James K. Wanjagi

Responsible for Uganda Leadership Academy | Effective Director Programs (TED) Tanzania | Board Facilitation on Board Governance programs | Executive Coaching

• Lead and managed Executive Eduction programs for the SBS Uganda Leadership Academy
• Led and managed numerous Effective Director (TED) programs in Tanzania
• Board Facilitator on board governance and strategy and Board Evaluation specialist for over 15 corporate and public institutions across the EA region
• Led consultant engagement strategies for over 20 SMEs and large corporations in the East Africa region
• Led over 40 senior and middle-level leaders from varied organizations across East Africa through executive coaching sessions

Premier Education Institution whose mandate is to transform leadership in Africa in the 21st century using globally tried and tested teaching methods and a culture that fosters continuous learning.

Responsible for MBA Course development and facilitation, Executive Educations programs development and facilitation, Moderation of various Open dialogue sessions, Developing relevant research papers, and articles

Responsibilities

• Facilitated to over 500 MBA students on topics in Organizational Management, Project Management, Change Management, Management Information Systems (MIS), Healthcare Management Information Systems (HMIS)
• Facilitated to over 300 leaders Executive Education sessions for middle and senior level managers in organizations across Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda on topics like Strategy, Emerging Technologies, Data Analytics, Board Effectiveness, Project Management, Change management, Organizational Behavior etc
• Undertook various research engagements with the aim of influencing leading edge practice, individually and in collaborating with fellow faculty colleagues
• Developed, engaged and facilitated various leadership talks, forum panels, and SME entrepreneurship seminars

The Kenya Institute of Bankers (KIB) is the umbrella body that serves all the 28 domestic and 14 foreign commercial banks in Kenya. KIB works with bank leaderships to manage the professional development (academic certification, training), consultancy, research, and overall accreditation of all the 35,000 bankers across the country.

KIB 2.0 transformational strategy (2022-2025) seeks to re-invent the organization. My overall responsibilities include - Strategic Vision and Leadership, Financial Management with P/L responsibility, Operations, Business Development, Performance Management, Stakeholder Management, Strategic Partnerships and collaborations management, Business Transformation and Board and governance interactions.

Key Achievements to date
1. Led an external consultant in developing KIB transformation strategy 2.0 driven by 5 pillars – Digital Transformation, Governance & People, Value Proposition & Visibility, Partnerships & Collaborations, and Business Sustainability Key Skills and Competencies. This was approved at governing council level and presented to the CBK Governor – KIB’s patron.
2. Spearheaded 3 Government, Central Bank & Commercial Bank stakeholder forums to discuss central bank digital currency, data protection, cybersecurity, and integrated payment systems. Over 300 participants from the banks, government and central bank attended.
3. Spearheaded overhaul of the Academic Department by registering, and setting up the KIB School of Business and Finance, a business unit – previously a department within KIB
4. Developed a 3-year partnership with Standard Group (the leading multi-media organization offering print, television, radio broadcasting and digital online services) for extensive media coverage for all KIB events.
5. Implemented a new organizational structure set at re-organizing the organization to be more efficient, reduce stagnation and increase growth and productivity.
6. Efficient management of P/L for 2022 driving up profitability by 23%
7. On track to meet and establish relationships with all 40 bank CEOs to support business development efforts for KIB
8. Developed road map to establish networks with all Microfinance Institutions, Saccos and Insurance firms as part fo business development.
*Slated as the Keynote speaker at the 10th Africa 4.0 Summit – a premier Fintech summit to be hosted in Nairobi, Kenya (March 2023)
*Was a panelist in the 2022 Seamless Africa conference – another key forum that brings together all players in the Fintech ecosystem in Africa (October 2022)

Iricon Ltd was established with headquarters in Nairobi, Kenya to offer consultancy, training, research and advisory solutions to the Fintech, and Financial Services industry. Iricon Limited has consulted for the following clients (not exhaustive):

1. Metropol Limited – Strategy development (2023-2027) engagement
2. AGRA – Capacity strengthening strategy engagement for the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries and Cooperatives (MoALFC)
3. Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA)- Digitalization and Sustainability of Public Services research engagement
4. Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI) Uganda – 3-year transformational strategy development and organizational Project Management Maturity Model – OPM3 assessment and remediation
5. Optiven Group – 10-year | 3-year Transformation strategy engagement to amongst other things digitalize Optiven’s Real Estate operations.
6. Kenfranka Sacco – Technical Advisor for the development of a deposit, payment, asset finance and basic working capital lending mobile app platform that assisted the Sacco increase their MSME base by close to 400%

Key Achievements included:
1. Completion and implementation of Iricon’s 5-year strategy (2021-2025) through annual business plans
2. YoY setting, and meeting of revenue targets
3. Successful completion of various strategy engagements (see list partial list above)
4. Efficient P&L management to deliver results to shareholders and drive-up profitability by double-digits yearly.
5. Leading business development efforts that have allowed Iricon to support over 10 banks and 3 MFIs in various consultancy and training efforts.

National Bank of Kenya is a commercial bank licensed by the Central Bank of Kenya, and is currently a subsidiary of the KCB group. Founded in 1968, it is considered a top tier 2 bank with assets of 146 billion and over 2,000 employees.

As the Director in charge of strategy, projects, digital innovation and products, high Level job responsibilities included – Bank strategy management, digital innovation management and execution, management of the bank’s strategic projects, product research and development, and revenue generation through transactional banking.

Key achievements included:
1. Development of the banks 3-year strategy (2019-2023) which incorporated the 1st bank ever Digital Transformation strategy component.
2. Spearheaded the board presentation, approval and subsequent implementation of the strategy through Cascade (https://www.cascade.app/) – NBK’s overall tool for strategic management.
3. Integration with 10 government and county institutions like KPA, KRA, Nairobi County with the bank integrated payment system which I led the design and implementation. This resulted in an increase of NFI revenue in 2019 by 30%, and 26% in 2020 by April.
4. Signing of 5 key strategy partnerships and alliances, to support payment integration, business growth, working capital management, enhanced card issuance – both for corporate and retail banking divisions.
5. Reviewed and enhanced all short-term financing (working capital, overdraft, asset finance, term loan) policies and systems within the bank for SMEs. This strategy allows us to increase working capital disbursements to SMEs by over 76% in 2019.
6. Set up the bank’s PMO, that had oversight of over 60 projects a year with a total budget of KES 10 billion, and managed 10 project managers, and 20 project champions at the divisional level. Setting up the PMP increased strategic project completion rates from 48% to 69.5% in the space of 1-year.

Mobile Decisioning (MoDe) is a Financial Technology (Fin-Tech) company with over 360 million customers in Africa, Middle East, and Asia; across 28 countries, 32 markets, an annual gross revenue of KES 300 mil a year (2015). MoDe provides Finserve solutions like Advanced Airtime Credit as a Value Added Service (VAS) to over 10 Telcos (Airtel, Etisalt, Ooredo, Glow, MTN etc) in Africa, Middle East, and Asia.

FinTech / Finserve products / services included:
1. Advanced Airtime Credit (AAS)

2. Advanced Data Bundles Credit (ADBC)

3. Nano Mobile Cash Lending (NMCL)
4. Waya Waya (Mobile based payment and money remittance)
5. SemaMobile (MVNO-Telco) - Finserve

Responsible for Business Development | IT Strategy | IT Budget | Product Research and Development | Project Management Office | Day-to-Day IT Operations | Advanced Airtime Credit (AAS) Software and Platform development and maintenance | Managing 42 IT resources (Infrastructure, IT Security, IT Projects, Database, Deployment, Innovations, Networks, Help Desk, Service Delivery and Business Continuity)

Responsibilities included establishing the IT organization at MoDe, leading and managing the entire IT organization end to end while delivering various deployments in each of the 32 markets. Other key responsibilities included leading the development, implementation and management of the various growth products (Nano mobile cash lending, Waya waya payment and remittance), and the development of SemaMobile / ZionCell - a Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO) in Kenya with partnership with Chas Bank of Kenya

Worked with various companies to review their business needs, develop and implement actionable solutions to resolve problems and plan for future growth

Companies I consulted for:

1. Anadarko Petroleum - Project Consultant for a 9 month Implementation of a MS Sharepoint Knowledge Management System (KMS) for over 6,000 employees

2. Cameron - Schlumberger International - Senior Project Consultant for a 16 month project to migrate over 25,000 employees in 12 subsidiaries to Oracle 11

3. Wells Fargo Bank - Senior IT Project Manager for a 12 month Datacenter integration and migration | 2,000 Apps consolidation as part of the merger of Wachovia Bank to Wells Fargo bank. An additional 5 month project to design the architecture of the business Shared Services model to be effected after the merger

4. Aviva Insurance and Annuities International - Senior Consultant for a 6-month implementation of IBM Maxima Suite (Enterprise Asset Management software and solutions)

Overall responsibility and accountability for providing leadership in long-range IT planning, IT programs development, and IT operations of IT at Philip Services.

Now called Concentrix. Responsible for customer acquisition, project engagement, training and implementation of various customer management and information management products and services primarily to large corporations . Customer management products included agent assisted, self-service, care software and BPO tailored to the communications, financial services, technology, retail, healthcare and government markets. Information management provided convergent billing and business support system (BSS) products and services including revenue management, product and order management, and customer care management to telecom, utilities, and cable/satellite/broadband service providers.

Clients supported included: Disney World, Toshiba Laptops, Gateway Computers, Hewlett Packard (HP), Orange Telecommunications (UK), Verizon Wireless, and Shell BP among others