Esther Masese Waititu Resigns From Safaricom After Driving M-PESA's FinTech Expansion

Safaricom Plc Chief Financial Services Officer Esther Masese Waititu will leave the telecommunications company on July 31, bringing to a close a tenure that coincided with one of the most ambitious overhauls of M-PESA’s technology platform and financial services portfolio.

Her departure comes as Safaricom reshapes its senior leadership team. Chief Strategy Officer Michael Mutiga is set to leave for Stanbic Bank Kenya and South Sudan as Chief Executive Officer, while former M-Pesa Africa Managing Director Sitoyo Lopokoiyit joined Absa Group earlier this year. Together, the departures mark a notable period of executive transition at Kenya’s largest telecommunications company.

Safaricom Chief Executive Officer Peter Ndegwa informed employees that Waititu would leave to pursue other opportunities after requesting to exit the company. Boniface Mungania, currently Director of Public Sector Digital Transformation, will serve as Chief Financial Services Officer on an interim basis.

Waititu joined Safaricom in 2023 after more than a decade in banking, including senior leadership positions at KCB Group and Standard Bank.

During her time at Safaricom, the financial services business broadened beyond payments into investing, savings, merchant services and developer platforms.

Among the most visible launches was Ziidi Trader, introduced in February 2026. The service allows customers to buy and sell shares listed on the Nairobi Securities Exchange directly through M-PESA, lowering barriers for retail investors to access Kenya’s capital markets.

The company also expanded products such as Pochi la Biashara while continuing to strengthen Fuliza and other digital financial services aimed at consumers and small businesses.

One of Waititu’s most significant contributions was overseeing Safaricom’s FinTech 2.0 programme.

The initiative rebuilt M-PESA on a cloud-native architecture designed to improve reliability, scalability and software deployment while supporting higher transaction volumes.

The modernization also strengthened Daraja 3.0, Safaricom’s developer platform, giving businesses and software developers improved tools to integrate payment services into their own applications.

At Safaricom Decode 4.0, Waititu described the company’s objective as building financial infrastructure that developers, businesses and consumers could use to create new digital services rather than treating M-PESA as a standalone payments product.

That strategy also extended to My OneApp, which combines telecom and financial services into a single application while introducing mini-apps from third-party developers.

Rather than focusing solely on customer acquisition, Safaricom has been expanding the number of financial activities customers can complete within its ecosystem, from payments and savings to investments and insurance.

Waititu leaves at a time when M-PESA has become central to Safaricom’s financial performance.

Mobile money contributes the largest share of the company’s revenue, reflecting how the platform has evolved into a broad digital financial ecosystem that spans consumer payments, merchant services, lending, wealth products and enterprise solutions.

Beyond Kenya, M-Pesa Africa recently reported its first operating profit since the joint venture between Safaricom and Vodacom was established, underscoring the commercial progress of the broader platform across African markets. The milestone reflects several years of technology investment, product development and regional expansion.

Waititu’s departure is the latest in a series of senior management changes. Michael Mutiga will leave to become Chief Executive Officer of Stanbic Bank Kenya and South Sudan, while Sitoyo Lopokoiyit departed earlier this year to lead Absa Group’s Personal and Private Banking business.

Although the exits involve different business units, they coincide with a period in which Safaricom is expanding its financial services, digital platforms and regional operations.

The company has not indicated any change to its financial services strategy, and many of the programmes launched during Waititu’s tenure remain active.

The immediate priority will be maintaining execution across Safaricom’s financial services portfolio while leadership transitions take place.

An interim appointment provides continuity, but investors and industry observers will be watching for a permanent successor who can continue overseeing the next stage of M-PESA’s development.

That roadmap already includes continued investment in cloud-native infrastructure, developer platforms, digital investing, merchant solutions and integrated consumer services.

For customers, the leadership change is unlikely to produce immediate differences in how M-PESA operates. The broader question is how Safaricom builds on the foundation laid over the past three years as competition in digital financial services continues to intensify across Kenya and the wider African market.

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