Francis holds a Master of Business Administration (Finance) degree from Newport University, California, USA. He is also a Certified Public Accountant (CPA-K).

Prior to joining icipe, Francis worked at the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF) where he was a Corporate Finance Manager with financial oversight for all aspects of financial and treasury management at ICRAF headquarters as well as its regional programmes. Before that, he worked at African Medical Research Foundation (AMREF) where he was responsible for donor reporting and compliance, grant management, and financial management reporting. He started his career at Uchumi Supermarkets where he managed suppliers accounts, inventory and trading accounts.

He has over 20 years of work experience in both the corporate and not-for-profit sectors across countries with expertise in developing and implementing financial policies and procedures, managing donor programmes, financial systems setup and management, financial reporting, partner management, treasury management, cash flow management, risk management and the management of internal and external audits.