Wednesday, 27.2. – On the move

Felix is picked up by Boda-John in the morning to give his first lecture (of a series of 4 scheduled) on corporate cash conversion. With a short break in the middle, the 3h were well filled and the students nicely participated by diving into the topic and asking questions.

Meanwhile I finalise my terms of reference on the banking cooperation project and send off the draft version to Christoph Zipfel and Oliver Schmidt from GIZ in order to ensure our joint understanding on the layout of the project and next steps. Since the date is now scheduled (14.3.), the clock is ticking. We will be working hands-on along the project plan I have laid out.

Geoffrey proposes to soon share his bank contacts by mail or in written form with me and also has identified the student group that is envisaged to work in the banking cooperation project. We will meet tomorrow at 12 in the university, after their morning lecture.

Early afternoon we pack our bags since we have to move to another accommodation, so Michel picks us up and gives us a lift to the Dutchess.

Dinner there with Eddy, a retired local banker who Felix met on tonight's Rotary event in Fort Portal.

Editorial addendum for today:

A positive side-effect of our move is that Michel provides 3 workstations at the Dutchess and I am now finally able to upload pictures, since here I can access the appropriate browser version that enables me doing so. The procedure itself however is very slow due to the quality of the data connection, so there will  be no high-definition pictures.

Tuesday, 26.2. – Rolling it up

A busy ‚Home Office‘ day. In the morning, Felix received printouts from Geoffrey for two chapters of the book he will need for his lecture and was busy preparing his first session that is scheduled for tomorrow. I draft a terms of reference (TOR) document for the banking cooperation project, aiming at documenting and agreeing the project layout, its objectives, strategy and stakeholder structure.

While working on the TOR, Oliver Schmidt calls me and asks me to give a further lecture on my Product Management and Organisation piece to GIZ’s Financial System Development (FSD) Group on an occasion that will tentatively be scheduled for 13^th of March in Kampala. Since Product Management seems to become a ‘trending topic’ during our stay in Uganda, I see the need to further perfect my presentation and include thoughts we had put together in the context of a DB-internal initiative on the self-conception of Product Management I had worked on some time ago for our Senior Management with a team of three other Product Managers. Thanks to Giovanna, our hero of knowledge-management in the Frankfurt Office, I had the presentation I was looking for in my mailbox shortly after I called her in the office.

Today we also received the official alert from the German embassy in Uganda on the upcoming elections in Kenya and potential effects on Uganda. So far, we do not expect that our plans will be impacted, however certainly will keep an eye on the further development in order to avoid any risk exposure.

Since the date for the kick-off in Kampala has now been scheduled (Thursday, 14. March), we have also booked our accommodation for the second week of March, so that we can use the time between Monday and Wednesday to personally link up with local Banks before the event and ensure their attendance and commitment.

Before closing the day, we have a follow-up call with Alexander from the CSR team in DB Frankfurt in order to discuss administrational aspects of the project as well as the status and progress made so far.

For dinner, we meet up with Oliver & Family, Felix (#2) and Philipp from GIZ and ride up to Kluge’s Guest Farm, a beautiful venue up in the mountains run by Stefan Kluge, a German ex-pat from Bonn, working and living for 34 (!) years in Central Africa. After a delicious barbecue and a serious tour through Stefan’s bar, we ride home to Fort Portal on a 10km dirt road that still offers much room for improvement.

Monday, 25.2. – Juggling loose ends

Busy day: Early Breakfast and pick-up by Boda-John at 8:30AM to the University. The distance is about 4km and by halfway, I am completely covered by the red-brown dust that is produced by the vehicles in front of us and coming from uphill.

Ronald, one the 3^rd year students brings me into the classroom where I am supposed to hold my lecture on Supply Chain Finance. 



On my way to the lecture


The session gets quite extensive, but we manage to work along the agenda I defined for myself and by 11:45 we are done. The students participated quite well by asking questions and I have the impression that the session in general was well received.

Over lunch in the staff canteen (local dish: Matoke and peas with peanut sauce), Oliver, Geoffrey, Felix and myself discuss next steps on the Bank Cooperation Initiative. By the way, the travel ban regarding the Kenyan elections is limited to Kenya, so we will luckily not face any logistical issues regarding the transport of staff and students to Kampala. For the event itself, we agree on Thursday, 14^th March. While GIZ will take care of the logistics (booking of venue, transportation of students), I will now work on the project documentation and start touchbasing with the banks in order to get their buy-in for a participation. Over the next days, Geoffrey will identify a core-team of 5-6 students from 1^st and 2^nd year who will be asked to take forward the project once we leave.

For 4th March, a department day for the staff and students from the Banking department and the Business department is planned. On that occasion, I will hold another lecture on Product Management and Organisation, and Felix will give an overview on potential career options in Banking and the expectations that are set by banks towards graduates joining banks. If time allows, we will complement this session with an overview on social networking and how it can be leveraged for the benefit of students.

In the following department staff meeting we brainstorm ideas, including co-operations with other universities, follow-up activities with local banks after the kick-off workshop in March, more lectures we could potentially teach while we are here and further items – all in all, a multitude of loose ends we will now have to manage and box.  While juggling with all these ideas, we will try to ensure that they do not get lost on the way, however first we want to focus on the projects we are originally here for.

No need to mention where we went for dinner. There are still some white spots on the menu, so we are positive we will have covered everything by the time we leave...!

Sunday, 24.2. - Weekend

Not much action today. Felix visits a service at the Anglican Church in the morning while I have a late breakfast at our place. We meet over lunch in Rwenzori Travellers Inn and, after some shopping, I head back to our apartment to prepare for next week, i.e. my lecture tomorrow morning and the bank cooperation project.  In order to enable all participants a proper planning, we need to come to terms on the exact date and venue for our event with the local banks as soon as possible – I am also planning to visit some banks on Monday and Tuesday of the second week of March and will need to find the appropriate persons to be contacted during next week. In terms of project documentation, I envisage coming up with a package of documents containing terms of reference, a draft memorandum of understanding, an agenda for the kick-off event in Kampala complimented by a participants list as well as a final overview on intermediate results and agreed next steps - quite some work down the road.

Dinner at the Dutchess – we should maybe book a flat-rate on the menu...

Saturday, 23.2. - Up Country

John, our Boda-Boda rider (small motorcycle) picks us up at 6:30 AM and brings us safely to the Dutchess restaurant, where we have quick breakfast before meeting Michel for the tour. I crave for a strong coffee, since the night was noisy with music and chanting - right across the road, the nearby 'Church of Christ' conducted a night service that ended around 5:30 AM, i.e. 30 min before our alarm clocks went off. No chance to get any sleep during the night...!

Starting shortly after 7 AM, we move into the countryside and hike along swamps with impressive papyrus plants, extensive tea plantations, and many small villages. The tour's highest point is a hill above Kyaninga Lodge and the nearby crater lake, which proves to be a beautiful piece of land (and place to stay).

After 30km walking distance on a quite hot day with not so many clouds, we truly enjoy a cold beer at the Mountains of the Moon hotel and take a Boda-Boda for the way home. Barbecue at Felix' (#2) place with Oliver Schmidt from GiZ and family

Friday, 22.2. - Speeding up

I meet with Geoffrey in the morning to discuss the potential agenda on the Financial Chain business lecture. So far, Factoring has not been part of the teaching agenda, so I have to think about how I can make the best use of the 3 hours that are reserved for the session. Until noon, the agenda more or less stands and I will use the remaining time until Monday to think it over and do some finetuning.

For lunch, we meet Moureen who kindly arranged a meeting at KCB with Marco, the branch manager. He facilitated a 2-month internship for Moureen during her studies. We have a very fruitful discussion on the existing cooperation between KCB and the MMU and also get some insight in the general market environment for banks in Uganda as well as the core business of the Fort Portal branch. Marco kindly refers me to the HR department of KCB in Kampala, so I already have my first contact for the banking cooperation project.

Shortly afterwards, we meet Margret and join her for a visit to Centenary Bank, where she worked as an intern. We meet with Gideon, the Fort Portal branch supervisor. Also here I can obtain an HR contact in the Kampala headoffice I can touchbase with in order to push forward the banking cooperation project.

Over the next days, I will put together an overview of the contacts I have gathered so far and write an action plan on how we want to onboard as many banks as possible for the kick-off event that is scheduled for the second week of March.

Overall, it was a very productive day with some positive surprises and constructive meetings with very helpful and friendly local folks. Apart from our business conducted today, we look forward to making a one-day hiking trip with Michel from the Dutchess Restaurant tomorrow.

Thursday, 21.2. - Preparing for the next weeks

We pass the morning with 'university homework' - i.e. preparations for our courses on cash conversion, product management and factoring. For lunch we are meeting with Moureen and Margret in order to learn more about their internships with the banks where they worked as interns (KCB and Centenary Bank). In the afternoon, Felix meets with Geoffrey to discuss the agenda of his lecture in more detail and I finalise the translation of my lecture on product management and organisation, closed by another run up the dusty track into the mountains.
Dinner at our all-time favorite local restaurant 'The Dutchess', a decent place under Dutch management offering home-made dishes.