Kenyan startup Twiga Foods has a new CEO. Charles Ballard, who has previously served as the CEO for Jumia Kenya, takes up the role from 1st of May 2024. His appointment comes after Twiga Foods‘ founder Peter Njonjo quit the firm’s board. This was a month after he had resigned as chief of Kenya’s most funded Agri-tech startup.
Twiga Food’s new CEO joined Jumia in 2019 and eventually rose to head of the Kenyan division in 2023. He had previously served as Senior Vice President – Commercial for the startup. He also worked in several leadership roles in Kenya including COO and Head of Performance & Planning. Holding a Master’s degree from the ESSEC Business School (France) and a BSc in International Development from the London School of Economics – UoL/LSE (UK), Charles has vast experience in trade and financial landscape.
Charles Ballard begun his begun career in Merger & Acquisitions in Paris & Hong-Kong, he joined ACTED, a humanitarian NGO, as deputy CFO. He has also worked with Sagaci Research as a consultant advising on retail & e-commerce projects across more than 15 African countries.
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Twiga, which has raised over KES 25 billion in the last decade, has gone through turbulent times. The company has had a number staff layoffs. These layoffs came amid reports of delayed salaries for workers. The last layoff led to a 40% reduction in staff numbers. It has also been forced to defer payments owed to suppliers. Last year, it was embroiled with a court battle with Incentro, a google cloud services reseller, over unpaid dues. The lawsuit momentarily saw the company face the threat of liquidation.
With money usage being the bane of Twiga Foods’ operations, Charles experience and expertise will be called into action immediately.
