy execution. Sustainability is coming up but not yet there and as usual, we had a very good turn up for the young CFO which continues to attract great participation. The public sector has also improved. Female CFOs participated better this year in terms of nominations,” she added.

Other winners are;CFO of the Year Runners Up – Julius Katanaka – Head Finance – Wazalendo SACCO.

He is a two Africa Chief Finance Officer (CFO) award finalist for the Financial Services award, Small Medium enterprises award 2022, a winner of the Uganda Chief Finance Officer (CFO) award; Sustainability award winner in 2021, and Financial Reporting (FiRe) awards winner 2021.

He is a result-oriented professional with several years of public and private sector experience in Finance and auditing and risk management.
Katanaka holds a Master of Science in Professional Accountancy from the University of London.

Young CFO and Strategy Awards – Andrew Ssekamwa – CFO at I&M Bank. Andrew, who also bagged two awards, is an experienced Chief Financial Officer with a demonstrated history of budgeting, risk management, and compliance across a variety of industries; including financial services, manufacturing, hospitality, FMCG, and retail.

He holds a Master of Business Administration from the University of London and Makerere University’s Bachelor of Statistics, Development Economics, and International Development.

Public Sector Award – Richard Byarugaba – Executive Director Finance – Bank of Uganda (BOU).Byarugaba has worked with the Bank of Uganda since 1992 after his Bachelor’s degree.

He has a Master’s in Finance for Development Degree in 1998. He is a Fellow of the prestigious Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) in the UK and is a member of the Institute of Certified Public Accountants (ICPAU)

Financing Transformation Award – Moses Amani – CFO at Hima Cement.

The Uganda Breweries Limited (UBL) Finance and Strategy Director, Busola Doregos became the first female to be crowned as CFO of the year in the 2019 CFO awards.

Organized under the theme Ethics and Trust as the Competitive Advantage for Business Sustainability”, the 2019 awards saw winners in seven categories; seeking out managers that exhibit excellence among the seven skills of an accountant, such as intelligence, experience, vision, creativity, digital knowledge, emotional intelligence, technical and ethical skills.

In the only double win of the night, Busola also scooped the award for the Finance Transformation Award in recognition of her work in automation, where she has steered the transition of reporting activities to the Shared Services Centre to free up the Finance function in-market to be exceptional business partners and value creators.

Busola now walks in the footsteps of Alvin Mbugua, the current Managing Director who was the very first winner of the CFO Award in 2017 when he was in the role of Finance Director at UBL.