Newly appointed Equity Bank chief operating officer Julius Kipngetich (left) and group finance director Samson Oduor (right) with CEO and managing director James Mwangi (centre) during a press conference at Equity Centre, Nairobi, where Mr Mwangi revealed the new appointments on October 4, 2012. Photo/SALATON NJAU
What you need to know:
The bank’s chief executive, James Mwangi, announced Mr Kipngetich’s appointment to the newly-created position on Thursday together with that of Samson Meshack Oduor as the group finance director.
Mr Kipngetich last week resigned from KWS after eight years of reforms that have since turned around the fortunes of the conservation agency and helped improve its reputation.
He has served in the Equity Bank board for eight years and his entry into management team is being seen as a boost to the bank’s effort to attract high net-worth individuals and corporations, especially government institutions.
Mr Oduor joins Equity from Ecobank Transnational where he served as the chief financial officer. He has also worked with East African Breweries and Standard Chartered Bank in high ranking positions.
Last week’s exit of Julius Kipngetich from the Kenya Wildlife Service and his dramatic entry at Equity Bank as chief operating officer on Thursday came in the wake of a major shake-up of the bank’s management team.
Sources within the bank said the shake-up, which occurred two months ago, saw three senior executives that Equity had recruited from international institutions last year exit in succession.
Their exit was seen as a bump on Equity’s ride to deepening its presence in the corporate segment of the banking market.
The three included Paul Njaga who served as the chief finance officer, American Maurice Ewing who was the chief risk officer and Daniel Odongo who headed the corporate risk department.
They joined the bank in the third quarter of last year from top notch global institutions such as the Bank of America, Standard Chartered and Microsoft.
Equity had indicated that their key assignment was to broaden the bank’s product portfolio and prepare it for dominance in the corporate banking market.
The bank’s chief executive, James Mwangi, announced Mr Kipngetich’s appointment to the newly-created position on Thursday together with that of Samson Meshack Oduor as the group finance director.
The latest appointments are meant to realign the bank towards the goal of regional expansion, Mr Mwangi said.
“We want to ensure that Equity Bank is in every African country. We have the system in place, we have the necessary structure, we have piloted it in East Africa, and we are assembling the team to drive this plan,” he said.
Though Equity has consistently recruited top-notch professionals in the past five years, it has not been as successful in retaining them.
Mr Njaga, who joined the bank from BNP Paribas where he served as the head of Policy & Projects Group, left in September to join Chase Bank as chief strategy officer.
Mr Odongo and Mr Ewing both left the bank at the end of July after a year.
Analysts received on Thursday appointment of Mr Kipngetich and Mr Oduor to the top positions positively, citing their experience.
“The bank has been looking for competent persons to fill these senior positions which in my view also points to an attempt at succession planning,” said an investment analyst who requested not to be named because he consults for the bank.
Mr Kipngetich last week resigned from KWS after eight years of reforms that have since turned around the fortunes of the conservation agency and helped improve its reputation.
He has served in the Equity Bank board for eight years and his entry into management team is being seen as a boost to the bank’s effort to attract high net-worth individuals and corporations, especially government institutions.
Mr Kipngetich’s entry into the banking industry makes him and his wife Chemutai Murgor, who works at Standard Chartered Bank as finance director, a banking couple.
Mr Oduor joins Equity from Ecobank Transnational where he served as the chief financial officer. He has also worked with East African Breweries and Standard Chartered Bank in high ranking positions.
Corporate accounts
He is one of the first corporate accounts that Equity has been able to grab from its rivals.
Mr Mwangi said the bank had grown and become more complex, making it imperative to have smart people to assist in its management.
Mr Mwangi was appointed as chief executive at Equity in 2004 when the institution was still a building society. He has presided over one of corporate Kenya’s most dramatic transformations that saw the building society turn into a fully-fledged bank, list at the Nairobi Securities Exchange and break into the league of top banks within seven years.
These successes have seen Mr Mwangi become the face of the bank with a personality that has sometimes overshadowed the institution – leading to frequent claims that Equity has no room for other stars to shine.
Mr Mwangi is also in the list of Equity’s top shareholders with a 4.88 per cent stake.
The bank has since listing split its shares 10 times and is currently trading at Sh23 per share.
Its profits have grown to Sh10.3 billion last year positioning it as Kenya’s second most profitable bank with an asset base of Sh220 billion.
The bank is home to more than half of the Kenya’s banked population that stands at 7.5 million deposit accounts.
On Thursday, Mr Mwangi who had earlier this year stated that Equity would not continue its regional expansion drive but would instead consolidate its presence in markets it had entered, said the bank has set its eyes Nigeria, Ghana, South Africa and Congo among other countries but the timeline depended on “how quickly the team will move”.
Mr Mwangi had also signalled that Equity Bank would conduct a secondary IPO next year to raise cash for the expansion.
Mr Kipngetich told the Business Daily that his first role at the bank will be to mobilise capital resources for the Pan-African expansion.
“Pan African expansion is not an easy thing, the bank needs to look at each country differently, we cannot apply exactly same model that was used in other countries, and expansion it needs huge capital and my role is to mobilise resources,” he said.
