Ronald Webb a seasoned finance and technology expert has joined Safaricom from Equity Bank where he was head of directorate of payments at the bank. In this position he was responsible for driving innovation in the payments space. Born in Zimbabwe, he has thirty years of experience in the fast evolving African payments space having implemented systems and strategy for tech ranging from cheque to mobile in a number of markets.
Prior to the Equity post he was a co-founder and chief architect of the Paynet and PesaPoint payment business in Zimbabwe and Kenya. As a trained technology professional, Mr. Webb is adept at overseeing the development of new payment solutions from conceptualization to implementation and successful operation.
In his new role at Safaricom, Mr. Webb will be expected to provide overall leadership for Safaricom’s financial services portfolio, which includes the mobile money transfer service M-PESA as it approaches its tenth year of operation. He will be tasked with conceptualizing, creating and growing the company’s growing mobile payments ecosystem to ensure market leadership, while meeting customer requirements. He will also be responsible for ensuring optimal financial performance of the Division, assuring credit quality, managing business development opportunities, ensuring regulatory compliance and mitigating potential risk.
Ronald has very big shoes to fill in his new role. It was previously held by Betty Mwangi-Thuo who steered the department to a revenue base Ksh. 40 Billion in 2016 as compared to Ksh. 16.87 in 2012. She left the company in March this year apparently to pursue personal interests.