Mark Mugisha Kivuna has been appointed by Diageo, Guinness Nigeria Plc as the continental giant’s Marketing & innovations Director.
“As Adenike Adebola moves ahead as Africa Innovations Director, Diageo, Guinness Nigeria Plc has announced the appointment of Mark Mugisha Kivuna as Marketing & Innovations Director,” reads an excerpt from Guinness Nigeria’s in an official announcement on their Linkedin page.
Until his appointment, Mark Mugisha was Marketing and Innovations Director at Serengeti Breweries Ltd in Tanzania.
Mark Mugisha joins Guinness Nigeria with immense experience across Marketing and Sales in the Fast Moving & Consumer Goods (FMCG) industry, having worked with East African Breweries Ltd (EABL) where he started his Diageo journey in August 2013.
Prior to that, he was with Unilever where he had worked in various capacities.
Mark holds degrees in International Business, Management, Marketing, and Related Support Services from Makerere University.
“I’m delighted to have Mark join the Guinness Nigeria leadership team. His experience and leadership will support Guinness Nigeria’s ambition for long-term growth and competitiveness,” said Baker Magunda, Guinness Nigeria’s Managing Director, while commenting on Mark’s appointment.
According to his LinkedIn profile, Mark describes himself as “an ambitious, diligent, honest and self-motivated individual with greatly honed marketing skills with 13 years’ experience in the FMCG industry(Unilever + Diageo). I’m a good team player and believe in bringing about change for success at the workplace. I love meeting new people,” he states.
His appointment takes effect from this month of June as Mark will now be based in the West African city of Lagos in Nigeria.
Mark Mugisha has been serving in a similar role at Serengeti Breweries Ltd as the Marketing and Innovations Director since September 2019 until his appointment.
His brief career stint at Serengeti Breweries in Dar-es-salaam Tanzania lasted for 2 years and 10 months in the East African nation that neighbors Mark’s homeland – Uganda.
Mugisha holds a Bachelor’s degree in International Business with specialty in Business Management, Marketing and Related Support Services from Makerere University that he commenced in 2002 and completed in 2005.
While at Makerere University, Mark Mugisha was a Minister of State for Off Campus Affairs and a Member of the Guild Representative Council in ones of Africa’s greatest institutions of academic excellence.
From January 2006 to August 2007, Mugisha began his career as a Graduate Management Trainee (GMT) at Unilever Uganda ltd, where he spent the next 7 and half years of his business career rising through the ranks in various roles such as Sales Officer in charge of Western Uganda (September 2007 to August 2008) where he developed and deployed customer marketing plans for Unilever Food Brands to deliver brand objectives as a Customer Marketing Officer – Foods for a 9 month spell (Sep 2008 to May 2009).
He began his foreign based assignments abroad in June of 2009 when he was promoted to Unilever’s Regional Sales Officer – Rwanda and Burundi, for over a year he was based in Kigali handling business on behalf of Unilever.
He was elevated in October 2010 by Unilever after displaying a dynamic performance to the corporate rank of Customer Marketing Manager, this assignment compelled him to fly back to Uganda until June 2013 when he left Unilever Uganda ltd.
Next career stop for Mark was the Port Bell based Uganda Breweries Ltd (Diageo) where he started out as Marketing Manager from June 2013 until July 2015 and grew into Ag. Marketing Director Beer and Innovations from August 2015 to Feb 2016. For two years and 8 months, Mark served with corporate excellence at Diageo.
Mugisha’s most recent roles include; Head of Beer and RTDs (March 2017-July 2017) at Uganda Breweries as well as Head of Customer Marketing at the same brewery the combined roles cost Mark over six years of his working life until when he left Uganda again for Dar-es-salaam Tanzania to take on his last role of Marketing and Innovations Director at Serengeti Breweries Limited.