Equity Appoints Samuel Kirubi As Group Chief Operating Officer

Equity Group Holdings Plc has announced the promotion of Samuel Kirubi to Group Chief Operating Officer (GCOO)

“As Equity rolls out its ambitious Africa Recovery and Resilience Plan intending to scale its customer base to 100 million by 2025, this calls for the scaling up of our operations, footprint, and distribution infrastructure is driven by technologically driven digitization and virtualization of the Bank”, said Dr. James Mwangi, Equity Group Managing Director, and Chief Executive Officer, while announcing the appointment.

Mr. Mwangi added that the Board has expressed confidence in Kirubi’s capability, experience, and deep knowledge of the transition culture in taking up this responsibility at a critical time of the bank’s growth and expansion.

Mr. Kirubi holds a Master’s Degree in Business Administration from Moi University and a Bachelor of Arts (BA) in Economics and Statistics from Egerton University. He is a graduate of the Advanced Management Program (Strathmore IESE Business School, Barcelona Spain).

He joined Equity Bank in 2001 and has gained vast experience in operations, marketing, and customer service. He previously served as Chief Operations Officer at Equity Bank South Sudan in 2009.

Mr. Kirubi was promoted to the Founding Managing Director of Equity Bank Rwanda in 2011, before being reassigned in the same position to Equity Bank Uganda in 2015. Last year, Equity Bank Rwanda became the second-largest bank in Rwanda.

During his tenure in Uganda, he turned the subsidiary from loss-making to becoming the fifth most profitable bank in Uganda and the third most profitable subsidiary of Equity Group after Kenya and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Before joining as a staff, Mr. Kirubi was one of Equity Group’s pioneer interns in the bespoke Equity Leaders Program (ELP).

Mr. Kirubi will oversee the enhancement of the Group’s capacity to deliver on its strategy by aligning people, processes, systems, commercial business, and business risk to customers’ aspirations.

He will also work with all the banking subsidiaries to deliver globally benchmarked exceptional banking services and solutions and leverage technology to drive efficiency and seamless customer experience characterized by ease and convenience of lifestyle.

Equity Bank has also been undergoing an internal business transformation towards delivering integrated financial services, under the One Equity business model. Samuel joins a highly talented team of C-suite executives tapped from some of the world’s leading business firms, providing a vastly experienced base of management executives and well-equipped to drive the execution of Equity Group’s strategy

“I am delighted and humbled at the opportunity afforded to me by the Board to steer the Group’s operations across the Group. My tour of duty in South Sudan, where I was in charge of Operations, then moved to Equity Bank Rwanda as the first Managing Director before being assigned to turn around Equity Bank Uganda, has indeed prepared me for the role of Group Chief Operating Officer”, said Kirubi, while speaking on his appointment.

Prof. Isaac Macharia, Equity Group Holdings Plc Board Chairman said: “We congratulate Samuel Kirubi for his excellent track record of leading teams in different countries. This experience has prepared him well to oversee Group operations in the different markets and we are confident that he will play his role effectively as the Group rolls out an ambitious Africa Recovery and Resilience Plan.”