Dr Diane Karusisi: Woman heading $1.5b Bank of Kigali

Dr Diane Karusisi has a vision of making Bank of Kigali an employer of choice for men and women.

Well, she has made progress towards that end. As the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Rwanda's largest commercial bank, Dr Karusisi carries the responsibility of leading the institution's sustainable transformation.

Last March, Gender Monitoring Office, Private Sector Federation (PSF), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and UN Women, jointly certified the bank with gold Gender Equality Seal for Private Enterprises. The gold category, ranks the highest.

The seal, is an innovative programme pioneered by UNDP in 2009, to engage the private sector in achieving excellency standards in the promotion of gender equality and women’s empowerment in the business world.

Since 2018, Dr Karusisi has overseen execution of gender responsive policies and strategies informed by the findings and recommendations of a gender analysis of all its structures.

Now, new mothers go for four months maternity leave up from three. Similarly, the management adopted a two-week paternity leave policy, an extension from four days.

“”We also reduced working hours for women in our branches. They used to work 8am to 8pm but with adoption of cashless economy, they receive fewer clients. We have allowed them to start work at 8am and close at 4pm,” she explains.

“For women in managerial positions, we have a policy for remote working. They can choose to work two days from home and they receive facilitation to do so including internet access. Covid-19 enabled us to shift to virtual meetings and the women are allowed to join the meetings virtually.”

On enabling businesswomen access credit, in March 2020, the bank launched Zamuka Mugore (loosely translated as “Woman, rise up) a women tailored loan product.

The facility mainly targets women running micro-enterprises. They can receive up to Rwandan franc (RWF) 1 million loan (Sh114,512) with no collateral required. They repay in 24 months at an 18 per cent interest rate per year.

She says so far, women have taken loans of more than Rwf 500 million (Sh57,256,151).

The government’s  2019 Beijing +25 Rwanda Country report notes that within the four months of piloting, the product in five of its 80 branches, 1,127 women opened an account, with RWF 32,693,013 (Sh3,743,752) paid in as savings, and RWF 462,225,000 (Sh52,930,449) paid out as loans.

On leadership, she says 38 per cent of the executives in the bank are women. At senior management, they constitute 33 per cent. On the bank’s website, Dr Karusisi’s profile presents her as a transformative leader.

“Since she joined in 2016, (Dr Karusisi) has steered the bank through a digital transformation journey with aspirations to increase customer satisfaction, improve profitability and drive retail and SME(small and medium enterprises) customer acquisition,” her profile reads in part.

Economic growth

It states that she has driven the expansion of the bank’s business into general insurance, investment banking and technology to respond to growing needs of the market, as such growing the bank’s assets to $ 1 billion.

By last April, the asset base had grown to more than $1.5 billion, she says.

“We have pursued a very aggressive growth agenda,” she says.

“And as a bank, we grow when there is a high demand for loans and when we can collect more savings.”

The rapid economic growth in Rwanda in the recent years, and huge developments in infrastructure and service sectors have therefore, expanded the bank’s business opportunities, she says.

These achievements have come with a heavy input. She invests long working hours in learning and strategising.

Her day starts at 7.30am and often ends at 7pm with back-to-back meetings with her team, shareholders and clients.

“My mind is constantly processing information and relating it to business. Even when I am reading the newspaper, I always look for a business opportunity or learning something new about business,” says Dr Karusisi.

Political leaders

Apart from books, social media is a source of information for enriching and broadening her grasp on the business dynamics.

Her current read is The Deficit Myth: Modern Monetary Theory and the Birth of the People's Economy by Stephanie Kelton, a book whose author she wishes to phone and ask why she supports extensive borrowing yet economies are crumbling under the weight of heavy debt.

On Twitter, she follows a diverse group of professionals including top political leaders such as US Vice President Kamala Harris, executives, journalists, academia and researchers.

She describes herself as an open leader.

“I believe I'm open and my work is to support my team because growing the business (or) mitigating risks is someone else KPI (key performance indicator).

Her role as a CEO is a mere reflection of her aspiration to be a leader, an ambition that dates back to her childhood.

“I've always tried to be the best. And not competing with anyone else but myself,” says the executive who lists raising her children as a career woman, as the greatest achievement.

Dr Karusisi grew up in the Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. Her parents had sought refuge in the neighbouring country in the 1960s following eruption of ethnic violence in Rwanda between the Hutu and Tutsis.

Thereafter, her relatives in Switzerland encouraged her to apply for admission at University of Fribourg where she did her undergraduate in Economics, majoring in Econometrics. She also has a doctorate degree in Economics from the same learning institution.

She lived in Switzerland for 15 years during, which she worked as an assistant professor of economic statistics at the same university (2000-2006) before joining Credit Suisse Asset Management in Zurich (2007-2009), as fixed income portfolio engineer.

She says her return to Rwanda in August 2009, was inspired by her bigger call to contribute to the “bigger cause” of promoting her country’s socio-economic growth.

She was then appointed senior advisor to the director general of National Institute of Statistics of Rwanda (NISR), in Kigali. The following year, she was appointed the director general of NISR.

Later (2012 - 2016), she was appointed head of strategy and policy unit, and chief economist at the office of the President after which she was recruited in February 2016 to head Bank of Kigali.

Throughout her leadership journey, she has learnt one thing; listening to her instincts.

“When you're a leader there are always many voices seeking to influence you,” she says.

“I've learnt that when I don't follow my guts, I always regret,” says Dr Karusisi who was named Most Influential 100 Class of 2018 Business and Entrepreneurship category by Most Influential People of African Descent (Mipad).

Mipad is a global civil society initiative in support of the United Nations International Decade for People of African Descent,

So what keeps her going?

“The President (Paul Kagame) is my role model. He is a transformative leader,” she indicates.

“I am inspired by the people who work towards building this nation,” she explains.

In herself though, is a role model to other women and girls.

“As a woman leader, I have to inspire the next generation of leaders,” she says.

“Even in my behaviour, I know there are people who look up to me and there are things I cannot do or say.”

As the women and girls seek to follow in her footsteps, one thing they should remember as she puts it, is “pushing your inner boundaries. It's good to have passion but hard work and persistence beats passion.”

Her life mantra is: “Look back and be grateful. Look ahead and be hopeful. And look around and be helpful.”

“I look back and ask myself, ‘how fortunate am I to have had all these opportunities?’ And that helps me not look at problems (but solutions).”

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