Peter Ndegwa, current managing director of Diageo Continental Europe, is to serve as chief executive officer of Kenya's dominant telco Safaricom from 1 April 2020.

Safaricom's chairman Nicholas Nganga issued a statement confirming the arrangement and said Ndegwa "brings a wealth of experience in general management, commercial and business strategy, sales and finance operations, having spent over 25 years in various roles within the financial services and fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) sectors in Africa and Europe."

According to Safaricom, Ndegwa oversees the operations of Diageo PLC in fifty countries in Western and Eastern Europe, Russia, Middle East and North Africa region.

"He had previously served for seven years as CEO in Guinness Nigeria PLC and Guinness Ghana Breweries PLC, where he transformed the two operations to deliver a double-digit growth by investing in people, introducing new brands and reorganising the businesses."

The statement continues: "Prior to that, Peter served for eight years across a range of senior Executive Director roles at EABL (a Diageo subsidiary) based in Nairobi. Serving as the Group Chief Finance Officer (CFO), Group Strategy Director, Sales Director, and as an Executive Director on the EABL Board, he was part of the team that saw the EABL business more than doubled in value – and winning the coveted Most Respected Business Award in East Africa for five years in a row.

The company continued: "Peter is credited with the development of an affordable-beer strategy for EABL resulting in the production of new brands such as Senator beer. Senator beer became one of the most successful innovations by Diageo that has been featured in the Harvard Business Review. He started his career at PwC, the global consulting firm, where he worked for 11 years."

In July 2019 a former Safaricom chief executive officer Michael Joseph was appointed interim chief executive officer following the passing of Bob Collymore.

At the time, the company's board decided that Joseph would direct the company until they could find a permanent replacement.

Joseph was the founding CEO of Safaricom and handed the company over to Bob Collymore in 2010.

At the same time Kenya's Communications Authority (CA) released a report which stated that Safaricom had gained market share in the fixed broadband segment. According to the CA's Q1 report (January to March 2019), Safaricom secured over 16,000 connections and 31.5% market share.