Sylvia Mulomi does not accept the idea that good people practice and good business sit on opposite sides of the ledger. With a workforce of more than 2,000 employees, she argues that the distinction is largely artificial.
After decades in people management, Sylvia Mulomi, head of people and culture at Stanbic Bank Uganda has built her career challenging the view of human resources as a support function. Instead, she treats culture as a strategic asset, one capable of generating measurable returns when leaders invest deliberately in trust, clarity, and psychological safety.
Long before the financial markets open in Kampala, Sylvia begins each day with a simple question: how am I showing up as a leader? She does not wait for annual surveys or formal performance reviews. For her, leadership assessment is continuous and personal.
“You cannot underestimate the role of the people and culture function,” she says. “Every day presents an opportunity to influence strategy, drive alignment, and shape behaviour in ways that signal what the organisation truly values.”
Feedback is constant
Sylvia believes feedback is rarely absent, it is simply often ignored.
“If you are not assessing yourself, others are doing it for you,” she notes. “Colleagues, clients, stakeholders, they are responding to what you say, how you say it, and how consistently you act.”
Her professional path in HR did not begin in banking. Sylvia started her career in the health sector, at a children’s hospital in eastern Uganda, joining as an executive assistant before progressing into human resource leadership. The experience exposed her early to environments where decisions carried immediate human consequences.
Her transition into banking came when she joined Stanbic Bank Uganda as an HR consultant, entering a tightly regulated, performance-driven system.
“Working across branches allowed me to see how strategy is experienced on the front line,” she recalls. “Decisions made centrally land very differently depending on context. I benefited from leaders who trusted me with responsibility sometimes before I felt fully ready.”
She later became a senior business partner supporting one of the bank’s core business units, advising executives on people decisions linked directly to performance.
“You are constantly balancing expectations. Results matter, but so does how people experience the environment in which those results are produced” she says.
In 2017, Sylvia left Stanbic to take on the role of country head of HR at Standard Chartered Bank Uganda, gaining broader exposure to global-local dynamics.
Sylvia later joined Absa Bank Uganda during its transition from Barclays, spending several years guiding the organisation through structural and cultural change.
“Transitions are not merely technical. They are emotional. People experience uncertainty in very different ways, and leadership presence sets the tone. During change, employees watch leaders more closely than they listen to them” she says.
The experience reinforced her belief that people outcomes and business outcomes are closely linked. When engagement improves, client experience tends to follow and commercial performance often improves as a result.
“For me, that was the clearest validation that people and culture are not peripheral. They are fundamental to growth,” Sylvia says.
Returning with perspective
Sylvia returned to Stanbic Bank Uganda as head of people and culture with a sharper appreciation of how expectations of leadership had shifted. The workforce was younger, more vocal, and more attentive to how leadership behaviour affected wellbeing and engagement. While overall engagement across the organisation showed improvement, she observed an uncomfortable contrast closer to home.
“That was a sobering moment,” she reflects. “It reminded me that in driving organisational outcomes, leaders can neglect their own teams.”
The experience reinforced another lesson: engagement cannot be addressed with uniform solutions.
“Teams are different. Their pressures are different. A single, well-intentioned plan will not work everywhere” she says.
Sylvia responded by encouraging leaders to seek broader, more candid feedback on how they were experienced by peers, teams and managers alike.
“Leadership matters enormously in growth environments,” Sylvia notes. “If we expect our people to change, leaders must be willing to listen, reflect and adapt.”
She subjected herself to the same scrutiny.
“The feedback was humbling,” she says. “But it was also constructive. People want to be heard, and when they are, trust deepens.”
Sylvia’s argument is ultimately a practical one. Organisations that treat people well are not indulging sentiment; they are investing in performance.
“When leadership behaviour aligns with stated values, people respond,” she says. “They work better, collaborate more effectively and serve clients with greater care.”
