CFO

Yalelo Uganda is a fast growing, sustainable aquaculture business. They are backed by Veris Investments, an independent investment company that makes equity investments in companies and projects along the food value chain in Sub-Saharan Africa. The new Chief Financial Officer will lead Yalelo Uganda’s Finance Team, and help the organization scale up.

About Yalelo Uganda 

Located on the shores of Lake Victoria and active in Uganda and neighboring markets, Yalelo Uganda’s mission is to stabilize the region’s food security by producing a reliable and sustainable supply of fresh fish.

They successfully established their partner company Yalelo Zambia, the largest aquaculture business in Sub-Saharan Africa founded in 2011. Then Yalelo Uganda began production in 2020 on its state-of-the-art tilapia fish farm near Jinja, and sales operations in Kampala. In just a few years, and despite starting during the strict Ugandan Covid-restrictions, the company achieved impressive growth has become Uganda’s largest tilapia fish farm. Currently, they have 500 employees, with sales of 7,200 tons per year. These are projected to increase to 10,000 tons per year by the end of 2024.

Yalelo Uganda’s unique value proposition and success in Zambia are based on complete control of its supply chain, from producing high-quality fish feed to distribution and a chain of local retail points-of-sale. The new CFO will play a key role in supporting and scaling up a similar value chain for Yalelo Uganda.

The CFO will help lead their next growth phase and professionalization for Yalelo Uganda, with a focus on financial and business control, as well as its business strategy. Mentoring and developing financial acumen for both managers and team leaders across the company will be an ongoing focus for this role.

Vacancy: Chief Financial Officer (CFO)

As a key member of the management team, the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) is a strategic leadership function that will be responsible for all of Yalelo Uganda’s accounting and financial management. They will establish and enhance financial and business control, analysis and insights, as well as the risk management. One of the key areas of responsibility will be to further automate and digitize various business and finance processes, partly through implementing and tailoring the ERP system to deliver real-time insights.

Pivotal to the success of the CFO will be their capacity to develop, mentor and lead their team and transfer their knowledge and experience to a young, dedicated team. This level of capacity building is an essential aspect of this role’s success. 

The CFO will identify areas for improvement by implementing relevant metrics and manage cash flows, create margin insights and drive working capital and inventory initiatives, which improve the internal control framework and company-wide collaboration.

They will have leadership experience managing different cultures and have worked or lived abroad, if they’re not a Ugandan national. They will be familiar with collaborating with an international private equity firm or shareholders that are routinely active in the business.

This role is ideal for a self-confident leader who achieves goals and has experience building and shaping teams and processes. The CFO will be required, especially in the initial year, to ‘roll up’ their sleeves and lead their team by example.

Their knowledge and experience will enable them to bring the finance organization to the next level, and maintain a high-level overview while implementing robust structures and processes in a fast-growing organization. The CFO offers digitization expertise and acts as a sparring partner to the CEO of Yalelo Uganda.

The Team
The CFO will report to the CEO, as well as maintain a functional relationship with the FirstWave CFO. Together with the management team, they will help shape the business strategy. The CFO will lead and expand the existing team of seven professionals. And they will manage a senior member of staff who is responsible for daily aspects of regulatory compliance.

The CFO at Yalelo Uganda will work in a highly dynamic environment, and contribute to a fast-growing sustainable business in Sub-Saharan Africa. They will also collaborate with colleagues from Veris Investments in The Netherlands. This presents a unique opportunity for someone with a proven track record in building and leading finance teams and advising growing organizations from the perspective of finance, controls, and business insights.

Interested?

Yalelo Uganda is working with Top of Minds to fill this vacancy.
To express your interest, please contact Yael Elsen at AnnelijnNijhuis@topofminds.com