Safaricom head of HR to leave company

Corporate News

Safaricom House in Westlands, Nairobi. PHOTO | FILE 

By BRIAN NGUGI

In Summary

• In a memo to staff, Safaricom chief executive officer Bob Collymore said Ms Shipiri had left for personal reasons.
• The hunt for her replacement will start immediately, the Safaricom boss said.

Safaricom’s director Maria Shipiri will leave the telecoms giant at the end of January after three years at the helm of its human resources docket.

In a memo to staff, Safaricom chief executive officer Bob Collymore said Ms Shipiri had left for personal reasons.

“I wish to announce that Resources Director, Maria Shipiri has decided to leave Safaricom, effective January 31, 2017 in order to focus on developing her ambitions outside the company,” said Mr Collymore.

He credited the executive for what he termed huge contribution to the operator’s recent milestones.

“I want to give my personal thanks to Maria for her positive support to the leadership team over the past year and wish her all the very best in her new endeavours,” said Collymore.

“It was her personal drive that led to recent approval of the positive improvements in the staff mortgage scheme. The regionalisation of the HR team will also count as her positive contribution to the company’s continued success,” said Collymore.

Replacement

The hunt for her replacement will start immediately, the Safaricom boss said.
“We will start the recruitment process for a new Resources Director but in the meantime the HR team will report to Joe Ogutu who will take on the additional role of Acting Resources Director,” said Mr Collymore.

Ms Shipiri joined Safaricom in July 2013 as head of department – human resources business partner, for consumer and enterprise divisions.

A year later, she moved to Vodafone Group (UK) as human resources business partner for group enterprises.

Prior to joining Safaricom, she has held senior leadership roles in both global and local institutions including Ecobank Groupe in Togo, Novartis in Switzerland and Morocco, Mumias Sugar, CocaCola East and Central Africa and World Vision International.

She returned to Kenya last year to head the resources team.