Regina Mukiibi Mugongo

funeral director, founder and CEO, Uganda Funeral Services, Kampala, Uganda, and country representative for FIAT-IFTA, died June 29, 2021, at age 65. Mukiibi and her late brother, Fred Katamba, started Uganda Funeral Services in 1997, with the funeral home being the first of its kind in the country. After training at Salzburg Funeral Science Institute in the UK, where she earned a diploma, she returned to Uganda and founded Uganda Funeral Services.

In a 2015 interview with the Daily Monitor, Mukiibi shared that “it was in America where we stumbled upon the idea of a funeral services business. I was awed by the way the Americans managed and buried their dead in a really respectable and gracious way. That is when my brother and I noted that we did not have such a service back home.”

Mukiibi received various international and local accolades in recognition of her outstanding service, one of which was the 2013 Phenomenal Woman of Funeral Services Trailblazer Award, bestowed by the U.S.-based 100 Black Women of Funeral Service, during the association’s convention in Austin, Texas, in October 2013. Last year, the Bible Society of Uganda awarded Mukiibi and six other female Christians for breaking barriers in a male-dominated sector and ending up at the top. In 2009, Uganda Women Entrepreneur Limited recognized Uganda Funeral Services with a regional award in sustained growth, and in 2008, the Uganda Investment Authority recognized Mukiibi’s funeral service company with the Best Woman Entrepreneur of the Year award. In 2004, Uganda Women Entrepreneur Limited also awarded her its the Best Woman Entrepreneur of the Year award.