In a world where boys were given more opportunities to study or do ‘hard things’ while the girl child was mostly left on the periphery, growing up, Julie Mutoni set out to do things that were often considered a preserve for boys and men and it shaped her into who she is today.
It is that kind of spirit that has nurtured her into the business leader she is today and also prepared her to compete favourably in a male dominated world, with merits such as leadership and being able to take on challenges, being the driving factors.
Born nearly 50 years ago in Karamoja, one of the remotest parts of Uganda, in the north eastern part of the East African country, Mutoni, who is the currently Managing Director of Multilines International Rwanda, defied many odds to be at the helm of a leading freight and logistics company in the region today.
Her father worked in a Karamoja, a place so remote, that a saying in Uganda goes like “we cannot wait for Karamoja to develop”, to emphasize how backward the subregion she was born in in 1974 is, but that did not deter her ambitions.
Mutoni returned to Rwanda with her family in 1996 where she continued her studies at what used to be the School of Finance and Banking (SFB) and went on to coin out a business career that sets her among top corporate women leaders in Rwanda.