The board of directors of Safaricom announced the appointment of a new Chief Executive Officer, Peter Ndegwa, who becomes the first Kenyan to head the topmost network operator in the region. The appointment of a local is in line with the government's desire. ICT Secretary Joe Mucheru had earlier indicated that the government, which has a 35% stake in the company, wished to have a Kenyan at the helm. Ndegwa's term begins on April 1, 2020, and he is expected to take over from interim CEO Michael Joseph who was appointed after Bob Collymore died of cancer in July. Collymore helped to turn Safaricom into region's most profitable company, owing largely to the popular mobile money service M-Pesa and a growing customer base. In 1996, he joined the global consulting firm Pricewaterhouse Coopers (PwC) as a consultant and relocated to London. Three years later, he made a transition from the Accountancy practice to the Consulting and Corporate Finance Unit at PwC. Ndegwa returned to Kenya in 2002, joining East African Breweries Limited (EABL), a Diageo subsidiary based in Nairobi. He assumed the role of Strategy Director in 2004, in which he steered the development of an affordable beer strategy which saw the creation of Senator Keg – one of Kenya's and Diageo's most iconic beer brands. In 2011, he was transferred to Diageo subsidiaries Guinness Ghana Breweries Plc. and later Guinness Nigeria Plc. where he served as CEO. Ndegwa in July 2018 left Nigeria for his current role as the Managing Director for Diageo's operations in Continental Europe and Russia, the first African to hold the position.