Esther Waititu, Safaricom Plc’s top executive overseeing M-PESA and its fast-growing financial services business is stepping down, extending a wave of leadership changes at East Africa’s largest telco as it doubles down on fintech and digital services.
Esther Masese Waititu, the company’s Chief Financial Services Officer, will leave Safaricom on July 31 after nearly three and a half years in the role, according to an internal memo from Chief Executive Officer Peter Ndegwa. She is departing to pursue other opportunities, with no successor outside the company yet announced.
Esther Waititu joined Safaricom in February 2023 from KCB Group, where she led corporate banking, and was tasked with steering one of the company’s most strategic businesses, M-PESA. During her tenure, Safaricom accelerated the modernization of its mobile money platform through the rollout of its cloud-native FinTech 2.0 architecture, expanded its developer ecosystem through Daraja APIs, and introduced new investment products including Ziidi Trader, allowing customers to trade Nairobi Securities Exchange-listed shares through M-PESA.
Her exit comes as M-PESA remains the cornerstone of Safaricom’s growth strategy. The platform has evolved far beyond person-to-person transfers into savings, lending, wealth management, merchant payments and enterprise financial services, contributing an increasing share of the group’s service revenue.
Safaricom has appointed Boniface Mungania, currently Director of Public Sector Digital Transformation, as acting Chief Financial Services Officer while it conducts a search for a permanent replacement.
Waititu’s resignation is the latest in a succession of senior leadership exits that have reshaped Safaricom’s executive ranks over the past year.
Among the most notable departures is Michael Mutiga, the company’s Chief Business Development and Strategy Officer, who recently resigned after being appointed Chief Executive Officer of Stanbic Bank Kenya and South Sudan. Mutiga had played a central role in Safaricom’s corporate strategy, mergers and acquisitions, partnerships and regional expansion.
Earlier this year, Sitoyo Lopokoiyit, Managing Director of M-PESA Africa, also left the Safaricom-Vodacom joint venture to join Absa Group in a senior executive role, ending a tenure during which he helped oversee M-PESA’s expansion across multiple African markets. Last year also saw the exit of Cynthia Karuri–Kropac, Safaricom’s Chief Enterprise Business Officer. 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.
At board level, Safaricom also saw the departure of independent directors Ory Okolloh and Rose Ogega in 2024 as part of wider governance changes.
While executive turnover is common among large listed companies, the clustering of departures from key strategic functions including financial services, strategy and M-PESA, marks one of the most significant leadership transitions since Peter Ndegwa became CEO in 2020.
Despite the leadership changes, Safaricom continues to execute an ambitious growth agenda centered on digital financial services, artificial intelligence, cloud infrastructure and enterprise technology. The company has also continued expanding M-PESA’s capabilities beyond payments into investments and wealth management while growing its Ethiopian business.
Investors will now watch closely to see who takes over the financial services portfolio, one of the most influential roles within Safaricom given M-PESA’s importance to the company’s earnings and long-term strategy.
For now, Safaricom has said only that Waititu is leaving to pursue other opportunities, with no indication of her next destination.