Recently-appointed Safaricom board member Adil Arshed Khawaja has been elected as the chairman of the company’s Board of Directors.
Khawaja, a lawyer by profession – and a decorated one at that – is currently serving as the Managing Partner at Dentons Hamilton Harrison & Matthews, Kenya’s oldest law firm.
Khawaja’s election as the chairman of Kenya’s top taxpayer comes a month after the resignation of John Ngumi, the previous holder of the position.
Khawaja is expected to help guide the firm, under the leadership of CEO Peter Ndegwa, through the expected slowed economy that resulted in a slowdown in M-Pesa transactions, the company’s cash cow, last year.
His appointment also comes at a time when the company is just settling down in neighbouring Ethiopia where it has set up shop under the Safaricom Ethiopia consortium that is hoping to tap into Eastern Africa’s most populous country.
He is the fifth board chairman of the Waiyaki Way-based company.
The others who have served in the same capacity are former CEO Michael Joseph, who continues serving on the board as a non-executive director, long-serving chairman Nicholas Ng’ang’a who retired in 2020 and his predecessor, the first chairman of the company and former cabinet minister, the late Wilson Ndolo Ayah.
