Our Team

Helena McLeod is a transformational international development leader, specialising in the design and management of multimillion pound innovative development initiatives. In her career spanning over two decades, she has designed and managed aid programmes, spanning the globe that have improved the lives of millions of people.

She took over as Team Leader for the catalytic CIG Uganda, UK aid financed programme, in March 2019. Prior to her current role, Helena was practice Head of Climate Change and Renewable Energy for KPMG East Africa. Prior to that, she advised on the establishment of a development infrastructure bank between the Chinese and South African governments for the Development Bank Southern Africa. Prior to that, she was a longstanding advisor to UK Department for International Development in climate change, economics and renewable energy.

She holds a BSc Economics from the London School of Economics and a Masters in Environmental and Natural Resource Economics from University College London

Dick Komakech (MSc, BSc, DIC, MCIHT) is a Senior Transport Specialist at Cardno Emerging Markets UK. He has extensive experience working in both developed and developing countries with public & private institutions, multilateral & bilateral agencies including DFID, World Bank, SIDA, AfDB, CDB and DANIDA. He is a technical advisor at local and national levels in the development of transport infrastructure predominantly in low and middle income countries. As a technical director in several short term projects, Dick successfully accomplished challenging assignments from negotiation to final completion.

Prior to joining CIG-Uganda, Dick was the team leader for the award winning programme, Improving Rural Access in Tanzania (IRAT) – a 4-year DFID funded programme which transformed the road development, management and funding mechanism and later adopted by key development partners

A senior manager of the Cardno East Africa and Cardno IT Transport office, Nicki Spence oversees the Project Management Unit providing managerial and technical support in all stages of the project life cycle. She currently oversees 24 active projects and has significant management experience handling a diverse range of programmes in multiple locations including several large programmes funded by donors including the EU, DFID, ADB, SDC, and UNDP. Nicki has an excellent track record playing a key role in the delivery of project / programmes that achieve high level outputs, outcomes within budget. She is currently the Prize Manager/Team Leader of a climate innovation prize held in Kenya funded by DFID and the Programme Manager of the UK Aid funded Uganda Cities and Infrastructure for Growth programme and Sustainable Development of Mining in Rwanda programme.

Paolo is the CIG Uganda Finance Lead in charge of raising suitable financing for infrastructure projects. Paolo have more than 20 years experience in economic development, in particular in infrastructure development and financing. He has been working as an economist and financial analyst for energy, water and transport infrastructure projects (at national and municipal levels) working for UK government funded programmes, EU infrastructure programmes and for the African Development Bank, World Bank and the private sector. Over the last 10 years Paolo has worked in several markets for PPPs in the power and transport sectors.

Paolo has a MSc in Economics for Development from Oxford University and a PhD in Economics from Sussex University.

Sayson is the Gender Equality and Social Inclusion Advisor for the programme. She is a multi-disciplinary Legal Sociologist with 18 years’ experience in social protection of rights and empowerment of the vulnerable and marginalized. She has worked globally (Europe) with extensive work across the Horn, Great Lakes and SDAC regions of Africa. She is well versed with the international, regional and national frameworks on gender equality and social inclusion (GESI), social cohesion, human rights and safeguards in governance, infrastructure, urban development and the energy sectors. Sayson has worked for different development partners; the EU, USAID, World Bank, AfDB, UNWOMEN, DFID; Government-MDAs, Academic Institutions and CSOs.

Dr. Revocatus Twinomuhangi is a leading environment management and climate change expert with up to 20 years working experience in training, research and capacity building. He is a Senior Lecturer at Makerere University and has worked on various national and global environment and climate change programmes with government and other international agencies like UNEP, UNDP, FAO, World Bank, USAID, WWF etc. He previously worked on the UK funded Climate and Development Knowledge Network (CDKN) and is a founder member of the Least Developed Countries Consortium on Climate Change (LUCCC), a south-south university collaborative network for enhancing capacity in climate change training, research and capacity building.