Abdi Mohamed started work as Chief Executive Officer of I&M Bank Kenya on Monday, 5th October 2026, after the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) approved his appointment, I&M says. Kihara Maina, who had been interim CEO, goes back to his job as Regional CEO of I&M Group.
I&M announced the hire on 29th June, a day after Mohamed resigned as head of Absa Bank Kenya, a larger rival, and we covered it then. I&M’s original announcement said the hire was subject to CBK approval and that Maina would stay on until that was done. It took 14 weeks, from 29th June to 5th October.
Why a bank CEO waits for the central bank
A Kenyan bank cannot put a new CEO in the job until the regulator agrees. CBK’s prudential guidelines, the rulebook for licensed banks, count the chief executive as a senior officer. They say no senior officer may take up the position before CBK has cleared them, and the bank must send CBK a “fit and proper” form, the regulator’s check that a person is suitable to run a bank.
The gap between announcement and start date is that clearance process, and it is why Maina stayed in the seat until Monday.
Who he is
Mohamed has more than three decades in banking, nearly all of it inside the Barclays and Absa group. He began in 1994 as a bank teller, by his own biography and reportedly at the Garissa branch. He later served as Chief Operating Officer of Barclays Bank Kenya, a retail director in Zambia, and Managing Director of Absa Bank Tanzania before taking over Absa Bank Kenya in May 2023.
He also chairs the UN Global Compact Network Kenya and sits on the Kenya Bankers Association governing council. He is a board member of Integrated Payment Services Limited, which runs PesaLink, the bank-to-bank instant transfer service, and of Touch Health, a health organisation.
What he takes over
I&M’s release says he will lead the Kenya business with a focus on customer relationships, “sustainable growth” and the bank’s “continued transformation”. It does not give targets, and it does not say what changes for customers.
The direction is in I&M’s own strategy, called iMara 3.0, which runs from 2024 to 2026. It has three aims: lead in corporate and commercial banking, build a retail and small-business (SME) customer base, and lead in digital banking. The group’s 2025 presentation, summarised here, reports 46% revenue growth from micro, small and medium businesses and 86% of customers active on digital channels. We reported the group’s 2025 profit of KES 24.2 billion earlier this year.
That strategy ends this year, and I&M has not said what replaces it.
His old employer filled his seat first. Absa named Yusuf Omari its permanent CEO effective 10th September 2026, about ten weeks after Mohamed’s exit was announced.
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