Peter Njonjo has left his job as Africa’s senior-most manager of the Coca-Cola company in order to run operations of Twiga Foods, a top start-up company in Kenya.
Njonjo is also a co-founder of the start-up company and comes in to take over from CEO and co-founder, Grant Brooke who had led the growth of the company for the past 5 years.
Brooke has, in the past five years, led the growth of Twiga Foods into one of Africa’s most successful start-ups, a magnet for investor interest, awards, and recognition.
Njonjo's experience in management after 21 years at the Coca-Cola Company is likely to catapult the development of the company in the Kenyan market and its immediate focus on sub-Saharan Africa.
In a report by The Standard, Brooke states, “Peter’s leadership will be about institutionalizing this way of doing business and scaling it… Peter’s experience in building efficient supply chains and last mile distribution in over 33 African countries makes him uniquely suited to lead us.”
In response, Mr Njonjo indicated, “This appointment is a great honour for me and Kenyan corporate leadership expertise. I look forward to scaling up our vision of more efficient food markets in Africa and improved food security for our people. Twiga Foods is living proof of the latent opportunity to drive agricultural transformation and investment for local consumption,”
The fresh produce distribution company was launched in 2014 as a mobile-based, cashless, business-to-business (B2B) supply platform that links farmers with food vendors.
Twiga sources fruits and vegetables from some 17,000 farmers across 20 counties in Kenya and delivers directly to 2,500 vendors a day in Nairobi and its environs. Twiga also lists products from many of Kenya’s leading Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) brands, as it moves towards offering a one-stop-shop for urban kiosks, grocers, and mama mbogas.
Over the years, the business has raised KSh3 billion to fund its expansion from tier-1 funds.
The organization was also voted the Most Promising Company of the Year at the 2018 Africa CEO Forum Awards in Abidjan, Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies 2018, and the Global Winner of the 1776 Challenge Cup.
