Safaricom has appointed Ron Webb as the Director – Financial Services, effective today. Mr. Webb, will replace Betty Mwangi-Thuo who left the company earlier this year.
Mr. Webb is joining Safaricom from Equity Bank where he was the leader of a newly created directorate of payments within the bank, responsible for driving innovation in the payments space. By doing so, Safaricom is taking deep cut at Equity Bank which has been steadily working to take mobile payments pan-African.
Prior to that post, Mr. Webb was Group Technology Officer at the Paynet/PesaPoint Group for 18 years where he was overseeing the development of new payment solutions from conceptualization to implementation and successful operation.
“Ron is passionate about the ability of Digital Financial Services to transform lives though Financial Inclusion. This vision aligns very closely with our aspiration to create transformative mobile solutions for Kenya and to deepen the use of financial services as they continue to evolve,” said Bob Collymore, CEO, Safaricom.
In his new role, Mr. Webb will be expected to provide overall leadership for Safaricom’s financial services portfolio, which includes the mobile money transfer service M-PESA as it approaches its tenth year of operation.
He will be tasked with conceptualizing, creating and growing the company’s growing mobile payments ecosystem to ensure market leadership, while meeting customer requirements.
Replacing Betty Mwangi-Thuo, Mr. Webb will be responsible for growing the 24.8 million mobile money transfer subscribers in Kenya to a new high as well as building the volume of transactions which stood at 348.8 million. He will also be responsible for ensuring optimal financial performance of the Division, assuring credit quality, managing business development opportunities, ensuring regulatory compliance and mitigating potential risk.
Born in Zimbabwe, Mr. Webb has thirty years of experience in the fast-evolving African payments space, having implemented systems and strategy for technologies ranging from the cheque to mobile in a number of markets.
