In a room full of aspiring board members at the Journey to the Boardroom launch on Monday, Justice Mike Chibita delivered a message no one expected: stop collecting board seats and start confronting your own mediocrity. Speaking alongside Professor Monica Chibita at the Multichoice offices in Kololo on January 27, 2026, the two brilliant minds offered Uganda’s emerging corporate leaders something more valuable than advice, they offered hard truths earned through decades of boardroom experience.
“The pain of discipline is better than the pain of regret,” Justice Chibita told the 3rd Cohort members, framing leadership as a choice between two kinds of suffering. The keynote speaker didn’t mince words: “It’s amazing how many things are within our control and we don’t do them. We watch things get spoiled and we tolerate mediocrity.” The room fell silent. He had just named the uncomfortable truth most professionals spend their careers avoiding.
Then Professor Monica Chibita, serving as special guest, dropped her own bombshell.
“At the end of last year, I was on seven boards, actively. Seven,” she confessed, letting the number hang in the air. “I will never do that again, never ever again. It’s foolish.” Here was one of Uganda’s most accomplished professionals calling herself foolish for doing what many in that room were actively pursuing, accumulating board positions like trophies. Her message cut deeper: “You need to be selective. Learn to say no. Go where you make a difference.”
The timing of these interventions matters. Program founder Janet Navvuga Bugembe opened the ceremony by pointing to visible governance failures across Uganda. “The boardroom needs leaders who are prepared to stand for what is right even when it is difficult,” she said. “I think you can see what is happening in Uganda today, and some of these are pain points and that is why we are here to raise the next generation of corporate leaders who are going to make decisions that are going to change this country.”
The Chibitas weren’t just teaching governance theory, they were responding to a crisis.
Professor Chibita exposed another uncomfortable reality: many directors lack basic financial literacy. “Learn finance,” she urged, before making a startling admission. “I say this as somebody who joined my first board without hardly knowing the difference between a receipt and an invoice.” The confession wasn’t self-deprecation; it was strategic transparency. If someone at her level could acknowledge gaps and fix them, anyone could. But first, they had to stop pretending expertise they hadn’t earned.
The message landed on a diverse cohort representing Uganda’s media, business, pharmaceutical, and public sectors: news anchor Sheila Tusiime, Ian Rumanyika (CEO, Node Group Consult), Dr. Joseph Mubiru (pharmaceutical leader), Dr. Fahad Ntale (CEO and business strategist), Sharon Mwebaze Ashaba (executive leader), Adellah Agaba Nyaruhuma (Human Capital strategist), and three senior government officials—Uthman Segawa (Director of Legal and Board Affairs, PPDA), Eva Nazziwa Lubowa (Director of HR, PPDA), and Kajoina Jemima Engelite (Legal Officer, Uganda Wildlife Authority).
What made the launch remarkable wasn’t just what the Chibitas said, but how they said it. Two leaders at the peak of their careers, speaking with unvarnished honesty about their own struggles with discipline, selectivity, and competence.
They weren’t lecturing from a position of perfection; they were offering hard-won wisdom from the trenches. For Cohort 3, beginning months of intensive training in governance, risk management, finance, and ESG principles, the message was unmistakable: Uganda’s boardrooms don’t need more people collecting seats. They need leaders prepared to occupy those seats with integrity, competence, and the courage to choose discipline over regret.
