Peter Ndegwa’s Biggest Legacy May Not Be M-Pesa, It’s Taking Safaricom Beyond Kenya

When Safaricom shareholders gather in Nairobi—or log in virtually, for the company’s Annual General Meeting on 31 July, much of the attention will fall on the fourteen special resolutions that could reshape how Kenya’s largest listed company is governed for years to come.

Before those votes are cast, however, it is worth reflecting on the record of the man who has led Safaricom through one of the most consequential chapters in its history.

Peter Ndegwa assumed office in April 2020 under circumstances no chief executive could have anticipated. Fresh from climbing Mount Kilimanjaro, he received a message from his wife informing him that Kenya was shutting its airports as the COVID-19 pandemic spread across the world. It was his first week as CEO. He had barely met most of his leadership team before the country’s largest telecommunications company was forced into remote operations.

Ndegwa inherited a business shaped by two transformative leaders. Michael Joseph had built Safaricom from a fledgling mobile operator into one of Africa’s most successful telecommunications companies while introducing M-Pesa, a product that fundamentally changed how Kenyans move money. Bob Collymore expanded that foundation further, steering mobile money into lending, savings and a broader digital financial ecosystem before he died in 2019.

Ndegwa became the first Kenyan to occupy the corner office. His challenge was not simply to preserve their legacy, but to define one of his own.

He did so by breaking through a boundary none of his predecessors had crossed.

For more than two decades, Safaricom had been a Kenyan success story operating exclusively within Kenya’s borders. In April 2021, less than a year after taking office, Ndegwa secured a telecommunications licence in Ethiopia. By October 2022, Safaricom Telecommunications Ethiopia had launched services in Addis Ababa and eleven other cities, marking the company’s first expansion beyond Kenya. Today, the operation serves roughly 10 million customers, making it one of the largest corporate investments by a Kenyan company outside the country.

Every era has its defining breakthrough.

Much as earlier generations of Kenyan marathon runners proved that seemingly impossible barriers could be challenged before others eventually crossed them, Michael Joseph and Bob Collymore built the platform that made regional expansion possible. Ndegwa was the executive who ultimately carried Safaricom across the border.

That achievement has become one of the defining milestones of his tenure.

The AGM on 31 July will determine important questions about Safaricom’s future governance—from board composition to decision-making structures and protections around the company’s brand. Those decisions will influence the business for years ahead.

Whatever shareholders decide, one part of Safaricom’s recent history is already settled. Peter Ndegwa became the company’s first Kenyan chief executive, guided it through the uncertainty of a global pandemic, and led its first successful expansion beyond Kenya’s borders.

Some milestones are measured in resolutions passed. Others are measured by barriers broken.

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