Randa Rugangazi has played a central role in shaping growth at Irembo, where he steers a youthful team through complex strategy with a leadership style grounded in clarity and consistency.
At every stage of his career, Randa Rugangazi has decoded numbers. When he joined Irembo, the company was preparing for a major leap of product and market expansion, but basic questions about unit economics and pricing required clearer answers. Randa got to work immediately and developed models that projected where capital would go and what returns could be expected. Despite his relative youth, he became an essential voice.
“I am proud of my contributions over the last two years to the evolution of the finance function in terms of where the business is today and where it is heading. Being the voice of reason in some rooms, or just improving on what my predecessors built to ensure the finance function is a business partner to a company aiming to be a unicorn,” he says.
Before joining Irembo, Randa spent several years as a financial analyst with a greenfield energy project at HQ Power, where contracts governed every decision. The engineers running the project brought decades of experience to the table and Randa had to quickly learn their language. He owned and mastered key contracts which he leveraged when building a power generation billing model that he trained stakeholders on.
“When I joined HQ Power, I had five years of experience from PwC and I asked myself, how does my voice carry weight? You sit down and learn the company’s processes, and its contractual agreements that drive the business. With these in hand, you make valuable contributions in different platforms, then your voice starts carrying weight,” he says.
During his days at Bryant University in the US, Randa studied accounting and eventually landed an internship at PwC Boston, where he gained experience in audit practice and the culture of large professional firms. But it was during his summer breaks in Rwanda that he began to see the scale of opportunity back home.
“The accountancy profession was nascent with ICPAR barely five years old when I was concluding my undergraduate studies. So, the time felt right to start my career in Rwanda. I leveraged the PwC Boston connection to get a foot in PwC Rwanda and then I started in the assurance line of service. Starting out at PwC Rwanda set the right foundation for me to learn about business and develop my accounting skills,” he says.
A paradigm shift
The pivotal moment in Randa’s beginnings at PwC was the opportunity to see how different businesses work. Rwanda’s market allowed him to move across industries fast, learning about banks one month and construction companies the next. Over time, he achieved fluency in business models and strategic logic.
“Finance has allowed me to be in decision-making rooms. You understand the numbers, which keep the organisation accountable, but also influence how resources are allocated. Transitioning to CFO, for me, means becoming a strategic partner who goes beyond the numbers and contributes to the business model,” he explains.
At Irembo, Randa’s role involves translating strategic ambition into workable numbers and those numbers back into actionable insight. He leads a lean team, most of them younger than him.
“We’re building a team that grasps the numbers and also understands how they align with decision-making. You’re saying, I want to build an FP&A function. What does that take? I need someone who is comfortable with data analytics. Someone who can sit down with department leads and have a conversation where they understand what a function is doing and how it relates to the financials,” he says.
Beyond technical mastery
The ability to blend technical mastery with strategy has shaped Randa’s approach to leadership. In his view, the best leaders are consistent and empathetic. He credits his early experiences at PwC and the mentorship of his colleagues with reinforcing that standard.
“I think empathy, ethics and consistency are quintessential to being a good leader. Ethics has to be a key part of your personal brand as a business professional,” he says.
As Randa transitioned into managing investor relations and board reporting, he realised technical mastery was not enough. He had to learn how to speak in ways that persuaded people with different backgrounds and priorities.
“Sometimes I need to educate before I can convey a recommendation. Before you get to the decision-making table, you invest all this time building up technical mastery, but you are now in rooms where the people you’re talking to don’t necessarily grasp the technicalities of what you’re presenting. So, you find ways of communicating it efficiently and influencing the right decision-making,” he says.
Randa’s instinct is to look for what is already working and bring it into focus. He believes Irembo’s mission to digitise government services already aligns with environmental and social goals. The task for him now is to connect those outcomes to the way the company tells its story.
“When we talk about digitising government services, we have this mantra of zero trip, zero paper. That means services are available without needing to go back and forth between government institutions. And zero paper means we are environmentally friendly. So that means ESG is inherently embedded in our value model,” he says.
The fleeting thirties
Now in his mid-30s, Randa leads a team with an average age of 27. When he offers lessons drawn from his earlier years, some peers are surprised to learn just how long he has been in the field.
“Sometimes they assume I’m their age until I mention an experience I had 10 years ago. My wife keeps reminding me that I’m in my mid-30s. It seems like it was just yesterday I was celebrating the third floor. It’s gone by really, really fast,” he says.
For Randa, this is a small reminder that time moves fast. Although his parents gently teased him about ‘delaying’ marriage, Randa was keen to get his ducks in a row. He married his long-time fiancée in 2024 and now mostly spends the weekends outdoors.
“My wife enjoys activities that blend socialising with being outdoors, be it trying out HIIT gym sessions, family farm hikes, or frequenting our favourite eateries. Through these activities I get to de-stress and spend quality time with her,” he says.
