Board of Directors

Director General

Dr. Macdonald George Obudho serves as the Director General of the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics, where he has dedicated his career to promoting excellence in the development and production of high-quality official statistics in Kenya. With a wealth of experience in top management roles spanning over seventeen years, he has led various technical teams in conducting population and housing censuses, registration and profiling of farmers, and designing and executing numerous sample surveys.

Dr. Obudho is a respected authority in the field of statistics, playing a key role in the development and implementation of statistical methods and standards, statistics policies, laws, and production, as well as the dissemination and utilization of statistical data. His leadership as Director of Population and Social Statistics was instrumental in overseeing the successful execution of the first digital census during the 2019 Kenya Population and Housing Census.

In recognition of his outstanding contributions to the field of statistics and his innovative approach to data collection, he has been honored with two State Commendation Awards: Elder of the Order of the Burning Spear (EBS) in 2023 and Moran of the Order of the Burning Spear (MBS) in 2019. He is a registered member of the Kenya National Statistical Society. Macdonald holds a PhD degree in Applied Statistics, a Master of Science degree in Statistics, and a Bachelor of Science degree in Mathematics and Computer Science, all from the esteemed Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology.

He has a number of certificates under his name that arise from short courses, workshops and seminars attended both locally and internationally.

Dr. Obudho serves as a Board Director of Tourism Research Institute, Hazina SACCO, among other boards

Board Member

Dr. Mohamed A. Sheikh is the Director General for the National Council for Population and Development (NCPD), a Semi-Autonomous Government Agency under The National Treasury and Planning. He previously served as the Head of Family Health Department, Ministry of Health Kenya.

He is a Medical Doctor and hold a master degree in International Public Health and a second Master in Maternal and Child health.A seasoned civil servant, Dr Sheikh, has served with excellence having had over sixteen years of experience in senior level health management systems and leadership. As the head of the department of family health, he oversaw the coordination and development of policies, strategies, guidelines and capacity building in Reproductive, Maternal, newborn, adolescent health and nutrition in the country.

Dr. Sheikh is credited for the introduction of innovative interventions including the breast milk bank being piloted in Kenya, use of chlorohexidine for cord care, introduction of amoxicillin DT for treatment of pneumonia in children and introduction of new vaccines. These great ideas have greatly contributed to reduction in maternal and child morbidity and mortality.

While serving as the provincial director of medical services, North Eastern Province of Kenya, he contributed immensely to the improvement of maternal and child health indicators through introduction of innovative programmes within the region. Dr. Sheikh serves as board director of the Anti- Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) in Kenya, He is also an advisor of a multi donor trust fund for GFF.

Benson Kiriga is the Director, Macroeconomic Planning in the State Department for Economic Planning. He has been a Senior Policy Analyst and HOD in the Macroeconomics Department in KIPPRA. He is undertaking PhD studies in Economics from the University of Nairobi. He holds a Master of Arts degree in Economics from the University of Nairobi. He has previously worked as a Senior Economist in the Ministry of Finance and in the Ministry of Planning and National Development. His areas of research interest include public finance, macromodelling and macroeconomic policy research. He has been involved in preparation of various Government of Kenya policy documents and is quite experienced in the Central Government fiscal operations.

Board Member

Alternate to the Principal Secretary, National Treasury, Samuel is a Chief Economist in Macro and Fiscal Department of the National Treasury and Planning.

Apart from being a Board Member of KNBS, he also represents the CS, National Treasury and Planning at Jomo Kenyatta Foundation (JKF) Board of Directors.

He holds an M.A in Economic Policy Management degree from Makerere University, Uganda and B.A in Economics from University of Nairobi. Besides the above, he has attended Strategic Leadership Development Programme (SLDP) at Kenya School of Government and several courses in Financial and Strategic Management, Leadership and Policy Formulation locally and abroad, and has also undertaken a training on Corporate Governance under Mwongozo facilitated ICS and SCAC.

Ms Rose Towett, a demographer with over 15 years’ experience in monitoring, evaluation and research has a passion for data-driven insights and evidence-based decision-making. She currently works as an independent M&E consultant. Before transitioning into consultancy, Rose worked for over 5 years with mothers2mothers Kenya, where she was responsible for the design and implementation of an integrated planning, monitoring, evaluation and learning system for projects with the aim of facilitating decision-making, promoting accountability, and strengthening results-oriented management.

She has also worked for other donor-funded and development organisations including Population Services International/Kenya and African Population & Health Research Centre. Rose holds a first class honors in Bachelor of Education (Mathematics) and a Master’s of Science (Population Studies) both from the University of Nairobi. She has also undertaken M&E professional course: Leadership and Managing for Impact: Participatory Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation from Wageningen University, The Netherlands.