Kenya Airways Chief Executive Officer Titus Naikuni (left) and Chief
Operating Officer Mbuvi Ngunze during a past Press briefing. Mr Ngunze
will replace Mr Naikuni as group CEO. Photo/SALATON NJAU
By BDAfrica.com reporter
Kenya Airways
has ended its search for a new chief executive, naming Chief Operating
Officer Mbuvi Ngunze to replace Titus Naikuni. The long-serving Group
Managing Director and CEO retires at the end of November this year after
11 years at the helm of the national carrier.
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Mr Naikuni joined KQ in February 2003 and was expected to
retire last year. However, KQ’s board asked him to stay for one more
year to steer the company through a turbulent period.
The board says it engaged the services of US-based
international executive search firm Spencer Stuart Limited to help
identify a suitable successor for Mr Naikuni. Plans to hire a new COO
are now underway.
Mr Ngunze has served as COO since September 2011.
He joined the airline from cement-maker Lafarge, with whom he spent a
decade in various roles.
These include heading the Finance department at
Bamburi Cement, managing Hima Cement Uganda and Mbeya Cement Tanzania,
and heading audit and internal communication at the group’s headquarters
in Paris. He holds a Bachelor of Commerce degree (accounting option)
from the University of Nairobi.
He is a Chartered Accountant (England and Wales)
and is also a graduate of the Harvard Business School’s Management
Development Programme.
The Naikuni era of KQ’s history was marked by
aggressive expansion. The airline now operates on more than 60 routes
from the 25 that it plied when he joined the company in 2003.
However, the company has also suffered some major
setbacks including two plane crashes, the first in Abidjan, Cote
d’Ivoire in 2004 and another in Doula, Cameroon in 2007.
KQ sank into loss-making territory in 2012 after a
fuel hedging bet gone wrong, but swung back to profitability the year
after. Efforts to cut costs in 2012 by retrenching workers saw the
airline entangled in a precedent-setting court battle.
The new chief executive will be tasked with seeing
to fruition KQ’s ambitious 10-year growth strategy, a project dubbed
Mawingu. Under the plan, the company plans to expand its fleet to 103
from the 41 it had in July 2013 and defend its share of the African,
from which it derives at least half of its revenues.
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