Although rumours were already flying for the better part of the month, October 24 announcement of Peter Ndegwa as third Safaricom CEO with effective from April 1, 2020 is significant in many ways than one – it came a day after Safaricom marked its’ 19th birthday with a reset agenda of being Simple, Transparent and Honest.
For the first time in the history of the giant telco, a Kenyan will be running Safaricom PLC after almost two decades that the company was in the hands of the founding CEO Michael Joseph and the late Bob Collymore.
But who is Peter Ndegwa even as he heads to the corner office of the 7th floor of the Waiyaki Way building? The man has a huge profile. He could be even bigger for the job even not an equal match.
He is the Diageo Continental Europe Managing Director since July 2018. The Starehe old boy studied Bachelor’s degree in Economics at the University of Nairobi before proceeding to the London Business School for his MBA.
He is also a Certified Public Accountant and a member of the Institute of Certified Public Accountants of Kenya (ICPAK). He thereafter undertook consultancies in corporate advisory and project management at leading European and American banks and insurance businesses.
He later joined global consulting firm PwC as a consultant in 1996 and relocated to London, UK, under the firm’s talent development programme. Three years later, he transitioned from the Accountancy practice to the Consulting and Corporate Finance Unit at PwC.
He later joined East African Breweries Limited (EABL) as Strategy Director in 2004; a role in which he steered the development of an affordable beer strategy which saw the creation of Senator Keg.
Senator keg, according to a profile sent to newsrooms, has since gone on to become one of Kenya’s and Diageo’s most iconic beer brands and was recently featured in the Harvard Business Review.
Mr. Ndegwa, during his stint at EABL, was also credited with leading significant business development agendas including the acquisition of Serengeti Breweries Limited, a major subsidiary in Tanzania, and unwounding a complex shareholding structure with SAB Miller (now ABI) in both Kenya and Tanzania.
In 2011, he went to take up his seat at Guinness Ghana Breweries plc and later Guinness Nigeria plc – where he served as CEO for both Diageo subsidiaries.
He left Nigeria for his current role as Diageo Continental Europe MD in July 2018 where he has since been overseeing business operations in 50 countries in Western and Eastern Europe, as well as Russia, the Middle East and North Africa region.