Caroline Armstrong’s 29-year career is a unique journey exemplifying an authentic woman in leadership who drives and adapts to change and believes in the future of Kenya and the continent. Driven by her passion for unlocking potential and the desire to make a difference, she works in both the corporate and non-profit sectors. Her career has covered the ever-evolving banking sector, the complexity of aviation, the urgent affordable housing sector, the growing stockbroking sector, the impactful programme implementation space and the personal nature of coaching. Not one to shy away from conquering new challenges, she has learnt to navigate environments and contexts to achieve objectives and goals, and has done so while growing herself and those around her.

Having started her career as an intern, Caroline’s hard work saw her rise to the C-suite level within a Group structure. She has been a people leader for over 18 years of which the last 10 were at executive committee. She holds several Board seats with a total of ten years’ experience as an independent non-executive director and chairperson. She is currently both a Board Chairperson and a Board member straddling the private and non-profit sectors including a gender advisory board. In addition to serving as a Board member she has chaired Board committees including Human Resources and Finance, Strategy & Business Development, and has also been an active member of Board Audit Risk & Governance committees. Her Board experience covers the private sector, public sector and non-profit sectors.

Having worked at Board level in the public sector driving interactions with financiers, multilaterals and Government she has strong stakeholder engagement skills and was able to manage the balance between the organisation’s commercial objectives and the broader national agenda. This experience supports the advocacy work she does and enables her to collaborate across sectors in order to achieve objectives. Her stakeholder engagement has, and continues to, involve partners, regulators, policy makers, ecosystem enablers, financiers and customers.

Her multi-continent experience spans local and multinational organisations in which she has held senior management and Board roles, often simultaneously. Working her way up the ranks she has led teams from 2 to over 430 people in a retail banking environment and has lead business lines covering half of sub-Sahara Africa teaching her how to collaborate and deliver within different contexts, cultures and languages. In each role she has consistently achieved the desired objectives and outcomes. Her career has given her the opportunity to successfully work in several countries, manage people in multiple countries and work with companies and clients with regional and international footprints. Therefore, she has an understanding, and experience, of the globality of operations, and the associated opportunities and risks.

In her roles leading project implementation, change management, strategy development, risk management and programme delivery she regularly has to see multiple perspectives and collaboratively design the most appropriate and effective solutions often leveraging technology. These capabilities converged when she led the design and implementation of a major IT transformation which delivered eight (8) systems in one ‘big bang’ approach including a core banking system (CBS), CRM and ERP. This project was undertaken with strong risk management; governance; a focus on customer and staff experience; and data enhancement all of which was achieved with zero loss of funds, data or a negative customer impact. A project of this scale is as yet unmatched in the region.

When challenged to drive a renewed focus on the corporate sector she achieved it via product development that was customer centric; solutions provision not product sales. That meant building a team that could design and deliver a strong customer value proposition that would generate profitability, and to do this after getting leadership buy-in. That then grew into responsibility for product development and sales within the East Africa & Indian Ocean region which helped her develop the ability to quickly understand an environment and work with others to design and monetize needs-driven solutions such as tripling product revenues, doubling productivity and the reduction of costs by half.

Her work in the non-profit sector is focused on the economic empowerment and financial inclusion of women in Kenya. In that role she leads volunteers and consultants in designing and delivering programmes that have varied objectives and donors. Programming requires both implementation and advocacy while remaining industry agnostic. The majority of the programmes target women-led MSMEs and SMEs to build their capacity and competence in order to more easily access finance and markets. Her long experience in the banking career gives her a 360- degree view of the challenges both the entrepreneurs and the financial services sector face and she is therefore able to reframe conversations, that would ordinarily be based on assumptions, and create a common drive towards the desired outcomes. Key programmes delivered within the past 12 months have covered DEI research, access to finance (debt and equity) and insurance.

She has had the privilege of serving in the public sector where she drove accountability and delivery while championing innovation to deliver upon the noble mandate of Kenya’s National Housing Corporation. Focusing on the end-user she was at the forefront of trying to incorporate user-responsive solutions and designs so as to reduce cost and environmental impact. Within the aviation sector at Kenya Airways she drove transparency and meritocracy in recruitment and reward to drive a high performing culture, and navigated the complex space of union relations. At Jambojet she champions customer focused thinking to generate loyalty and therefore sustainable revenue generation in a low-margin industry. In the non-profit sector, with New Faces New Voices Caroline has driven a focus on tangible impact, collaboration and creative programme delivery. For example, in order to pivot from traditional programme delivery she drove the delivery of a business resilience programme objective by incorporating gamification to increase programme uptake and drive sustainability of impact.

Caroline has never accepted that being a woman in what is often called a ‘man’s world’ is an impediment. She actively encourages others to use their voices and spaces to not only grow themselves, but to grow others along with them. Her resolve that success is only truly sustainable when achieved with others drives her leadership style and her desire to use her career and life experiences to support the growth of others both economically and personally. She has broken the mold and many glass ceilings, but she has never lost sight of her desire to impact the communities in which she works.

As an African woman she believes strongly in the huge, and continuing, potential of Africa, but also the great need to enfranchise all Africans economically, especially women. Women are the voices often unheard yet make up 50% of Africa’s population and approximately half of the informal sector. These informal sector players are an untapped economic powerhouse ready to be enabled to drive economic growth. Needs-focused problem solving via innovation, collaboration, risk management and advocacy must come together with an open, efficacy-focused mindset and courage in order to drive sustainable change and in turn drive sustainable profitability for all.