Sieka Gatabaki

The role required strategic leadership to achieve set outcomes across key Organisational and Donor priorities across Sub-Saharan Africa focused on economic development, food security, and climate change resilience, leveraging market system development and digital innovation. As the Program Director, I have led the team to deliver impactful engagements with partners, surpassing program milestones and contributing to overall ecosystem development. Over my tenure, AgriFin has been positioned for sustainable growth and continued funding from a wide range of stakeholders. Personal Contributions:

• Directed, mentored, and coached team members for professional development, a culture of excellence, and a passion for impact, increasing overall productivity and job satisfaction.
• Surpassed program results reaching over 5 million beneficiaries ahead of program deadline. by setting clear aggressive objectives, agile learning and proactively addressing potential challenges.
• Leveraged relationships with key internal and external stakeholders including donors and the AgriFin advisory board to ensure program alignment and objective achievement.
• Spearheaded fundraising efforts to secure over $ 10 million for extended program impact and sustainability.
• Coordinated budgeting, scheduling and resource allocation to facilitate smooth flow of operations.
• Implemented best practices in project management to optimize workflow efficiencies across the organization.
• Lead staff meetings and strategic workshops to discuss new ideas and update participants on program details and milestones.

The role involved project design and implementation, partnership development, technical team management, and technical advisory on digitization for food system outcomes.

• Evaluated project outcomes, identifying areas for improvement and implementing necessary changes to increase overall effectiveness.
• Improved stakeholder satisfaction by maintaining open lines of communication and addressing concerns proactively.
• Expanded program positioning through representation in several regional industry events as a digitization and innovation subject matter expert.

Provided technical advice on digital financial & information services to establish successful partnerships that provide small holder farmers with access to loans, savings, insurance and digital payments to improve their productivity and lift them from poverty.

Provided technical assistance to Mobile Money operators in Uganda focused on agent quality management execution, Below-the-line marketing support, market research and big data analytics support, financial and product modelling support.

Standard and Mutual is Corporate finance firm offering advisory services on capital raising, mergers and acquisition, to numerous clients across East Africa

• As the technology director I was responsible for appraising projects related to Technology, Media and Telecommunications.

The role involved providing technical advice to Centenary Bank on optimization and deployment of digital banking solutions to achieve set targets. Key support provided included.

• Development of a data strategy for customer segmentation.
• Development of digital bundling and upselling strategies leveraging statistical data.
• Development of a go-to-market strategy supported by human-centered design research.

The role involved leading the acquisition and commercialization of mobile commerce partnerships across all Airtel affiliate offices in Africa and offering additional support to country operations in the roll out of mobile commerce services and partnership acquisition;

• Development and implementation of a strategic roadmap for expansion of Business to Business, Consumer to Business and Business to Consumer mobile commerce partnerships across African affiliate operations.
• Identification and acquisition of strategic Pan African corporate partners and coordination of their role out in affiliate operations.
• Countries supported: Madagascar, Niger, Uganda, Tanzania, Congo B, Nigeria and Kenya.

The role involved leading the development and management of the mobile commerce section to successfully achieve the market penetration and revenue targets. Key responsibilities included but not limited to;

• Development and implementation of a strategic roadmap for expansion of mobile commerce services in Kenya.
• Managing relationships with the bank's regulator on mobile commerce
• Management of the Mobile Commerce team in terms of Sales, Marketing and Operations.
• Recruitment of strategic partners for mobile commerce expansion and penetration
• Managing SLA's with all stakeholders to achieve required objectives

Implemented and oversaw the route to market strategy for the roll out of a mobile commerce product, dubbed Zap. Key roles included but were not limited to:

• Agent recruitment and development of commission schemes to reward and sustain the agent network.
• Partner recruitment and business solution development in conjunction with the platform technology firm.
• New product development and channel selection to increase market penetration and usage.
• Ensured necessary actions are undertaken by the technical product management or Research and Development teams when required and escalated using reporting lines

Developed and sustained new sales channels for the implementation of an electronic recharge product. Key responsibilities included;

• Driving and supporting distribution teams to achieve electronic airtime sales targets
• Defined channel partner recruitment strategy to achieve over 50% electronic airtime penetration.
• Recruited and educated new partners by providing sales and orientation training and continuous development of existing partners
• Managed relationships between distributors, resellers, software vendors and systems integrators
• Created comprehensive performance dashboards to track KPIs, enabling data-driven decision-making processes for continuous improvement efforts
• Led business development initiatives aimed at expanding the company''s presence in new markets through strategic channel partnerships