| East African Breweries (EABL)
East African Breweries (EABL)
East African Breweries is a public listed company that manufactures alcoholic beers and spirits and non-alcoholic beverages in East Africa. It is the parent company of Kenya Breweries Limited (KBL), Uganda Breweries Limited and Serengeti Breweries Limited. The legal function is also spread across East Africa and is headed by group legal director, Nadida Rowlands, who reports to the group managing director, the KBL director and Diageo’s senior counsel in charge of Africa. Rowlands oversees the functions in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda, in their support of legal governance, information management and security, corporate security and brand protection. ‘His vision for the function is to have the team work like an efficient law firm which delivers to its client on all assignments on time, in full with no errors’, says a nominator. The legal department has four departments across East Africa, namely, legal, governance, corporate security, and information management and security. The legal department has made various internal changes to increase efficiency. Micky Matheka, legal manager for KBL, says: ‘In the financial year 2017, the legal function implemented a new operations model. At the core of the model is the legal service centre. The centre has three arms: an online service desk; a call centre and specific email addresses to cater for various needs of the business. The legal service centre is manned by an operations manager. The aim of this model is to enhance efficiency, transparency and accountability’. The legal team has played a critical role in the set-up of the KBL Kisumu Brewery in the 2017-18 financial year. The new brewery will be dedicated to the manufacture of Senator Keg, an affordable and healthy beverage, which will compete with and eliminate illicit brews. The legal team provided advice to the business on how to set up the brewery, engaged with the government and obtained tax concessions, negotiated and prepared all contracts with the service providers, and obtained the requisite permits for the brewery from all relevant authorities.
