The search for Bob Collymore's successor began shortly after his contract was extended for a year in May 2019 to compensate for the time he had spent on medical leave. Bob would pass on in July 2019, forcing his predecessor, Michael Joseph, to take the wheel for a few months.
The search for the next CEO of Safaricom would eventually end with the identification of Peter Ndegwa, who was working at the time as Diageo PLC's Managing Director for Continental Europe, Russia, Middle East, and Africa, based out of Amsterdam.
In this week's episode, Peter Ndegwa reflects on how he joined Safaricom...
What Peter Ndegwa said
Written from the verified transcript and checked against it. Every figure links to the moment it was said.
Peter Ndegwa, CEO of Safaricom, discussed his appointment as the first Kenyan CEO, succeeding Bob Collymore. He noted the board's global search and his selection, which was announced in October 2019, though he joined in April 2020. Ndegwa took six weeks off, including climbing Mount Kilimanjaro, before starting during COVID-19, working from home. He emphasized Safaricom's stable leadership, with three CEOs in 25 years, and the benefits of long tenure for making difficult decisions. He acknowledged the challenge of leading a telecom and financial services business, and the wide stakeholder base, given the shareholding structure: government 35%, Vodafone/Vodacom 40%, and listed 25%. He distinguished his leadership phase as 'mature and renewal,' contrasting with Michael Joseph's startup phase and Bob Collymore's growth phase, and stated he leads from his own strengths, not predecessors' shoes.
Key takeaways
Ndegwa was appointed CEO in October 2019 but joined Safaricom on April 1, 2020, during COVID-19, starting from home.
Safaricom's shareholding is 35% government, 40% Vodafone/Vodacom, and 25% listed.
Ndegwa described his leadership phase as 'mature and renewal,' unlike predecessors' startup and growth phases.
He took six weeks off before joining, including climbing Mount Kilimanjaro in March 2020.
Ndegwa emphasized leading from his own strengths, saying 'I have my own shoes.'
In the year before Bob Collymore passed away, the Safaricom board had started recruiting the person who would take over from him. Bob's contract had been extended by one year to compensate for the year he had spent away from work as he sought treatment.
Even during Bob's time, we knew that Bob wanted to move on. Bob had already been offered a job back in the UK, taking what he had done here in terms of the external relations, of developing the relationship, making the company here that cares for you. Safaricom had become a beacon like that in the Vodafone group, and Bob was invited to go back or had been offered a job to do exactly that on the group. So we knew Bob was going to go. So we had gone through a search for his replacement before Bob died, and we went through another global search around the world. In that first round, Peter Ndegwa's name was there on the short list. So when we went back to do the next selection criteria and now restricting it to Kenya, Peter's name was there at the very top. And so that was how Peter was selected.
There were a number of Kenyans there who wanted a job, who thought they could have the job, who thought they should have the job. They lobbied very hard both politically and so on. But Peter stood out as the right candidate for this job. I interviewed Peter many times, not just in the board, but I actually went to see him. I met him in Paris. I interrogated him. Does he understand the DNA of Safaricom? And that was the big criteria for me. I knew he was a competent senior executive at EABL. The board thought very highly of him. While Peter Ndegwa was not a household name at the time, he had spent a considerable amount of time building his career in Kenya, starting from PwC and on to East African Breweries where he held senior positions in strategy, sales and finance before going to work in Nigeria and then Ghana. At the time, he was headed for Safaricom. He was the managing director for continental Europe and Russia.
I knew Safaricom would be one of the only handful of companies that I could work for. So it's just pure coincidence that I got the call. I'm assuming when they were looking for the successor to the late Bob, they would have had a list of people of which I was on that list, and eventually the board decided to select me for the role. There were certain adjustments I needed to make when I come, but I was still working. So it was how do I manage my current employer because I had to break the news, and then I'll start to reorient my mind because that was around September, October of 2019. I think the call came and the announcement happened in October of 2019. Although I joined in April 2020, the announcement actually happened like six months earlier.
4 more exchanges in this transcript
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Ndegwa, P. (2026, September 21). EP 10 | Safaricom Newsroom | Peter Ndegwa Joins Safaricom | Part 1 [Interview transcript]. Safaricom PLC. CEOInterviews.AI. https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/2913731/
MLA
Peter Ndegwa. "EP 10 | Safaricom Newsroom | Peter Ndegwa Joins Safaricom | Part 1." Safaricom PLC, 21 Sep. 2026. Transcript, CEOInterviews.AI, https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/2913731/.
BibTeX
@misc{ndegwa2026_2913731,
author = {Peter Ndegwa},
title = {EP 10 | Safaricom Newsroom | Peter Ndegwa Joins Safaricom | Part 1},
howpublished = {Interview transcript, Safaricom PLC. CEOInterviews.AI},
year = {2026},
month = {sep},
url = {https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/2913731/},
note = {Speaker-attributed transcript with timestamps}
}
