Safaricom board chairman John Ngumi has resigned, less than 6 months since being appointed.
Ngumi was appointed by the Safaricom board in July 2022 to take over as the board chair starting 1st August 2022.
He took over from long-serving Safaricom CEO and Chairman Michael Joseph.
Joseph, who led Safaricom as its founding CEO for nearly a decade before handing over to his successor Bob Collymore, had been the chairman of the board since 2020 when Nicholas Ng’ang’a, his predecessor, retired.
Ngumi resigned both as a director and the chairman of the board of Kenya’s top taxpayer effective 22nd December 2022.
Throughout his 5-month stint as a director and chairman of the board of Safaricom, Ngumi was a rarity in the public light compared to his predecessors. His first public appearance as the chairman of the board of Safaricom was in November as the company announced its half-year financial results.
Rumours had pointed to a pending exit following the election of President William Ruto’s government in the very month he took office.
Ngumi was one of several appointments to the boards of various companies and parastatals where the state has interests that were made in the dying months of former President Uhuru Kenyatta’s administration. Many, especially the then president’s opponents at the time, viewed such appointments as a last-gasp effort by President Kenyatta to either retain control of key public and private institutions in his retirement or have various vested interests looked after.
Last month, President Ruto replaced Communications Authority of Kenya board chairman Gilbert Kibe after just 7 months on the job.
Safaricom, in its statement announcing Ngumi’s exit, says that a new chairperson would be elected in the coming weeks.
Adil Arshed Khawaja, a managing partner at Kenya’s oldest law firm, Dentons Hamilton Harrison & Matthews, has been appointed by the Safaricom board to join it as a Director in the company in a sitting yesterday (5th January).
