Safaricom CEO announces change in leadership

By Peter Ochieng

A change of guard has been announced at Safaricom. The Telecommunications company now has a new Group Chief Technology and Information Officer (CTIO).

Peter Ndegwa, Safaricom Chief Executive Officer (CEO) on Tuesday announced that James Githinji Maitai is the new CTIO, replacing the outgoing George Njuguna.

The new CTIO will assume his role on November 01, 2024.

“I have appointed James Maitai as the Group Chief Technology and Information Officer (CTIO) effective 1 November 2024. James will be responsible for the end-to-end performance of our network and all IT systems,” declared the CEO.

He added, “He will also lead the technology function in line with best practice, and will play a key leadership role, contributing to the overall business strategy.”

The outgoing Njuguna joined Safaricom as the Director of IT in 2019, before landing the additional CTIO role in February 2024. The CEO thanked him for steering and providing leadership to the Safaricom technology team.

“Subsequently, I wish to thank Njuguna for steering and providing leadership to the technology team since March 2024. Since joining Safaricom as Director IT in 2019, he has been instrumental in digitising our operations and has been key in the rollout of our telco to techno strategy growing talent in the technology team fourfold to over 800 while entrenching Agile ways of working in Safaricom.”

Maitai has over 23 years’ experience within the technology sector. He re-joins Safaricom PLC from Safaricom Ethiopia where he was CTIO since January 2023.

His dotted CV indicates that before joining Safaricom Ethiopia, he spent 16 years at Safaricom PLC serving across various roles including Director – Network.

Maitai was also instrumental in operationalizing the M-Pesa ecosystem, implementing a next-generation digital infrastructure and core network, and driving strategic cost leadership by realising over 30 per cent savings in technology OPEX.

He holds a B.Sc. in Electrical & Electronics Engineering from the University of Nairobi, and an MBA from the Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (JKUAT).