Mary Oduka-Ochan is a development and social science consultant and an Eminent Woman of the Women’s Situation Room (WSR) Uganda 2021 and 2016.

Mary is one of the founders of the Uganda Women’s Finance and Credit Trust, a civil society organization dedicated to the articulation and promotion of the socio-economic empowerment of rural women that later culminated into a fully-fledged Bank, Finance Trust Bank Ltd where she is a current board member.

She started her career as a Marketing Officer with the then Uganda Airlines Corporation until 1980 when she left to commence her lifelong engagement with women’s rights. She served at the Women’s Desk at the Uganda People’s Congress from 1981-1985.

She has served as the Executive Director of Africa Development Assistance, a regional non-governmental organization, Country Director of an Irish Development Agency, Agency for Personal Service Overseas (APSO), first in Nairobi, then in Uganda and as a Senior Regional Advisor at the Irish Development Agency (Irish AID) where she worked with the Board of Global Fund in Geneva, UNAIDS, Inter-Agency Task Team on Children and HIV&AIDS and the East African Community Regional HIV/AIDS Partnership, among others. She was also a Board member (2007-2010) and Chairperson (2010-2014) of Uganda Women’s Trust.

Mary is a graduate of Makerere University (B. Com) and the University College Dublin where she obtained a Master’s degree in Development Studies.