An energy executive, a central bank governor, a folk-fusion music duo, a university vice chancellor and a veteran investigative journalist are among the business leaders to be celebrated on July 29th at the 7th Business Trendsetters’ Forum, Trends Expo and Awards Gala at Sheraton Kampala Hotel, in recognition of having set distinctive trends in their fields of work.
The Business Trendsetters Forum (BTF) Trends Expo and Awards Gala is built around a deceptively simple question: What does business leadership actually look like in 2026, when artificial intelligence, social impact and economic transformation are moving faster than traditional metrics can keep up?
This year’s theme, “People, Purpose, and Artificial Intelligence in Business,” runs through each of the five award categories: Private Sector, Public Sector, Youth, Trends Hero and Lifetime Achievement. The shortlist reflects that approach. It reads less like a corporate leaderboard and more like a cross-section of the country itself, with petroleum and finance sitting alongside education, healthcare, entertainment and public service.
Few categories capture that range better than Private Sector, where Tony Galandi Kiire, co-founder of Diamond Advocates, is up against culture exporters The Ganda Boys and Prof. Lawrence Muganga, Vice Chancellor of Victoria University.
Kiire’s nomination centres on his push to bring artificial intelligence into legal practice, not just to make his firm more efficient, but to widen access to justice for ordinary Ugandans. Muganga’s case is more numbers-driven. Under his leadership, Victoria University has grown from under 200 students to more than 6,000, with an 85% graduate employment rate the committee points to as proof that his “authentic learning” model produces job-ready graduates, not just diplomas.
The Public Sector category brings some of Uganda’s most recognisable institutional leaders into direct focus. Proscovia Nabbanja, CEO of the Uganda National Oil Company, is nominated for attracting multi-billion-dollar investment ahead of commercial oil production while pushing local content requirements. Dr. Michael Atingi-Ego, Governor of the Bank of Uganda, is recognised for reforms that have strengthened financial markets and expanded digital payments, and Mercy Kainobwisho, Registrar General at URSB, rounds out the category for digitising business registration and strengthening intellectual property protections.
In the Youth category, physician-scientist Dr. David Jolly Muganzi stands alone as the sole finalist this year, recognised for building AI-driven healthcare ventures such as Mal-AI, PaCeM-Afro and Sema Life, while holding innovation leadership roles at Clarke Group and CIU Foundry.
Trends Hero flips the scoring system entirely. Here, The Ganda Boys, recognised again for their philanthropy and cultural reach, go head-to-head with Prof. Dr. Maggie Kigozi, whose decades of mentorship have shaped generations of Ugandan entrepreneurs. Neither nomination is based on revenue. Both are about the people they have impacted along the way.
Then there is Lifetime Achievement, arguably the gala’s emotional centre. Peter Kauju is honoured for reshaping corporate communications at KCCA and UMEME. Kasole Bwelele is recognised for shifting primary education trends by building Kampala Parents’ School into one of the country’s top primary institutions. Veteran broadcaster Drake Ssekeba is honoured for Vvumbula, his investigative programme that has become shorthand for public-interest journalism in Uganda. This category is not about one achievement. It is about decades of compounding influence in the sector.
All in all, five trendsetters will be named. However, the real story may be what the list itself reveals: that Uganda’s definition of business success is shifting away from revenue and market capitalisation, and toward access, mentorship, institutional reform and innovation.
Whatever happens in the discussions at the forum, the excitement around this year’s trends clearly implies that the conversation the BTF Awards have started will most likely outlast the applause beyond July 29th, 2026.
