Capital markets regulator to get new CEO by end month

The Capital Markets Authority (CMA) is likely to have a new chief executive by the end of this month, the Business Daily learnt on Tuesday.

The long-pending interviews for the position began on Monday and are expected to be concluded in the next few days, according to CMA chairman Kung’u Gatabaki.
This is the second time in as many years that interviews for the position, which has been held in an acting capacity by the authority’s strategy and policy head Paul Muthaura, are being done.

Last year, the interviews were conducted by a human resource consulting firm, Hawkins & Associates, but this time round a committee of the board is carrying out the exercise, Mr Gatabaki said.

“We decide to do the interviews ourselves to make the process faster. This way we shall have finalised the process by the end of this month,” said Mr Gatabaki.

When they were held last year, the then Finance minister Njeru Githae dismissed the short-listed names as lightweights who did not meet the Treasury’s requirements.

Mr Githae said that there would be a new recruitment exercise in line with the upgrade of CMA to category ‘A’ status, similar to that of the Kenya Revenue Authority and the Central Bank of Kenya.

(Read: Treasury rejects nominees for top capital markets job)

Among the three finalists for the CEO position were Wanjiku Mugane of the StanChart investment banking unit, Paul Mwai of Afrika Investment Bank and CMA’s own corporate and legal affairs director Rose Lumumba.

The law has since last year been changed to give the Finance Cabinet Secretary powers to appoint the CMA chief executive without having to pass the names to the President.

In January, Mr Gatabaki said that the regulator was “in consultations” with the National Treasury regarding the possibility of picking a chief executive through a less vigorous process such as conducting interviews of short-listed candidates.

He later resisted pressure from Mr Githae for a quick appointment ahead of the March 4 General Election.

The former Finance minister did not make it back to government after he failed to clinch the Kirinyaga governorship position, which he had contested in the March polls.
The position fell vacant after former CEO Stella Kilonzo declined to apply for a renewal of her contract when it expired in June last year.

She was a CMA insider at the time of her appointment but has since moved on and been appointed as director of a number of companies.

This is the first time a CMA boss will be competitively recruited. Past heads including Ms Kilonzo’s predecessors Edward Ntalami, Paul Melly and William Chelashaw were appointed by former presidents Daniel arap Moi and Mwai Kibaki.

The new head is expected to midwife the listing of the Nairobi Securities Exchange and formation of a commodities exchange.