Safaricom has confirmed the resignation of its Board Director and longstanding employee Michael Joseph.
Since joining the operator in 2000, Joseph has twice served as chief executive officer, as well as a stint as chairman of the board. He was the founding CEO of the company, and is credited by Safaricom as "steering the company from a subscriber base of less than 18,000 in 2000 to over 17 million subscribers by his retirement in 2010".
Joseph’s dual tenures as CEO are marked by major developments at Safaricom, perhaps most significantly the launch of the operator’s tremendously successful mobile money platform M-Pesa. Local outlet The East African notes that Joseph also took the company public in 2008 and oversaw the creation of the Safaricom and M-Pesa Foundations.
The late Bob Collymore took over the CEO role from Joseph in November 2010, and remained at the helm until his death in July 2019, following which Safaricom’s board opted to reinstate Joseph as interim CEO. He remained in the position for almost a year, during which time he was a key player in pushing Safaricom to enter the Ethiopian market. Joseph was succeeded as CEO by Peter Ndegwa in April 2020.
Safaricom Ethiopia recently saw the unexpected departure of its first CEO, Anwar Soussa.
