Long serving Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Safaricom, Bob Collymore, passed away on 1 July 2019. Collymore had been at the helm of East and Central Africa's biggest telco services provider since 2010. Safaricom, which also operates the mobile money service M-Pesa, recently reported a 14.7% rise in net profits for the year -to Ksh 63.4 billion.

The company's board has since appointed former CEO Michael Joseph as interim CEO until a replacement is found. The government of Kenya, which owns a stake in the company, has previously expressed a desire for a Kenyan national to fill the vacancy. The Cabinet Secretary for the Ministry of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) has since committed not to interfere with the recruitment process.