UGANDA – Multinational alcoholic beverage company, Diageo, has appointed the Chief Executive Officer of Uganda Breweries Limited, Alvin Mbugua to be the General Manager of Diageo Caribbean and Central America (CCA).
Uganda Breweries Limited is a subsidiary of the drink giant through the East African Breweries Limited (EABL).
Alvin, who has been at the helm of the company for about two years is set to take up the new role effective September 1, 2021.
The job promotion will enable Alvin to offer his expertise in strategic and effective leadership to CCA, the largest beer business in the Latin America and Caribbean (LAC) region.
Announcing his appointment, UBL indicated that Alvin’s replace will be announced in due course.
Alvin has part of the British drink company for nearly eight years having first joined EABL in 2013 as the Group Financial Controller.
UBL’s full year revenue rose by 33%
In this role, he was able to grow a culture of accountability and ownership but also helped the company to a 9% growth a year.
He was then appointed and the Finance and Strategy Director for UBL in 2015 and played a key role in leading to the growth of the company in double figures.
At the start of 2018, he moved again within EABL into a commercial position to lead the Nairobi sales team for Kenya Breweries Limited, where he deepened the strategic distributor performance and relationships.
He then returned to Uganda in 2019 as Managing Director of UBL, a role he has been successful in growing significant market share, creating a new leadership team, supercharging Guinness sales, and bringing new purpose, growing production capacity and driving mainstream spirit growth.
“All this has been achieved on the backdrop of an unpredictable environment and restrictions on the alcoholic beverage business as a result of the Covid pandemic,” Uganda Breweries said in a statement.
UBL, which this year celebrates 75 years of operations saw a 33% growth in revenue in the year ended June 2021, driven by increased sales in their flagship Beer and Spirit, Bell Lager and Uganda Waragi respectively.
The positive results are courtesy of the company’s heavy investment in capacity expansions in packaging lines and filtration plants at Uganda Breweries which have increased production efficiency.
Further to that, the tough operating environment saw the brewery turn to creative e-commerce partnerships to improve distribution channels, partnering with Jumia and Safe Boda to deliver products to customers as well as embraced e-marketing to reach more customers.
Prior to joining EABL, Alvin worked in a number of finance roles across Africa for such companies as Maersk Logistics and Shell in Kenya, Tanzania and South Africa.
He holds a Geospatial Engineering degree from the University of Nairobi and Master of Commerce Degree in Development Finance from the University of Capetown.
