Uduak Amimo

About Uduak Amimo

Uduak Amimo is the founder of Asanama Leadership. She brings a journalist's understanding of how leaders perform under scrutiny, a coach's capacity to work with them from the inside, and a researcher's rigour grounded in original work on belonging and organisational psychology. The combination is rare. The result is leadership work that is intellectually serious, practically grounded, and built for audiences that want more than superficial performance and answers. Uduak's career started in the media. For over twenty years she worked as a journalist, broadcaster, and editorial strategist across Kenya, the United States, the United Kingdom, Ethiopia and Nigeria. She has worked for Reuters, the Voice of America and the BBC, and upon her return to Kenya, at Citizen TV where she anchored the country's most popular public affairs discussion program. In 2013, she moderated Kenya's first presidential debate, setting a new standard for political accountability journalism in the country. Her work has been recognised through several prestigious leadership fellowships: the Global Social Impact House Fellowship, the Archbishop Desmond Tutu Fellowship, the African Leadership Initiative Media Fellowship, and the BMW Foundation Responsible Leaders' Network. Uduak left journalism at the height of a successful career, trained as an executive coach, returned to university and completed a master's degree in business and organisational psychology. Her thesis exploring the intersection of communication and belonging in Germany was the first known application of the BJDJ Framework (Belonging, Justice, Dignity and Joy) in a German workplace context. She has built Asanama Leadership, a practice based on a disciplined approach to leadership as it is lived and experienced, grounded in original research and named frameworks. Uduak is the host of Fearless with Uduak Amimo, a podcast exploring the challenges and costs of leadership and public life. She is also the founder of Ramani Life Group, a community-based organisation providing career guidance to students in under-resourced schools across Africa. She is based in Kenya and works with multinational organisations, international NGOs, leadership fellowships, and senior executives navigating high-visibility, high-stakes complexity across Africa, the Gulf, Europe, and North America.

Key message

Leaders build trust, maintain credibility, and create environments where people stay, contribute, and do their best work. 1. Leadership is a relational and communicative practice with real life consequences. The work of leadership is to notice who and what is rewarded, silenced, protected, or punished. 2. Communication reveals power, trust, fear, belonging, and exclusion. Communication breakdowns are frequently about authority and self-awareness. 3. Belonging is a leadership condition that determines who contributes, who stays silent, and who thrives. Belonging is co-constructed in every communicative act, by every person, at every level and function.

Speaking topics and expertise

• Leadership in the Age of Scrutiny
• Executive Voice Under Pressure
• Everyone is a Communicator
• Power
• Responsibility
• and Leadership Practice
• Belonging Beyond Buzzwords
• Media
• Power
• and the Fracturing of Public Life
• Leading Through the Valley