Appointed Secretary General of MOESNA in March 2025, Mr. Mpaata took over the executive leadership of the region’s major Maritime body with over 20 years of experience in Shipping and International Trade as well as Financial Administration and Management, bringing forth a wealth of experience spanning from the peripherals of the manual era to the heart of the computer age, and putting into perspective contrasting generations of knowledge, technology, and people.

Experienced at working with Governments and the Private sector, Mr. Mpaata possess vast knowledge in the dimensions of Regional and Global Maritime transport and Trade and the development of Strategies for the enhancement of efficiency of Maritime Operations.

As a lead author of the concept of greater collaboration of regional states in the Shipping and Maritime Sector, the Chartered Accountant/Shipping and Maritime Advocate who has spent most of his career serving in the Maritime industry, has inspired various changes in both the Organisation and region including the transformation and rebranding of the Organisation from ISCOS to MOESNA, with emphasis on the critical importance of unity of purpose in addressing challenges in the complex, multi-faceted, diverse and multi stakeholder Africa’s fast evolving Shipping and Maritime sector.

He has been a strong advocate for reform and adoption of best practice in shipping and international trade, and has been at the center of various initiatives including the drive to localize Marine Cargo Insurance in the region, the facilitation of effective collaboration of sub sector stakeholders of the region, the development of online platforms for support of Logistics, advocacy for the effective representation of land linked states in Coastal Shipping services, trade facilitation across inland water ways and many  other country specific and regional-wide programmes in the Sector.

Mr. Mpaata is a holder of Master’s in Business Administration-MBA Finance and a Master’s in Business Administration-MBA Maritime Operations from the UK. He is a Fellow of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants-ACCA, and possesses several Certificates in Shipping, International Trade, Freight Logistics, Port Operations, Finance and Human resource Management.