Bob Collymore gets two more years to head Safaricom

Safaricom’s Board of Directors has extended Chief Executive Officer Bob Collymore’s tenure by two years from August 2017 for steering the firm through difficult times.

Safaricom Chairman Nicholas Ng’ang’a said, “Bob has very successfully navigated our company through very difficult times even as he and the management explored new areas of growth and expansion.”

Mr. Ng’ang’a added that the board was confident that Collymore will continue to grow shareholders’ wealth and take the company to greater heights.

Collymore has been at the helm since 2010 when he took over from Michael Joseph from UK’s Vodafone, which controls 40 per cent stake in Safaricom. He has since seen the telecommunications company grow into a regional giant by profitability, balance sheet size and stock market capitalisation.

During his tenure, he has seen the firm experience growth and developed various innovative services and products that include the M-Shwari, Lipa na M-PESA a payment service for merchants as well as the Okoa Jahazi emergency airtime solution.

He has seen the company move from making a Sh20 billion net profit in 2010 to hit a Sh45 billion net profit in 2017 as per the recent financial results for the year ended on 31^st March 2017.

This will be the third time Bob Collymore’s contract gets extended. His first tenure was set to expire in 2013 but the Safaricom board extended it by two more years to end in August 2015. In August 2015, the board again extended his tenure that was due in August 2017 but now Collymore has secured yet another two-year extension. This means he will head safaricom till August 2019.