What you need to know:
Last week he retired from the giant corporation that now serves over 35.6 million customers, with a staff force of over 6,500 employees.
While Safaricom has been his most recent public platform for the last 13 years, he has an equally enviable past which, he says, gives him satisfaction.
Minutes after presiding over his last AGM as chairman of Safaricom on August 30, Mr Nicholas Nganga, spoke to Smart Business about his time at the mega company, and his 58 years in public service.
In Mr Nicholas Nganga’s words, it is not possible to pinpoint a specific moment of success for a company that has steadily grown in size, stature and profits since he first joined the board 16 years ago.
To put this in perspective, at the time of his appointment as chairman in January 2007, Safaricom had slightly over six million customers and 1,000 employees.
Last week he retired from the giant corporation that now serves over 35.6 million customers, with a staff force of over 6,500 employees.
During his tenure, shareholder value too has grown 607 per cent and the company’s market capitalisation at Sh1.075 trillion is worth 50 percent of all listed corporates on the Nairobi Securities Exchange.
GLOBAL RECOGNITION
The company has earned global recognition as a technology innovator and for its commitment to principles for responsible business.
Yet Mr Nganga, the soft-spoken man who is reverently referred to in Safaricom House corridors as “chairman”, does not reel out any of these figures and facts, preferring to speak instead about the impact the company has had on lives and livelihoods. “Safaricom is in the lives of people in a very deep way,” he says as he reflects on some of the company’s initiatives and projects.And, while Safaricom has been his most recent public platform for the last 13 years, he has an equally enviable past which, he says, gives him satisfaction.“I have worked in one capacity or other, in the public service for the last 58 years and in those years I have done various things,” he says, referring to a stellar career in civil service that saw him rise from a District Officer to a Permanent Secretary and decades of serving on various boards. As Permanent Secretary, he had two stints at Treasury, interrupted by a transfer to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, under circumstances he declines to talk about.Serving as […]