The biggest resource that an institution has is its staff- Lawrence Byensi
On September 15th, 1993, Lawrence Byensi joined the Uganda Investment Authority as a Senior Investment and 28 years later, he officially leaves the Authority, on the 30th of June, 2021, as the Acting Director General. He will hand over the reins of leadership to Mr. Robert Mukiza, who will continue to establish Uganda as the preferred investment destination in Africa.
Over the last two days(29th and 30th June), the staff has taken the opportunity to express their gratitude to Mr. Byensi for all he has done to help mould the institution into what it is today. The 10 most common words/phrases used by staff to describe Mr. Byensi were knowledgeable, respectful, understanding, a good listener, calm, decisive, patient, teacher, diplomatic, and humble.
In his closing remarks to staff, Mr. Byensi had this to say,” The greatest resource of every institution is its staff. Each and every one of you has a role to play in contributing to the success of this Institution and ultimately in building Uganda. My appeal to everyone I am leaving behind is to build onto what everyone who came before had already started on- if we focus on that, we will only move forward.”
Mr. Byensi leaves behind at Institution that has been in place for the past 30 years- working to promote and attract investment to Uganda. Mr. Byensi is affectionately called the “UIA Encyclopaedia”.
Brief Bio
Mr. Lawrence Byensi was the Ag. Director General, Uganda Investment Authority (UIA) until June 30th, 2021. He joined UIA in 1993 as a Senior Investment Officer, he moved through the ranks in the different divisions at the Authority and was appointed Director, Investment Facilitation & Aftercare Division in 2003 a position he held until he was appointed as the Ag. Director General.
Prior to joining UIA, Lawrence worked as a Project Operations Officer in Project Monitoring & Evaluation with a World Bank funded Project in the Ministry of Finance, Planning & Economic Development. He also worked as a Planning Economist for Ministry of Cooperatives & Marketing. He was a Board Member of Uganda Free Zones Authority from 2015-2021 and Uganda Credit Capitalization Company Ltd.
Lawrence holds a M.Sc(Agric. Econ) from University of Saskatchewan- Canada, a Postgraduate Diploma in Business Management from Uganda Management Institute (UMI) and a B.A(Econ & Rural Econ) from Makerere University.