Most Stanford students fail this challenge. Here’s what we can learn from their mistakes. You’re a student in a Stanford class on entrepreneurship. Your professor walks into the room, breaks the class into different teams, and gives each team five dollars in funding. Your goal is to make as much money as possible within two hours and then give a three-minute presentation to the class about what you achieved. If you’re a student in the class, what would you do? Typical answers range from using the five dollars to buy start-up materials for a makeshift car wash or lemonade stand, to…
Train your board on Public Relations, Social Media, Digital and Personal cybersecurity
For any dynamic financial institution, the management of Public Relations is a key priority for its Board, and your organization is no exception. Many Board members lack the skills they need to succeed in positively influencing public perceptions. In April 2020, a prospect called asking for help over the leaked board papers. One of the board members had lost access to his cloud email access to a hacker, to which lots of board papers had been sent. They wanted us to help recover the board member’s email account and stop the hackers from accessing it. A very tall order, especially…
Be innovative to learn on the job and win
Once in a while, you meet folks with the right attitude, skills, and self-drive. These are people any executive dreams of. People with the right attitude always go far because they look at the silver lining in any situation. Whereas other people love to travel just to earn per diem, winners travel to look for opportunities, network and explore new possibilities. I learn a lot looking at the automation in the kitchen of some of the top hotels. You need to get a back-office tour of the laundry processes, for example, to appreciate the power of automation. As a consultant,…
Mathew Kanyamunyu: my Man of the Month of September 2020
To error is human. So is Mathew Kanyamunyu. But it takes a confident good man to acknowledge their ommissions and commissions by seeking forgiveness. When you are driving a fantastic car, with a beautiful girlfriend in your company, and a handgun to boot, one may easily become intoxicated with superficial power. There is always that urge to get people who do not know you, to know you there and then. In many cases, it could be fatal. And that is how Mathew Kanyamunyu found himself in a case that is not easy to reverse or get away from. Human…
Uganda’s banking sector highlights
While Uganda’s financial sector grew in size with assets growing by more than 14.3%, the sector performance declined significantly with more financial institutions reported as undercapitalized, lower asset quality, increased number of loss-making banks, and lower return on investment. Below are a few sector highlights: There was a new entrant in the banking sector, Afriland First Bank from Cameroon, the bank that believes in creating a lasting impact on customers, through a pact, one client at a time. Capital Adequacy dropped significantly Capital Adequacy measures the solvency of the banks. Basel III Guidelines recommend a capital adequacy ratio of not…
After all, technology has limits
If you are one of the folks who love great management insights, you open the pages of the Harvard Business Review magazine – old and new issues alike. Me too. Today, I landed on the May-June 2017 issue. On page 19, is an advert by Microsoft Cloud, with a captivating title: “The Mission What is technology could stop the next epidemic before it happens? Microsoft and its partners are using smart traps to capture mosquitoes and sequence their DNA to identify new diseases early. Machine Learning New mosquito traps are getting smarter every day. These traps measure distinct patterns of…
