Kilonzo gets second board position at Liberty Insurance

Stella Kilonzo has earned a board appointment in Liberty Insurance. FILE 

By NEVILLE OTUKI

In Summary

• The Nairobi Stock Exchange (NSE) Thursday said the insurer had notified it of Ms Kilonzo’s appointment. 
• Her appointment coincides with the replacement Liberty Insurance chair Jeremiah Kiereini with Susan Mboya-Kidero, an executive of Coca-Cola.

Former capital market’s regulator CEO Stella Kilonzo has earned a second board appointment in a firm listed at the Nairobi bourse after being tapped as a director at Liberty Insurance.

The Nairobi Stock Exchange (NSE) Thursday said the insurer had notified it of Ms Kilonzo’s appointment, her first public appointment since stepping down as CEO of the Capital Markets Authority on June 30 last year.

She became the first woman to be appointed a director at ARM Cement in December as corporate Kenya increasingly looks for serving and former CEOs for board positions.

“Ms Stella Kilonzo was appointed as director of the company with effect from December 3,” said the statement form the NSE.

Her appointment coincides with the replacement Liberty Insurance chair Jeremiah Kiereini with Susan Mboya-Kidero, an executive of Coca-Cola.

Dr Mboya-Kidero joins Nelius Kariuki of Kenya Re and Uchumi Supermarkets’ Khadija Mire, the only women chairing boards among the 61 NSE-listed companies.

(Read: Third NSE-listed company names woman to chair board)

“Mr Jeremiah Gitau Kiereini ceased to be a director of the company from the directive received from your office dated August 7,” said Liberty in a letter to the NSE indicating the new appointments.

The NSE had not responded to our questions on details over the directives by the time this paper was going to press.

Mr Kiereini, 83, has in the past 18 months had to fend off allegations that he, together with former CMC chief executive Martin Forster, operated illegal offshore accounts worth more than Sh250 million.

The existence of the cash was revealed by Bill Lay, who was the chief executive of motor dealer CMC, prompting a forensic audit by South African firm Weber Wentzwel commissioned by the markets regulator.

The audit mentioned Mr Kiereini as one of the signatories of the secret offshore accounts. This prompted the CMA to bar Mr Kiereini from sitting in the boards of companies listed at the Nairobi bourse. Mr Lay left CMC this year.

Mr Kiereini has since quit the boards of CFC Bank, East Africa Breweries Limited, CMC Motors and Unga Limited.

The Liberty appointments come at a time when women’s role in boardrooms of NSE-listed firms remains muted. A study by the Kenya Institute of Management (KIM) says 34 per cent of the 57 companies it examined at the Nairobi bourse do not have a woman on their boards even as the capital markets regulator mulls mandatory gender caps.

KIM blames this on reliance on old-boy networks for directorship appointments since boards have traditionally been made up of retired men of similar backgrounds who recruit from a network of friend

The under-representation of women at the top level of big business has also been caused by the requirement that one has either previous boardroom or executive experience, especially that of CEO or chief financial officer.

At present, only two women — Maria Msiska (BOC Kenya) and Nasim Devji (DTB Bank) — are chief executive officers in publicly quoted companies.

Lack of women in directorships is said to be preventing the flow of fresh ideas into boardrooms where the ticket to a seat is often influenced by factors other than merit.