Safaricom has today announced Ron Webb as the new head of the financial services division. The division houses Safaricom’s mobile money service M-pesa. Webb joins Safaricom from Equity Bank where he headed the newly created directorate of payments within the bank, responsible for driving innovation around Equitel. Prior to that post, Webb was Group Technology Officer at the Paynet/PesaPoint Group for 18 years.
In his new role, Webb will be expected to provide overall leadership for Safaricom’s financial services portfolio, which includes the mobile money transfer service M-PESA as it approaches its tenth year of operation. Webb will also be tasked with creating and growing Safaricom’s growing mobile payments ecosystem to ensure market leadership, while meeting customer requirements. He will also be responsible for ensuring optimal financial performance of the Division, assuring credit quality, managing business development opportunities, ensuring regulatory compliance and mitigating potential risk.
Ron Webb will take over from Brian Wamatu, the former head of M-Pesa product development. Wamatu took over from long serving director of Financial Services Betty Mwangi. Mwangi left the firm in May 2016 after having served the firm for nearly a decade. Speaking on the appointment, Safaricom CEO Bob Collymore said, “Ron is passionate about the ability of Digital Financial Services to transform lives though Financial Inclusion. This vision aligns very closely with our aspiration to create transformative mobile solutions for Kenya and to deepen the use of financial services as they continue to evolve”.
Born in Zimbabwe, Webb has thirty years of experience in the African payments space, having implemented systems and strategy for technologies ranging from the cheque to mobile in a number of markets.
