Safaricom Appoints Lopokoiyit As Head Of Its New M-Pesa Firm

Following the completion of the acquisition of the M-Pesa Brand, Safaricom has appointed Sitoyo Lopokoiyit to head this financial services division.

Until March 2016, Lopokoyit was Safaricom’s head of department in charge of financial services (MPESA), a position he held for almost 5 years before he was picked to head m-commerce and MPESA services at Vodacom Tanzania. He later rejoined the telco as the head of financial services, a position he held until his most recent appointment.

His new appointment is part of the process to establish a leadership team for the newly created joint venture between South Africa’s Vodacom Group and Safaricom.

“To realize our ambition, the M-Pesa Africa Joint Venture will be steered by a team of five leaders consisting of the commercial director, finance director, technology director, head of compliance and risk and the chief of financial services, Safaricom,” the telco said in a statement. “This team will report directly to Sitoyo Lopokoiyit (Interim MD M-Pesa Africa).”

Safaricom said the joint venture will allow the parties to consolidate M-Pesa platform development, synchronize more closely product road maps, and improve operational capabilities into a single, fully converged unit.

“The joint venture will drive the next generation of the M-Pesa platform — an intelligent, cloud-based platform for the smartphone age,” Safaricom said.

Safaricom and Vodacom — which operates in South Africa and other markets in the region including Tanzania — plan to grow the platform beyond Kenya.