Willybard Lagho was borne on 23rd March in Taita Taveta County/Kenya and ordained a catholic priest for the Archdiocese of Mombasa Archdiocese on 25th April 1987. He worked as the Rector of St Mary’s Junior seminary in Kwale County from 1990 to 1992 before proceeding for his MA in religious studies in Catholic university of Eastern Africa in Nairobi and Arabic & Islamic studies at the pontifical Institute for Arabic & Islamic studies (PISAI) in Rome from 1994 to 1998. From January 2000 he tough islamology at St Mathias Mulumba seminary in Eldoret County and latter in St Augustine's Seminary in Bungoma County where he taught Islam & Interreligious dialogue.
He served as the Rector of St Augustine’s senior seminary from 2001 to 2006. While in St Augustines senior seminary he was selected by the Pontifical Council for Inter-religious Dialogue in Rome to join other panelist to develop a curriculum on Interreligious dialogue for English speaking Catholic higher institutes and universities in Africa from 2002. From 2008 he served as a Consultor for Pontifical Council for Inter-religious Dialogue with its headquarters in the Vatican. He's served as chairperson of Coast Interfaith Council of Clerics (CICC) Mombasa for six years and still serves as a board member of CICC to date.
Fr. Willybard Lagho is a founder member of the ecological development center (ECODEVEC) founded in 2013 to promote biodiversity through sustainable development in the coastal region of Kenya and SEAVURIA registered in Seattle USA to promote student CENTERED learning of methods of science subjects in Kenya He's worked as consultant for DANMISSION, A Lutheran development agency when they undertook “A pilot study on the methodological approaches and tools for measuring change and the results of working with Religion and Religious actors for peace and reconciliation in East Africa” in 2017 .In 2018 he was one of the facilitators during the training Kenya defense forces (KDF) chaplains in Naivasha organized by the National Counter Terrorism Center (NCTC) on their role in preventing violent extremism in Kenya.
Until his appointment as the Catholic Bishop of Malindi on 19th March 2021, Fr Willybard Lagho was the vicar General of the Catholic Archdiocese of Mombasa and head of the Interreligious dialogue commission in the same Archdiocese. Bishop Willybard Lagho is currently the Chairman of the commission for Interreligious dialogue and ecumenism (CIRDE) in the Kenya Conference of Catholic Bishops (KCCB) Bishop Willybard Lagho is a member of the Dialogue reference group (DRG), a forum led by faith leaders in Kenya established in early 2016 as a vehicle to advocate for electoral & governance reforms in readiness for general Elections through dialogue with key stake holders.