The late Safaricom CEO, Bob Collymore. He succumbed to Acute Myeloid Leukemia on July 1, 2019. On July 1, 2019, Kenyans woke up to the sad news of Safaricom CEO Bob Collymore’s demise. "It is with deep sadness that I have this morning received news of the death of Safaricom CEO Bob Collymore after years of battling cancer. As a country, we’ve lost a distinguished corporate leader whose contribution to our national wellbeing will be missed," said president Uhuru Kenyatta. Mr Collymore succumbed to Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML) at his home in Kitisuru in the wee hours of the morning. One year since Bob Collymore’s demise. It’s a good time to reflect on his legacy, leadership and lessons for the private sector and the world. Collymore took the mantle as the Chief Executive Officer of Safaricom in 2010. His assuming the position at the time left some pessimists who expected less of him quite bothered. Under Bob his stewardship, the company grew exponentially. Not long after he joined the company, Collymore introduced Safaricom 2.0. This was all about change and focus which in voled restructuring the company structure, culture, and mindset, centring on delivering superior customer service. However, some pessimists got some credence when Safaricom recorded a pretax profit of Sh18.4 billion in 2011. The amount was a decline from the Sh20.9 billion pretax profit recorded the previous year under his predecessor Michael Joseph. Bob moved to launch various services and products including the Niko Na Safaricom concerts across the country which helped drive new subscriptions, subscriptions. This paid off in the 2012/2013 financial year where Safaricom, for the first time in three years reported an increase in net profits from 12.6 billion shillings reported in 2012 to 17.5 billion shillings. The profit growth was attributed to the good performance of MPESA, text, and data. The firm’s profits continued to grow exponentially, and in May 2018, it announced the financial results for the year ended March 2018 showing a record of net profits worth Sh55.3 billion backing on M-Pesa and data revenues. Under Bob Collymore, M-Pesa has evolved from a basic SIM card-based money transfer application into a fully-fledged financial service. It has partnered with banks to offer loans and savings as well as merchant payments services. According to Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) data in January 2019, Kenyans transacted nearly half the country’s GDP (44 per cent) via […]
