Management

Ms. Boitumelo "Tumi" Mbaakanyi is a Fellow Chartered Certified Accountant and a seasoned Private Sector Development Expert with over 20 years of experience spanning Project and Programme Management, Financial and Advisory Services, Transactional Advisory (including Due Diligence and Mergers & Acquisitions), Strategic Governance, and Organisational Turnarounds. She is widely recognised for her expertise in national and regional value chain development as well as trade development and facilitation.

As the Chief Executive Officer of Business Botswana, Tumi will provide strategic direction and leadership to the organisation, championing private-sector growth, policy advocacy, and national economic transformation. Her appointment marks a significant step in strengthening Business Botswana’s efforts to position the private sector as a key driver of sustainable economic development.

In her most recent role, she served as the Project Manager responsible for the Sustainable Private Sector Development pillar at the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Botswana. In this capacity, she led the development and implementation of the organisation’s flagship Supplier Development Programme (SDP) and co-developed a Regional Value Chain Initiative, which is expected to commence shortly. Her portfolio spanned diverse value chains, including mining, manufacturing, infrastructure, and agro-processing, and included collaborative interventions aimed at improving the ease of doing business in Botswana.

Boitumelo has extensive governance experience, having served as a non-executive director and audit/risk committee member across a range of industries in the private sector, government, and civil society. Her leadership demonstrates deep agility in corporate governance, organisational sustainability, and strategic oversight. She currently chairs the Board of Directors of Old Mutual Life Insurance Botswana and serves as a Non-Executive Director at Old Mutual Financial Services Botswana and Riscura Botswana. She recently retired as Chairperson of G4S Botswana, a BSE-listed entity, after nearly a decade of board service.

Her previous governance roles include serving as President of the Women in Business Association, Botswana and as a member of the Independent Complaints Review Committee (ICRC) under the Public Procurement and Asset Disposal (PPAD) framework. She has also contributed to national and corporate negotiation teams for strategic agreements.

Beyond her professional achievements, Boitumelo treasures her role as a mother to her children, Maita (the King) and Fungo (the Princess), whom she nurtures with unwavering devotion and joy.

Mpaphi Tsholofelo is a seasoned professional with a proven record of over 15 years’ experience in economic research and policy, working in both government and private sector with a special focus on promoting growth and development of small and large businesses. Specifically, he took up numerous roles where he led policy and strategy development; conducted economic and political analysis of development policies and their implications for private sector growth; providing policy and strategy advisory; designing, managing and monitoring and evaluating programmes; projects management; and coordinating research and analytical work that informed decisions on various policy matters.

In his portfolio as Business Botswana’s Policy and Research Head, he is responsible for setting the business agenda of Business Botswana to influence policies and programmes for a conducive business environment for the growth and development of large and small businesses. Specifically, he is responsible for identifying regulatory barriers to doing business, conducting research on the issues, and engaging Government through convening meetings between Government and the Private Sector to provide policy solutions to such problems. Therefore, his job is to maintain regular dialogue with senior government officials including Cabinet ministers, to assist the private sector with various critical policy matters that impact on business/ enterprise development and growth.

Mpaphi is therefore highly experienced in government liaison, public policy formulation and dialogue as well as research. He has senior management experience and capabilities in strategic thinking and business management expertise, leadership, business development, policy and strategy formulation, Small, Medium, Macro Enterprises (SMME) development, and stakeholder engagement.

He holds a Master of Public Policy (Policy Analysis), Postgraduate Diploma in Public Administration both from the Australian National University, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australia and a Bachelor’s degree in Economics from the University of Botswana. He is also a PhD Candidate with the Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. Mpaphi is also a laurete of several scholarships, with study and work placements in Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and Switzerland, Geneva.

 

Kagiso Koyabe 

Head - Capacity Building and Business Advisory

Profile

Kagiso Koyabe 

Head - Capacity Building and Business Advisory 

Kagiso Koyabe is a development and finance professional with over ten years of professional experience in the financial services sector and development. Often this included the assessment of not only individual companies, institutions and sectors, as well as analysing the conditions of businesses in Botswana across various sectors, to shape and influence the design of policies, strategies and intervention programmes for improved competitiveness. This has in recent times, been integral to developing new initiatives and programmes to further support the growth and competitiveness of the private sector and its support services.

As Coordinator of SMME Development under the EDF funded, Private Sector Development Programme (PSDP) Botswana, he assisted in designing and delivering specific programmed interventions to meet strategic challenges regarding day-to-day operations of small medium and micro enterprises and community-based organisations. This included coordinating technical consultants on projects in various parts of the country to ensure effective and impactful service delivery on projects, within budget and aligned to respective objectives. This opportunity also provided the opportunity to work alongside international experts from organisations such as the International Trade Centre – Geneva, International Labour Organisation - Pretoria (ILO), African Development Bank (AfDB) as well as regional non-for-profit organisation Phyto-Trade Africa, resulting in the publication of a series of 8 Value Chain studies and other business development tools.

As Technology Entrepreneurship Advisor for the Acceleration component of the Botswana Innovation Hub’s First Steps Venture Centre, Mr Koyabe continued to play the liaison role between the organisation and regional and international partners and collaborators who share the development objective of catalysing economic prosperity through mainstreaming innovation and innovative processes in businesses and programmes. This included support and coordination of the regional Southern African Innovation Collective (SAIC) Boost Up Regional Innovation Pitch Programme from 2020 through 2023. Other notable partnerships maintained during this time include; Venture Capital for Africa (VC4A) Mentor Driven Capital Start-up Mentorship programme, The UNDP Youth Connekt, ITC Ye! Youth entrepreneurship programme as well as supporting the operationalisation of the World Bank IBP Platform.

Mr Koyabe holds a Bachelor of Commerce in Econometric & Economics from the University of Johannesburg