Peter Ndegwa was on Thursday appointed the new Safaricom Chief Executive Officer (CEO), becoming the first Kenyan-born national to head the giant telecommunications company.
Ndegwa, the Diageo Continental Europe Managing Director, will officially assume the position on April 1st, 2020 and replaces former CEO Bob Collymore, who succumbed to cancer in July this year.
Not much is known about Ndegwa, who has been at the helm of British alcoholic beverages company, Diageo since July 2018.
Ndegwa is an alumnus of Starehe Boys Centre and holds a Bachelor’s degree in Economics from the University of Nairobi and an MBA from London Business School. He is also a Certified Public Accountant and a member of the Institute of Certified Public Accountants of Kenya (ICPAK).
After completing his MBA, Ndegwa assumed key duties in corporate advisory and project management at leading European and American banks and insurance businesses.
He later joined the global consulting company, Price Waterhouse Coopers (PwC) as a consultant in 1996 and relocated to London, the United Kingdom under its talent development program.
In 1999, he moved from the accountancy practice to the Consulting and Corporate Finance Unit at PwC.
Ndegwa returned to Kenya in 2002 and worked on several corporate advisory duties in the financial services sector.
He later in 2004 joined East African Breweries Limited (EABL), a Diageo subsidiary based in Nairobi, as Strategy Director and is credited for introducing Senator Keg, which has since gone on to become one of Kenya’s most iconic beer brands and was recently featured in the Harvard Business Review.
In 2011, he was moved to Guinness Ghana Breweries plc. and later Guinness Nigeria plc., both Diageo subsidiaries, where he served as CEO.
In July last year, Ndegwa left Nigeria for his current role as Diageo Continental Europe MD, where he has been overseeing business operations in 50 countries in Western and Eastern Europe, as well as Russia, the Middle East, and North Africa region.
The father of one is married to Jemimah Ndegwa.
“Instead of just looking at what governments can do, we need to acknowledge that large organizations can improve society and shift how people think and feel. For me, this is about working with others to build sustainable businesses that can make a difference in people’s lives,” said Ndegwa following his appointment to Safaricom.
