Vision Group’s Chief Executive Officer, Robert Kabushenga has ‘dropped the mic’ at the industrial area based media house, bringing an end 16 years of service to the state owned entity.
“This is to let you know that for personal reasons, i have asked the board for an early retirement and this has been accepted,” Kabushenga says in an email to staff.
He added, “I am proud of the success we achieved and the impact we have had in society. This was possible because we worked together as a team. For me, it was an absolute honor and pleasure to have done so.”
He will now oversee a 90-day transition period within which the next CEO is expected to be appointed.
Kabushenga has also revealed that he is going to dedicate more time to his Rugyeyo Farm.
Following his announcement, Uganda’s rumor mill has been rife with speculation about the possible replacements to Kabs as he is fondly known.
BELOW IS THE LIST OF THOSE BEING DISCUSSED
ARINAITWE RUGYENDO
Rugyendo is one of the founding members of Red Pepper, the tabloid that has over the years kept high profile Ugandans on tenterhooks because of its salacious stories and content.
He is a Desmond Tutu Fellow and has been serving as Red Pepper’s Director of Business and advertising, something many say makes him stound out.
In addition to his business acumen, Rugyendo is a prolific talent scout and with good understanding of content.
Rugyendo is a good manager and previously served as Uganda Premier League boss. He is said to be in good books with the powers that be.
BARBARA KAIJA
Kaija is a journalist and educator, who serves as the editor in chief of the Vision Group of newspapers, including the English daily publication the New Vision.
Her tenure at Vision Group spans over 25 years. In 1992, she was hired as a sub-editor trainee. Over time, she was given more responsibilities and rose to the position of Deputy Features Editor. Later she became the Features Editor, serving in that capacity for ten years.
She was appointed deputy Editor-in-Chief in 2006 and she became Editor-in-Chief in 2010. In her current capacity, she oversees journalistic standards and strategy of all media platforms (print, radio, television, internet and social media) of the Vision Group.
When she assumed the role of Editor-in-Chief in 2010, she became the first Ugandan woman to become a chief editor of a Ugandan major newspaper in the history of the country.
Analysts say she is good at content strategy but lacks that business mindset to run a huge empire like Vision Group.
OFWONO OPONDO
He is the Executive Director of Uganda Media Centre and regular panelists on TV and radio. Ofwono is a good propagandist according to analysts and veteran journalist.
However, just like Kaija, his knack for business administration is said to be ‘there there.’
MAURICE MUGISHA
He is a journalist, broadcaster and corporate executive who works as the deputy managing director of the government-owned media company, Uganda Broadcasting Corporation (UBC), a position he has held since 2018.
Starting out as a news anchor in 2006, he rose to the position of “Head of News Production”, at the time of his departure in October 2018.
Before being appointed to the UBC job, Mugisha was news anchor at NTV which he also joined from now defunct WBS.
Mugisha is married to personality, Irene Birungi who is the a Ugandan entrepreneur, broadcaster and columnist who works as a private secretary for administration at the office of the President of Uganda, Yoweri Kaguta Museveni, effective September 2017. Together they are parents to one son (from a previous relationship on Birungi’s side), and two daughters that they had together.
Maurice Mugisha is a co-founder, and serves as a director at All Round Consult, a media and public relations consulting firm in the Bukoto neighborhood of Kampala, Uganda’s capital city.
ANDREW MWENDA
Mwenda became a darling of many because of what they believed was his criticism of corruption and bad leadership but later lost a huge chunk of his fans when he ‘crossed.’
He is a print, radio and television journalist, and the founder and owner of The Independent, a current affairs newsmagazine. He was previously the political editor of The Daily Monitor, a Ugandan daily newspaper, and was the presenter of Andrew Mwenda Live on KFM Radio in Kampala.
His close friends say he is one who is capable of managing the VG empire but gets bored quickly, a quality that could be his undoing considering the tasks at hand required to manage the entity.
Mwenda is a recognised African voice in the global debate on the failures of foreign aid to Africa and the need for investment and trade as drivers of growth. A TED speaker, he is a regular speaker at conferences across the world.
Mwenda worked as a political editor of the Daily Monitor and general manager of its affiliate on FM radio, KFM, before establishing The Independent in 2007. He has worked as a consultant for the World Bank, the World Resources Institute, and Transparency International. He has also written for international news media like Der Spiegel, the International Herald Tribune, The New York Times, and Foreign Policy. He also has produced documentaries for BBC World television and radio.
Mwenda has also authored and co-authored articles for international academic journals like Africa Affairs, the Journal of Modern African Studies, the Review of African Political Economy, the Journal of Commonwealth Studies, the Journal for Contemporary African Studies, and the Journal of Democracy on top of publishing chapters in several books.
In April 2008, he was arrested and released on bail by the Ugandan government for “being in possession of seditious material and of publishing inflammatory articles”.
In August 2005, he was charged with sedition for broadcasting a discussion of the cause of death of Sudanese vice-president John Garang. Garang was killed when the Ugandan presidential helicopter smashed in a storm over a rebel area, on the way back from talks in Uganda. During his radio programme, the journalist accused the Ugandan government of “incompetence” and said they had put Garang on “a junk helicopter … at night … in poor weather … over an insecure area”.
Additional info from Wikipedia