Six Kenyan women have been ranked among the best Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) running multi-billion enterprises in Africa.
In the 2022 African Definitive List of Women CEOs released byTheAfrica.com on Thursday, March 10, the six were recognised alongside 68 other women leaders for their exemplary leadership during the past year.
Among the top CEOs who were celebrated include Rosemary Oduor, who is the acting Managing Director of Kenya Power and Lighting Company (KPLC), and East African Breweries Limited CEO, Jane Karuku.
Oduor was appointed as KPLC MD in an acting capacity in August 2021 following reforms that were being undertaken at the utility company as directed by President Uhuru Kenyatta. On the other hand, Karuku has been at the helm of EABL since January 2021.
Other company executives who made it to the list include Rebecca Maino of the Kenya Electricity Generating Company (KenGen), Nasim Devji of Diamond Trust Bank (DTB), Kendi Ntwiga of Microsoft Kenya, and Brenda Mbathi of General Electric (GE).
In 2020, little-known Kendi made headlines after Microsoft announced that she had been appointed as the head of the Kenyan franchise, having served in other Information Technology (IT) companies for many years.
"Prior to joining Microsoft, Kendi served as the General Manager of the East, West, and Central Africa Cluster for Check Point Software. Her extensive resume includes roles at Oracle, HP, and Intel, where she was tasked with leading and implementing business strategies across Sub Saharan Africa," Microsoft stated at the time of appointment.
Interestingly, out of the six executives who were feted, three of them made it to the 2021 list. These are Karuku, Devji, and Miano.
While explaining how the list was arrived at TheAfrica.com Chair, Teresa Clarke, stated that the organisers of the annual list looked at the economic performance of the companies and also introduced other financial factors to increase the number of women in the 2022 list.
"In the first year, we used market capitalization of listed companies as the only financial metric by which to qualify companies for consideration. In 2022, we changed the qualification to be either large-scale market capitalization or large-scale revenue.
"By making revenue a screening mechanism, we brought in a larger group of companies from across the continent, thereby diversifying the geographic representation of the list significantly," she stated.
It was also revealed that the list was part of the organisers' vision to celebrate women leaders in the continent even as the world marked International Women's Day on March 8.
