Safaricom has announced the retirement of its long-serving chairperson Nicholas Nganga which will be effective 1st August 2020. Former Safaricom CEO and current board director Michael Joseph will take over as Chairperson of the board on the same date.
Nicholas Nganga has served on the Safaricom board since May 2004 and was thereafter elected Chairman in January 2007. He has been serving in this position since then.
Michael takes over from Mr. Nicholas Nganga who has been the chairman of the board since 2007. Mr. Nganga joined the Board in. He has steered the company through various milestones over the 13 years he was at the helm. During his tenure as chairman. Mr. Nganga has been instrumental for the monumental growth that the telco has experienced.
Nganga took up the leadership reins at a time when the government was starting the process of offering 25% of its shares to the public through the Nairobi Securities Exchange in 2008. At the time of his appointment as Chairman, Safaricom had slightly over 6 million customers, 1,000 employees and only 8 Safaricom shops across the country. Nganga retires from the telco that now serves over 35.6 million customers, across 50 shops and hundreds of service desks across the country, with a staff force of over 6,500 employees.
He led the board in overseeing the rapid network development in the country, having started with 3G upgrading on his appointment at a cost of Ksh. 1B. In his last financial year as chairman, Safaricom announced investment of Ksh. 36B to expand its network coverage.
Michael Joseph is no stranger having served as the first CEO of the company. He later joined the board as non-executive director. He also served as acting CEO when the previous CEO Bob Collymore passed away. Current CEO Peter Ndegwa took over as CEO in April 2020.