Louis Kimuli at the Conference in Johannesburg
JOHANNESBURG — The conversation in Johannesburg was not about degrees. It was about why African businesses die young and how to build ones that live long enough to become corporate titans.
That was the agenda for Louis Kimuli and the Kimuli World Foundation at the SEED Business School Festival Tour held at NH Johannesburg Sandton on October 31.
The festival brought together 200 participants and admissions leaders from top global business schools, with more than $10 million in scholarships and fee waivers on the table.
Kimuli’s pitch was very specific: actively hunt for top-tier institutional networks abroad, then bring them back to upskill Ugandan youth.
Unlike earlier dispatches that recycled the same four names, the SEED programme draws from over 110 partner universities across eight study destinations.
In Johannesburg and recent global editions, participants have included London Business School, IE Business School (Madrid), INSEAD, University of Oxford Saïd Business School, UC Berkeley Haas, Dartmouth Tuck, Cornell Johnson, Carnegie Mellon Tepper, Emory Goizueta, University of Toronto Rotman, York Schulich, Singapore Management University, Nanyang Business School and the University of Chicago Booth.
While Cambridge Judge and Imperial College Business School represent UK pathways, schools such as NYU Stern, Maryland Smith, Case Western Weatherhead, George Washington, William & Mary Mason, UT Austin McCombs and Illinois Gies offer US STEM-designated MBAs and business analytics tracks that are critical for fintech and agribusiness.
The Problem is Bigger Than Funding
Uganda is ranked by the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor among the most entrepreneurial countries in the world. But data from the Uganda Registration Services Bureau (URSB) shows for every business started, another closes.
URSB’s register stood at 850,000 businesses as of February 2025, up from 800,000 in 2021, but 37,702 companies were struck off in 2023 alone for failing to file returns for five consecutive years.
The Ministry of Finance, Planning and Economic Development notes Uganda’s informal economy accounts for about 55 percent of economic activity, with informal employment at 92 percent. The country hosts about 1.1 million micro, small and medium enterprises employing more than 2.5 million people. More than 60 percent close within five years. Uganda Development Bank estimates two out of three startups collapse within their first year.
What Kills Them
URSB’s Corporate Rescue and Aftercare Support Programme 2024/2025 was launched precisely because of inadequate business management skills, financial illiteracy, and weak corporate governance.
The World Bank notes that companies with sound governance have superior long-term financial outcomes, while poor governance is directly linked to poor performance and catastrophic failure.
At a recent SMEs conference in Kampala, dfcu Foundation Executive Director Mabel Ndawula said lenders are no longer funding ambition alone: “Businesses need to understand their numbers and be able to demonstrate them.”
Kimuli’s model is therefore not to send youth abroad permanently but to create a circulation of knowledge.
He is positioning the Foundation to translate global curricula from schools like Berkeley Haas, Tuck and Rotman, which SEED describes as offering direct access to admissions directors for MBA and Business Masters programmes into local bootcamps on bookkeeping, governance and risk management.
The Ministry of Trade, Industry and Cooperatives is now developing national business development services standards and certifications. Kimuli wants to plug global faculty and alumni networks into that framework.
The State of Entrepreneurship in Uganda 2024 scored the ecosystem at 57 percent, positive attitudes at 88 percent, but business linkages at just 24 percent, and technology adoption at 35 percent. That is the gap these varied global networks are meant to fill.
“Africa needs leaders who understand global supply chains. Elite education empowers entrepreneurs to stop exporting raw commodities and build regional manufacturing giants,” Kimuli said.
The question from Johannesburg, therefore, is not whether Ugandans can win $10 million in scholarships. It is whether exposure to more than 110 institutions, from London Business School to Schulich, can help build the systems that turn 850,000 registered businesses into corporate titans that survive beyond their fifth birthday.
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