Alumni of the Month

Presently the Managing Director and CEO at the Vodacom Tanzania Public Limited Company in Tanzania, Hilda Bujiku is an alumna of the Unversity of Dar es Salaam - of the graduating class of 2004. Born in the late 1970s/early 1980s, she is a young lady evidently in her 40s/50s.

Having performed well in the primary and secondary levels of school, Hilda seized an opportunity to enrol at the University of Dar es Salaam in 2001, where she registered for a three-year degree programme in business studies at the University of Dar es Salaam Business School (UDBS). She majored in accounting. At that time, she also took advantage of certain other popular and professionally-enabling courses, such as information and communication technology (ICT). She graduated in 2004 with a BCom in the upper second-class category of academic honours.

At such a fairly young age of the fourties/fifties and particularly for a female--Hilda Bujiku demonstrates an example of a highly successful career path and an upward mobility that is matched and can only be explained by factors of individual motivation and personal discipline, guided by an array of relevant vocational choices and a sense of self-awareness and self-drive fuelled by the individual’s strong and persistent philosophy of life. Upon graduating with a BCom honours degree in 2004, Hilda secured a job with Ernst & Young, a London-based British law firm and a multinational professional services partnership operating in Tanzania and East Africa. For almost a year, from August 2004 to November 2005, she worked with the firm as an auditor, a position that not only gave her insights into institutional operations of many companies but also sensitised her professionally to the tasks of assessing, evaluating and monitoring the financial operations, viability and strategies of a wide range of traditional as well as newly established companies. Her knowledge and work perspectives were to be enhanced and sharpened further by her enrolment, during this period, by the opportunity she seized of enrolling in a training course for the professional CPA [Certified Public Accountant] qualification, which she acquired in 2005.

In the same year, December 2005, she joined Millicom  International Cellular  Tanzania Limited, then one of the new global information and communication technological companies and a leading provider of fixed and mobile telecommunications services. She started at the Assistant Reporting Manager position (for one year and four months, December 2005-May 2007), moving to Compliance Manager  (for three years and four months, June 2007-October 2010), to Financial Controller (for a little more than two years, from November 2010-February 2012) and finally to Head of Financial Planning and Reporting  (for two years, from March 2012-April 2014).

In December 2014, she joined Vodacom Tanzania Limited as Finance Business Partner – Commercial, a position she held until April 2016, when she was appointed Finance Director for Vodacom Lesotho (Pty) Ltd in Lesotho, Southern Africa, working there for almost 2½ years from May 2016 to September 2018. As from October 2018, she returned to Tanzania to become a Managing Executive within Vodacom Tanzania Plc, responsible for financial planning, analysis and investor relations. She carried out this role for a little more than two and half years, from October 2018 to April 2021, when she rose to the position of Deputy Finance Director and, subsequently, to full-time Finance Director as from January 2022 to August 2022. Since August 2022, Ms. Bujiku became a first Tanzanian to be appointed to the top position in the company (Vodacom Tanzania) - of Managing Director.

Looking back at the trend of her occupational mobility, sociologically speaking, Hilda Bujiku was not only one of the very fast upward mobile young “foxes” in a traditionally male setting of old “lions” in a society’s occupational landscape,  but also a shining example and role-model to be emulated by the younger generation¾particularly the younger generation of the womenfolk, and all the upcoming youth in general. The University of Dar es Salaam, Hilda’s alma mater and mentor, sends her its warm congratulations on the journey and achievements she has made.