Safaricom’s Chief Financial Services Officer, Esther Waititu, will leave the company at the end of July, marking another high-profile leadership change within the telecommunications giant’s financial services business.
In an internal communication to staff, Safaricom CEO Peter Ndegwa confirmed that Waititu’s last working day will be July 31, 2026, saying she had chosen to leave the company to pursue other opportunities.
“I wish to announce that Esther Waititu, our Chief Financial Services Officer, will be leaving Safaricom to pursue other opportunities. At her request, the company has agreed that her last working day will be 31st July, 2026,” Ndegwa said.
Waititu joined Safaricom in 2023 after more than a decade in the banking sector, where she held senior leadership roles at KCB Group and Standard Bank.
Her key achievements include leading the migration of M-Pesa to its Fintech 2.0 cloud-native architecture, a move to improve the platform’s resilience, scalability and to support the growth of the Daraja developer ecosystem. She also oversaw the launch of Ziidi Trader, the M-Pesa mini-app that enables users to buy and sell shares listed on the Nairobi Securities Exchange directly from their phones.
Her departure comes amid a series of senior leadership changes at Safaricom. Earlier this year, Sitoyo Lopokoiyit left his role as Managing Director of M-Pesa Africa to join Absa Group, while Chief Strategy Officer Michael Mutiga is set to become CEO of Stanbic Bank Kenya and South Sudan from August.
Safaricom has appointed Boniface Mungania, currently Director of Public Sector Digital Transformation, as interim Chief Financial Services Officer while it begins the search for a permanent replacement.
Although executive transitions are common in large organisations, Waititu’s exit comes at an important time as Safaricom continues to evolve M-Pesa beyond mobile money into a broader digital financial services platform spanning payments, investments, credit and enterprise solutions. Her successor will inherit one of the company’s most strategically important businesses as Safaricom pursues its next phase of fintech growth.
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Also Read: What is New with Safaricom’s Daraja 3.0 and Why It Matters for Developers