Anthony Hutia Speaks On Leading Samsung And Embracing Innovation

As the Head of Mobile at Samsung East Africa, Anthony Hutia considers himself a dynamic leader having gathered a wealth of experience throughout his fascinating career journey.

He is at the forefront of the region’s tech evolution, overseeing operations across 13 countries and driving impressive growth. But his path to leadership is anything but ordinary. From his early days immersed in drama and peer-to-peer counseling to running a mobile sales company and working with tech giants like LG and Microsoft, Hutia has navigated a diverse career filled with milestones and challenges.

In this interview, he shares the highs and lows of his professional journey and  also delves into the significant milestones he’s achieved, such as the recent success of the S24 launch, and the challenges he faces with parallel markets.

Join us as we dive into the life of this tech leader and explore what drives him both in and out of the office.

Who is Anthony Hutia?

Anthony Hutia is this humble young man. A father, married. I’ve been in Haiti for quite some time but now I’m in Kenya now.

I’m also a person who loves to enjoy life but also believe everyone needs to understand their purpose in life and be intentional in what they do, rather than just going with the flow

Let’s talk about your career. What led you to a career in IT?

Wow, so, my career has spanned a long time. It’s been a long journey. While in high school, what I did was a lot of drama, you know, plays, acting, and all that. I really had a passion for that. Immediately after finishing high-school, my uncle told me of a job he thought I could do. It was a job in sales and marketing, and I found that I could do it very well.

When I joined campus I decided to do a diploma in sales and marketing for starters, and that’s how my career in sales started. But then, I continued doing drama because I remember that was the time when AIDS was big and we were called to go and do peer to peer counseling. We were going to schools to sensitize them through drama.

After campus I started selling bills then later opened a small sales company that was dedicated to selling mobiles and lines. This was before the influx of mobile phones and we were dealing with those big phones. This was even before Safaricom and Kencel started selling mobiles, because when they came in, they did so at a cheaper price. This was when I got poached by Kencel through one of their distributors and within six months I was in their corporate division.

After Kencel, I moved to companies that were doing CDMA: There was Popote Wireless and Flashcon. After that I went to LG where I was the head of mobile, then went to a company that was doing ERP on open spurce called Lyons Technology. After that is now when I joined Samsung.

I stayed in Samsung for quite some time, maybe three years, then went to Microsoft for around seven years, took a sabbatical for two years, and now I’m back at Samsung again. For my second tenure, I’m almost a year old now.

 How has your journey been ever since you came back to Samsung?

When I was here previously, I had maybe one or two people under me, right now I have a whole big team. We are the ones handling bigger business in Samsung Electronics and it is for the whole region of East Africa, that’s around 13 countries.

What are the significant milestones that you have accomplished so far?

A milestone I can mention during my time could be the launch of the S24 which has done really well. The sales were 1.4 times more compared to during the S23 launch. I’ve also seen a growth in our partnerships with device financing companies like Watusimu and MKopa.

The other milestone I can mention is where we have started a journey of growing neighboring markets. Previously we had seen that most of our business was coming out of Kenya, so we saw it fit to do regional expansions within the countries we are already operational in. We have started with Tanzania, which is doing well. We’re looking to double the growth there then later move to countries like Ethiopia, DRC, and Rwanda.

As the Head of mobile at Samsung East Africa, what are your primary responsibilities?

First of all, it is to make sure that the bigger number of the total Samsung East Africa comes in because the mobile division hold the biggest number. My role is to make sure that at least based on our yearly targets, we must be able to meet quarter on quarter budgets or targets that we have. This now calls for us to be able to work with different category of partners. The first level is our distributors because we are a marketing subsidiary.

What that means is we don’t have stock that we sell directly. We have to use partners to be able to sell out our stock, so we do that through our distributors. We currently have multiple distributors that we work with.

I’m able then to work with my sales team and have them to get these orders through the distributors and fulfill this within the different markets.

The second level is being able to now within this regional growth, identify local people who can be able to run the business in these countries. There’s the component of mobile and there’s also a component of consumer electronics. My part is to make sure that the mobile division hits targets in these countries.

The third level is dealing with the retail team. We have a full retail team that we work with, people we call merchandisers. These are the people that now look at the retail component of the process and do the last mile sales to the end user.

I have to oversee the whole process. We bring in stock through the distributor, who sells it to the retailers or wholesalers, who then sell out to the end users. I have to make sure that this whole process is aligned and that we meet our targets.

What are the challenges you encounter while fulfilling your role at Samsung and how do you overcome them?

So what happens is every day has its own challenges. We wake up and say, okay, ready for today’s challenge. It probably might not be the same challenges you experienced the day before or the week before, or even the month before. They are different challenges.

The biggest I can say is fighting products that are coming like from Dubai. It is what we call a parallel market and is the biggest fight that I’m handling currently. However, we’ve gotten a way of being able to manage that through our device financing partner like Watu and Kopa.

Our region is price sensitive and they always think that everything, if they get a deal, that’s the best thing. But what we’re trying to also educate market is what does this deal cost you, right? At the end of the day, there’s nothing that comes for free and that’s what we’re trying to educate market about.

That’s one of the biggest challenge and we managed to be able to work around it with those device financing partners.

Personally, what are the trends that you are seeing shaping the mobile technology industry landscape? What do you envision as future trends?

Just looking at the transition of mobile phones from those big phones, to feature phones, to now smartphones, you can see that even the operators are encouraging use of data more than voice. People are not using voice. If I use voice, I’ll go to WhatsApp and I’m not going to pay that. I’m going to use the same data that I’m paying for to make that voice call. So, the data is actually becoming or has become king.

Take a look at the recent Gen Z movement in Kenya, it happened because they were all empowered by smartphones to be able to communicate in the manner that they did. So, the feature phones are dying off. Operators have moved to 3G, 4G, and now 5G.

With the market in Africa, we are seeing that going to be advantageous. Why? Because we have these device financing partners who are going to make these phones affordable to many.

Talking of device financing, that;s something that has become big now. It started in East Afica, propelled by the availability of M-Pesa, but it is spreading across the continent now. That’s a bigger trend that I see and I don’t think it’s going to stop because it provides affordability of these devices.

The third trend, maybe, I would say is about the introduction of new technologies, like AI. That is big because now you stop only just having a device but having a device that is real-time working and giving you that part of assistance in anything that you do.

The last part is now on the issue of not only having a device like a handheld device, it’s having the full ecosystem. You have a watch that is tracking your health, buds instead of cabled earphones. It’s now a full ecosystem where you can be able now to use all these devices at the same time. Bring that into a home setup, if I’ve left my washing machine on, the app can update me, I can switch it off even when I’m not in the house. It’s now extending this AI not only on the phone but it’s a whole ecosystem even in the house and whatever you do. IOT devices, so to say.

You’ve talked about your career journey to becoming a leader at Samsung. How would you describe your leadership style?

I always believe that you can never do anything alone. You need to have teamwork. That’s why I always insist to my team that you have to pull in your weight. You cannot be in a team and you’re just joyriding. You’ll never miss guys who joyride in any team.

I believe in people pulling their weight and being able to achieve more. I believe in giving them an opportunity to be able to show what they can do. That way then I can be able to delegate duties. I have a team so that I can be able to delegate and it gives me that freedom or release of being able to do much more stuff at the level that I am in.

The other part I also do is a lot of mentoring. I don’t want to say that I’m in Samsung forever. I would like to mentor people who can take up this role in future and allow me to do other stuff. I mentor people and teach them how to be responsible in what they do and what they say that they’re going to do.

What is the one thing that people don’t know about you?

Like I mentioned when I was talking about my journey, I love acting. It is something that maybe I would like to retire and do, maybe in another life. Maybe it is something I can pursue further later in life. Maybe.

Where do you aspire to be in the next five years?

Very good question. One, I would love to see that I’ve moved Samsung to be an absolute number one in East Africa. I would love to be part of that but then when that happens, as soon as that happens, then I can leave it to somebody else to continue with the journey.

Thereafter, I would love to go and do more of the boys’ and men’s mentorship. Be able to raise a generation of future of men who are responsible, men who actually take initiatives, men who actually make a difference. You know, nit just doing everything as a rite of passage, make that difference in the community.

So, my last question is about the work-life compromise. What is it that you do off work to let off steam?

Now, letting off steam, I love. During the weekends, what I do is, I usually have a morning session where I do mentorship. After I do mentorship, then I drive to the farm. I have a farm somewhere on your way to Namanga.

I sit there we slaughter a goat, eat meat, listen to birds, and have my favourite drin in the company of other men. Occasionally, I do that alone.

I also love spending time with my kids and, of course, my partner. Basically, spending time with family.