Diamond Trust Bank Uganda (DTBU) has named Godfrey Sebaana as its new CEO and Managing Director, effective April 2, 2024. Sebaana succeeds Varghese Thambi, who has steered the bank’s growth and transformation over the past 17 years. An accountant by profession, Sebaana has been the executive director and head of corporate, commercial and institutional banking at Standard Chartered Bank. With a robust financial services background spanning two decades at the highest level, Sebaana boasts of wide experience in mergers, acquisitions, corporate advisory and financial institutions management, across various industry segments, encompassing global and local corporates, SMEs and retail. He is a fellow of the Association of Charted Certified Accountants (ACCA) UK and holds a Master’s in Business Administration (MBA) from Heriot-Watt University Edinburgh Business School. Mr. Aziz Kassam, the DTB Uganda Board chairman, expressed happiness at Sebaana’s appointment saying they would benefit a lot from his leadership, going forward. “We look forward to leveraging his rich domestic and regional banking knowledge and expertise to accelerate our future growth,” he said. He further noted that the new CEO joins the bank at an ‘exciting time’, almost halfway through their 5-year, post-COVID business growth strategy that started in 2022 at the core of which is an ambitious and aggressive digitally-driven customer acquisition and retention strategy. He commended Thambi for his stewardship of the bank over the past 17 years, saying DTBU has grown from just one branch to become one of Uganda’s most strategically important financial institutions, with 37 branches across the county and directly employing 680 people of which 56% are women. “While the entire DTBU family has contributed to this growth and success, at the centre has been the generous effort and unwavering dedication of Thambi. He leaves the bank as it emerges from industry-wide challenges of the past few years showing promise and potential. He takes with him the deep gratitude and very best wishes of the board, the staff and innumerable customers that he and the Bank have supported over the years,” Kassam noted. Sebaana joins a Group that also operates in regional markets including Burundi, Kenya and Tanzania with a total branch network of more than 100 branches across the EAC region. According to their audited financial results, DTBU made a profit of UGX35 billion in 2022, up from UGX19 billion in 2015, which effectively puts DTBU among the top ten banks in Uganda.
