Safaricom Chief Financial Services Officer Esther Masese Waititu is set to leave the telecommunications company on July 31, 2026, closing an influential chapter during which she helped advance M-PESA’s technology, investment and financial-services offerings.
Safaricom CEO Peter Ndegwa said Waititu was leaving to pursue other opportunities, with the company agreeing to her requested departure date. Boniface Mungania, Safaricom’s Director of Public Sector Digital Transformation, will take over the role in an acting capacity.
Waititu joined Safaricom in February 2023 from KCB Group, where she served as Director of Corporate Banking. Her career has also included senior roles at Stanbic Bank, Standard Chartered Bank and the former Commercial Bank of Africa.
At Safaricom, she provided strategic leadership to the company’s financial-services business, overseeing the development of products and solutions for individual consumers and enterprises.
One of the defining achievements of her tenure was the modernisation of M-PESA’s underlying technology through the Fintech 2.0 platform, alongside the expansion of the Daraja developer platform.
The improved infrastructure has enabled third-party developers and businesses to build services around M-PESA while supporting the platform’s continued growth as a wider financial-services ecosystem.
Waititu also helped oversee Safaricom’s expansion into savings, wealth management and insurance products.
Among the products introduced during her tenure was Ziidi, an M-PESA-based money market investment platform designed to make formal investing easier and more accessible. Customers can begin investing through Ziidi with as little as KES 100 using a mobile phone.
Reports indicate that Ziidi has since attracted more than five million users, helping bring more Kenyans into formal savings and investment products.
Her tenure also coincided with continued growth in M-PESA’s contribution to Safaricom’s business. M-PESA revenue increased by 15.1% to KES 161.1 billion in the financial year referenced in reports on her departure, strengthening its position as Safaricom’s largest revenue contributor.
Reflecting on her departure, Waititu described the moment as the right time to begin a new chapter after a career journey that started more than two decades ago as an analyst at the former CBA Group.
She said that, at the beginning of her career, she could not have imagined that she would one day lead the financial-services business behind M-PESA, which she described as an important engine of financial inclusion.
Waititu leaves Safaricom with M-PESA supported by upgraded technology and an expanding portfolio that stretches beyond payments into savings, investments, insurance and digital financial services.
Her departure marks the end of a significant period at the company, while also opening a new chapter in a career spanning more than two decades in banking, fintech and financial services.
