The Practice

Led by Raphael Gathecha.

Savvies Desk is a boutique governance, risk and cyber advisory practice serving financial institutions across East Africa.

12
years advising boards
30+
institutions served
4
countries mandated

Raphael Gathecha advises boards and executive teams at East African financial institutions on governance, risk, and cybersecurity. His work sits deliberately at the intersection of three languages a modern financial institution has to speak fluently: board oversight, regulatory expectation, and technical control.

“A preference for artefacts over abstractions, and outcomes over frameworks.”

He has spent his career alongside internal auditors, risk officers, and technology leaders — translating between what regulators are now asking for evidence of, what operations can sustainably produce, and what a board should be able to defend in an examination.

Raphael is an ISACA member and works closely with the ISACA Kenya chapter to bring practitioner-grade training to internal auditors and cyber leaders across the region. He convenes the quarterly Savvies Desk briefing, an invitation-only forum for CROs, CIOs and audit chairs of East African financial institutions.

A full CV is available on request under NDA.