Nairobi, December 4, 2020: Telkom has made senior appointments aimed at building its leadership bench strength; fortifying its operations and customer service excellence and aligning these with its new strategic direction.

Claire Munene and Saddiq Mwai join as the new Director, Customer Experience, and the Director of Digital Financial Services, respectively, within the Telkom Consumer Service Delivery Unit, with Elam Muchira, joining as Director, Internal Audit.

Claire Munene – Director, Customer Experience

Claire has over 14 years’ experience in Customer Experience, with a focus on the telecommunications and banking sectors. Prior to joining Telkom, she served as the Vice President – Partnerships at Ajua – Africa’s first Integrated Customer Experience Company. She has also served as HOD, Customer Value Management at Safaricom. While at Safaricom, she was recognised as one of the top 10 managers, within the company, with a very good and consistent overall engagement index score. She was also responsible for the review of airtime borrowing product ‘Okoa Jahazi’ through Customer Experience enhancements in the FY 2015.

Claire holds qualifications in Project Management from the University of George Washington and has also gone through the VMS Series Boot Camp from the MIT.

Saddiq Mwai – Director, Digital Financial Services

Saddiq has over 20 years’ experience in strategic project management and business transformation through the use of digital technologies. He has consulted widely on matters Innovation, Strategy, Digital Transformation and ICT Policy, in East Africa.

He was responsible for the implementation of core banking systems in 12 leading commercial banks in the region, including the Central banks of Kenya, Rwanda and Burundi. He was also the Project Leader responsible for the implementation of a Human Capital Management System for 13 countries in Africa. Saddiq was also the Team Leader for the development of 3 national ICT strategies, SMART Rwanda Master Plan 2016/2020, ICT4RAg 2016/20, ICT Hub Strategy 2019/24 all approved by Government of Rwanda in 2016.

Saddiq holds an Executive MBA from the Maastricht School of Management, a BSc. Mathematics & Physics from the University of Nairobi and he also has a Post Graduate Diploma in Islamic Banking and Insurance from the Institute of Islamic Banking and Insurance.

Elam Muchira – Director, Internal Audit

Elam is a distinguished audit, compliance and risk management professional, who has been specialising in internal controls and governance process improvement in the telecommunications sector.

Elam has worked within Internal Audit Functions for companies such as Wananchi Group (Head of Internal Audit) and Safaricom (Principal Auditor for Commercial Processes). He has also worked at PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PWC), where he led external audit teams in providing assurance on statutory and group financial reports for entities such as: Airtel Tanzania, Vodafone Tanzania, Unilever Kenya, GSK, Kakuzi and Jubilee Insurance.

Elam holds a BSc in Computer Science and is a Certified Information Systems Auditor. He is also a member of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants.

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About Telkom

Telkom connects the people that keeps Kenya on the move. It does this by providing integrated telecommunications solutions to individuals, Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs), Government and large corporates in Kenya, drawing from a diverse solutions suite that includes voice, data, mobile money as well as network services. Powered by its vast fibre optic infrastructure, it is also a major provider of wholesale carrier-to-carrier traffic, within the country and the region.

Telkom is building on strong, consumer-centric ethos that is committed to providing innovative, accessible and refreshingly simple communications solutions that suit customers’ everyday communication needs.

Established as a telecommunications operator in April 1999, Telkom is 60 per cent owned by Helios Investment Partners, with the remaining stake held by Kenyans through the Government of Kenya. Telkom has 4,150 km of terrestrial fibre cabling, serving as a key conduit for broadband connectivity, inland. Telkom Kenya also owns a 23% stake in TEAMS, a 5,000km undersea fibre optic cable through Fujairah, UAE; a 10% stake in LION2 another 2,700km undersea fibre optic cable through Mauritius.

It also owns a 2.6% stake in the East African Submarine System Cable and manages the National Optic Fibre Backbone, an inland fibre optic cable network running through Kenyan counties. The arrival of DARE 1 with Telkom as the landing partner further reinforces its role in the management of the National Optic Fibre Backbone.

About Telkom’s New Strategic Focus Areas

• To better position our infrastructure asset base and services, to drive digital transformation within the Consumer, SME, Corporate and Public sectors, to enable them become smart entities;
• To create a future smart landing hub for the majority of sub-marine cables in the region as we continue to provide connectivity to all data, entering and exiting Kenya;
• Bridging the consumer digital divide; connecting the unconnected through the expansion of our 4G/LTE network, as well as through cutting-edge technologies such as Loon;
• Up-skilling our employees to be future-fit, to serve the evolving needs of our customers.

Telkom’s New Service Delivery Units

Focus Areas for Service Delivery Units

1.Telkom Consumer will focus on the following:

• Data:  Investing in innovative technologies that will enable faster scaling of our network and services, realising better customer experience;
• Financial Services:  Telkom is enhancing its financial services offering, to be reflective of current customer demands, with respect to increased security, simplicity, availability and reliability;
• Partnerships: We are working with developers and other technology solution entities (bringing faster and affordable technology to the end-user) to deploy services and solutions that will address current and future consumer needs/ trends;
• Digitisation of products and customer service channels, to simplify the customer journey.

2. Telkom Digital will focus on innovative approaches to create more value for Telkom’s customers:

• • Making use of our extensive fibre network, we will drive digital transformation by enabling public and private sector players to become smart entities, by way of technologies such as Internet of Things (IoTs), Cloud, Big Data and Analytics;
  • Increasing our product and solution portfolio, as we walk the digitisation journey with our customers, providing solution design, hosting and managed services, as well as other strategic post-implementation support and operational services;
  • These advantages will enable more flexibility for guaranteed uptime, higher service levels, and therefore more value for our customers;
  • Telkom will incubate its future cloud business, with the aim of providing a carrier neutral experience.

Please visit www.telkom.co.ke to get to know more about Telkom.

For clarification, please contact: George MLAGHUI | gmlaghui@telkom.co.ke

Follow Telkom on Twitter: @TelkomKenya