Bob Collymore has announced he will be staying on as CEO of Safaricom for one more year (12-15 months) as his contract has been extended. This is part compensation for the 9 month period of time he was out on medical leave.

A successor is yet to be picked and there’s been growing conversation over who will be able to take over from Bob as he was expected to leave in August. There’s been rumors that the government of Kenya wants to have a Kenyan as the company’s CEO, but such conversation is yet to take shape.

During the Safaricom Full Year Results announcements, the Board Chair made a fun statement saying Safaricom already has a Kenyan CEO pointing to Bob Collymore being Kenyan already.

Collymore who is of Guyanese descent, has been CEO of Safaricom since they year 2010 and has overseen the company’s growth to becoming one of the biggest, and most profitable companies in East and Central Africa. In his tenure, M-Pesa has grown to become the world’s largest mobile money solution, and going by stats from their results last year, there’s still so much more for M-Pesa.