Cynthia Karuri–Kropac, Safaricom’s Chief Enterprise Business Officer has left the firm, reports Business Tech Kenya.
Cynthia Karuri–Kropac, a former AT&T executive joined Safaricom on 1st September 2022 to spearhead Safaricom’s growth in the enterprise sector. With a career spanning 19 years at US telco AT&T, where she held various management and leadership roles, Before joining Safaricom, Cytnhia was a Senior Director, Enterprise Mobile and IoT Technologies from 2019 to June 2022.
In June 2022, Cynthia Karuri–Kropac took over from Kris Senanu, to bring her over 20 years experience in the telecommunications sector to Safaricom, East Africa’s biggest telco by revenues and subscriber count. Joseph Wanjohi had been the acting interim Chief Enterprise Business Officer from 1st June 2022 after Senanu.Wanjohi held the Enterprise Business team for 3 months.
Cynthia brought hers knowledge in business strategy, industrial IoT, enterprise technology solutions, executive advisory & decision support, operational excellence & process reengineering to Safaricom but she needed more room to drive change at the firm which her role limited her.
After two years at the firm, Kropac is being replaced by Frankline Okata as an Acting Chief Enterprise Business Officer. Okata joined Safaricom in 2006 as a Customer Care Representative and has held several roles in the department. In 2011, he moved into the Enterprise Business Unit and has held various roles there. In January 2022, he was appointed as the Executive Head, Merchant Payments, at Safaricom Ethiopia and in January 2024 came back to Nairobi to lead the Head of Packaged Solutions.
Kropac holds a Bachelor of Finance from the University of Toledo, Ohio, and an MBA in Finance and International Business from Kent State University, Ohio.
At Safaricom, Kropac launched “Grow with Safaricom Business” an engagement platform for Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) .
Grow with Safaricom Business offers business solutions such as Business Voice, Data and SMS, Cloud Solutions, Cybersecurity Solutions, Internet for Business, Internet of Things (IoT), M-Pesa for Business, Cloud Solutions among others.
According to Kropac,”Through the Grow with Safaricom Business series, we aim to empower MSMEs with the knowledge and skills that can help them to sustainably accelerate their growth and overcome challenges such as digitization of their operations, limited access to markets, regulatory barriers, brand building, and a lack of digital marketing skills,”
The platform is an opportunity for knowledge-sharing and collaboration among MSMEs in order to scale their businesses through a series of workshops and seminars throughout the year where MSMEs will exchange ideas on how they can leverage digital technologies to enhance their market reach, streamline operations, and create a strong brand presence online.
Kropac also saw Safaricom launch revamped in-country cloud computing platform and services, to help businesses and organisations digitise their operations, offer flexibility and resilience to ever changing environment.
The new cloud services, hosted in Data centres in Nairobi and Kisumu are powered by VMware Technologies. The deal allowed customers to buy cloud computing capabilities in bulk and set up the environment to suit the business application requirements.
“This signifies a new era of possibilities for businesses as a catalyst for innovation and growth,” said Cynthia Karuri-Kropac, Chief Enterprise Business Officer, Safaricom during the launch. “We believe that by providing businesses with world-class cloud computing capabilities, we empower them to unlock new opportunities, thrive in the digital age and achieve their growth aspirations more efficiently and cost-effectively.”
Kropac was also in charge of driving Safaricom’s myCounty app. Safaricom’s plan to digitise the county’s operations in all 47counties in Kenya and to digitise their services and operations through a single, citizen access channel.
myCounty App was expected to ease public access to county services such as payment of parking, single business permits, among others.
Kropac said the app has since helped counties “witness the convenience with which digital services have brought to the people. With the world being a global village, it is important that governments adapt and evolve in the way they operate and offer services. myCounty App will not only ease access to county services but also boost revenue collection. We are hoping that we can soon have the App integrated in all the 47 counties.”
Though myCounty App was to help provide a feature that will empower residents to engage their Governors or report issues and provide key County and emergency services including requests for fire, ambulance, police and more at the tap of a button and bolster counties’ revenue management, cash and bank reconciliation, credit control and debt management, and business intelligence systems, many counties never took up the project apart from just having Paybill numbers.