IVAN KARUGABA

Overall team lead for the country's Financial Planning Analysis (FPA) and Decision Support (DSS) team overseeing the Mobile (GSM), FinTech (Airtel Money), and Enterprise/Business to Business Segment:
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Lead decision support member for the Uganda’s executive teams for the different business segments (GSM, Airtel Money and Enterprise services). I review, provide commentary, insights, advise and support on all major business decisions and projects regarding the Uganda operations to the executive team.
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As the lead on management accounting and reporting, I manage a team doing periodic reporting (daily, monthly, quarterly and annual) for both internal, external stakeholders and preparing reports/commentary for the Board on the organization's performance. This involves preparation of a number of reporting packs in compliance with the listing obligations of the local stock exchange for external publication.
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Charged with the overall management of the organization's management information and intelligence systems/platforms (Fractal/BI, Oracle, Probatus, FPM) to ensure proper financial and non-financial KPI reporting.
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I ensure governance and compliance with approved delegations of authority (DOA) for revenue/pricing, capex, opex and regulatory related approval decisions.
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Drive the end-to-end annual budgeting and the regular monthly forecasting processes, and preparation and review of the variance root cause analysis for the different business segments basis performance. Lead the preparation of medium range 5–10-year business plans.
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I have been tasked with additional support and lead over the financial reporting (FR) function. I provided oversight over the financial operations, accounts preparation and control/support to the Payables, Receivables, Fixed Assets, Tax, Revenue and Channel Teams. Ensure pre closure reviews on the trial balance (TB) and preparation of variance commentaries for management.
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Involved in the regular design and review of internal processes & controls for the organization, and ensuring closure of audit related issues through support to the different departments.
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Oversee the financial aspects of the commercial sections (Sales, Marketing, Retail and Customer service) of the above business segments ranging from; competition benchmarking, regulatory reporting reviews, pricing reviews, segment profitability analysis, and overall decision support to the executive management team on go to market, product concept note evaluation and pricing initiatives.
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The Financial Planning & Analysis team ensures monthly KPI tracking on; subscriber activity, product profitability, capex productivity reviews, project and post launch reviews, different channel profitability/efficiency and productivity reviews in liaison with the commercial teams.
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My cross-functional knowledge and experience gained over time enables me to support internal teams ranging from treasury, tax, regulatory and audit/compliance to enable closure of issues with regulators/ tax authorities and other external stakeholders.
Key Project engagements;
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Airtel Uganda IPO (2023); Preparation of Prospectus and accompanying 5-year long range plans and management of stakeholder/analyst's engagements.
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In country and Pan-African Management information Systems (MIS) and Automation projects; Driven projects for reporting automations and management reporting across various business segments (Business intelligence (BI) Tools).
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War on Waste Project coordination; Annually championed drive for the targeted opex savings and initiatives for the country's cross functional team with annual achievement over USD 4M in savings.
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Comprehensive Telecoms Audit by Uganda Revenue Authority (URA); support and engaged with wide ranging tax audit related issues with the tax team to ensure closure of the same with the URA, and subsequent appeal/litigation related processes.
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Project Finance spoc in successful merger and acquisition (M&A) activities by conducting comprehensive due diligence reviews; the demerger and sale of the Tower business, and the subsequent Mobile money entity separation in compliance with Bank of Uganda regulations.
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Finance lead on the Mobile money platform migration to Comviva/Mobiquity system. Ensured the completion of various tests on the various modules and reports to ensure system accuracy pre go live decision.
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Improved financial reporting accuracy by streamlining and automating data processing tasks and consistently ranked number on the continent's operations compliance ratings. Overseen
implementation and iterations of a number of Management information and Business intelligence systems.
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Over the period, I have evaluated numerous investment opportunities using comprehensive financial modeling techniques to maximize returns on invested capital, while minimizing risks associated with the investments made across the different segments in scaling up both the retail and network (+ 3,000 sites) footprint across the country. Designed different project review templates to review the various investment proposals, and the post implementation impacts of these projects to support subsequent additional investment decisions in scaling or rationalizing them.
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Implemented robust internal controls to mitigate risks and ensure compliance with regulatory requirements by conducting thorough risk assessments to identify potential areas of concern in company operations, providing actionable insights for risk mitigation efforts.
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Enhanced cash flow management with proactive forecasting and budgeting strategies and consistently attained top position among the 14 African operations.
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Conducted regular financial performance reviews with senior management, providing valuable insights for strategic decision making. Driven and ensured regular pricing and capex committee sessions to ensure pricing and capital efficiency improvement by regularly reviewing the different projects implemented or under implementation.
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Simplified complex financial data for non-finance stakeholders, enabling informed decision-making across the organization through stakeholder trainings on pricing, post launch reviews and KPI tracking.
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Reduced month-end closing time by implementing efficient reconciliation processes & procedures, built a number templates for the team to ease tasks and procedures.
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Provident Fund trustee board member and head investment committee.

• Preparing reliable multi-year business plans Key KPIs and Financial statements.
• Preparing timely and accurate annual budgets according to HQ guidelines.
• Preparing accurate monthly 1 year rolling forecasts that align business performance to the annual budget. These are done through monthly flash/forecast reports.
• Provide input/ support to commercial team in evaluating business/product viability proposals.
• Giving detailed analytical commentary on the monthly financial performance of the different business segments and consolidated position.
• Giving insight of business performance against set KPIs in the Annual Operational plan (AOP).
• Co-coordinating with Business project owners to prepare business cases and justification for Capex expenditure and sourcing of funds.
• Opex and Capex spend control in line with approved budgets as per HQ.
• Project/products post launch analysis and commentary to the management team.
• Revenue and pricing control for commercial functions and margin analysis.
• Key Project engagements include Airtel-Warid integration (2013/14); modeling and analysis for cross functional support to the project implementation team during the integration of the operations of the two networks post acquisition by Airtel in 2023.
• Cross operational FP&A support to other operations across Africa; Airtel Rwanda and Seychelles with new FPA functions and training of new team members for these operations.
• Staff provident fund and SACCO founding member and management team finance lead.

• Lead analyst in the Financial Planning and Analysis Function.
• Preparation of management and financial accounts.
• Preparation of periodic reports and performance commentary for the team.
• Preparation and review of regulatory reports for monthly submission.

Relationship management and engagement with a number of clients to manage ongoing assignments.

• Scoping and proposal preparations for a number of engagements to ensure portfolio growth.
• Team lead of associates on the firm's assignments with clients.
• Preparation, review, and analysis of multi-client financial statements in Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania.
• Funds administration and treasury management for the outsourced services clients.
• Recurrent management and financial accounting and reporting (G/L,A/R,A/P and fixed asset accounting).
• Ensuring Income tax and IFRS, GAAP and SOX compliance for clients with international operations.

• Preparation, review, and analysis of multi-client financial statements.
• Performing Financial Audits for a wide range of clients across various industries.
• Accounts preparation for a range of clients.
• Statutory and Tax returns preparation and filling for a number of clients.