Joan Mugenzi, a Ugandan entrepreneur coaching people to be the best versions of themselves  — Lionesses of Africa

When I am doing Imagine Me Africa work, I spend a significant amount of time advocating for the coaching profession ensuring its growth and visibility in Uganda and the rest of Africa using different platforms. I am the Founding President of ICF Uganda, a chapter that was formed in a record two months (a record not experienced in the history of ICF, and also grew the chapter to Charter Chapter status (50 members) within a period of one year and nine months against a globally set target of three years.

I am also part of Coach Masters Academy as a Director of Training for Uganda where I train, supervise and mentor coaches preparing for credentialing at Associate Certified Coach and Professional Certified Coach levels. I hold a Master’s degree in Public Health leadership (pride in providing health for the mind!), and a post graduate diploma in Journalism and Media management.

Why should anyone use your service or product?

We are addressing a challenge that every employee is likely to face in their lifetime. Every employee will one time lose a job, best case scenario, when they reach retirement age. Other scenarios are restructuring, shocks like the COVID19 pandemic, disability, illness of a loved one, personal sickness and all. We support individuals through the employment cycle for both good – career planning and transitioning, but also for eventualities. No employee should be caught unawares.

Tell us a little about your team

I basically still operate as a self-employed entrepreneur with systems around me. We are a simple team of two full time staff but led by an Advisory Board that keeps us on track ensuring we have all our systems in place, ensuring compliance and good governance. We then work with a team of eight Associates. We are deliberate about this business model because we know it helps us keep our operational costs manageable, but it also enables us to pay our Associates decently. This structure has enabled us to attract meaningful assignments and now we are on a journey of creating a coaching hub.

Our team of coaches is one on a continuous quest for exploration. All our coaches have either completed the advanced level of coach training or done their mastery training and are members of the International Coaching Federation. This level of equipping and a commitment to global professional standards only means their conversations are far deepening in terms of giving you great introspection and a learning experience. We believe that coaching should provide our clients with an opportunity to do deeper self-introspection, experience a mindset shift and evoke change from within.

Our team is also vastly exposed and has provided coaching and held strategic engagements with clients across Africa, Asia, Europe, North America, and South America. Among the countries covered are Australia, Brazil, Burundi, Chad, DRC, Ethiopia, France, Ghana, Germany, Hong Kong, Lesotho, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Mozambique, Niger, Netherlands, Norway, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, South Africa, South Sudan, Swaziland, Sweden, UAE, Tanzania, Uganda, United Kingdom, Zambia and Zimbabwe. The team has also offered coaching to multi-sectoral teams and individuals covering financial services, NGO sector, Faith Based Organisations, Public sector, and the UN Agencies among others. To meet your needs as a client, we give you a minimum of three blinded coaching profiles from which you choose a potential match for you.

Share a little about your entrepreneurial journey. And do you come from an entrepreneurial background?

Part of this is covered under what inspired me to start the company. However, it has been learning on the job. My family didn’t have any entrepreneurs that I could look up to. In fact, when I left an International job, it was traumatizing for some of my family members. They thought I was out of my mind.

What are your future plans and aspirations for your company?

Turning Imagine Me Africa into an African coaching hub of choice. We are intentional about offering quality professional coaching services and this has dictated who we onboard. When a client has a bad coaching experience, they will send word around. We pride in offering enhanced transformational and transcendence coaching experience.