After serving in Airtel’s smaller West African markets of Chad and Congo (Brazzaville), Jibril Tobe was tapped as Kenya CEO a month ago, with the challenge of pushing the Kenya unit to profitability in the face of a dominant Safaricom.

He spoke to the Business Daily on Airtel’s focus on the "low-hanging fruits" of fixed data and mobile money.

How are you finding your new role at Airtel Kenya?

Kenya is obviously a bigger market than Congo-Brazzaville and Chad. To give you an idea, Kenya is 10 times the size of Congo-Brazzaville.

That is 55 million people against five million, which gives you an idea of the size of Kenya. This reveals the scope of my responsibilities. Kenya is among the top five operating countries of Airtel Africa out of our 14 markets. I take it with a lot of humility.

I love Kenya and if you look at my CV, I worked for Coca-Cola for eight years, three years of which our division office was in Upper Hill, Nairobi. I have been visiting the country since 1998, and I have seen the transformation from expressways to big hotels and malls.
I am excited by opportunities to expand our footprint, which theoretically goes up to 100 percent.

What will be your focus area in expanding Airtel Kenya’s footprint?

You must do a trade-off and understand what your biggest opportunities are, ranking them in terms of immediate, mid-term and long-term. Today, if I look at how the market is, expanding into fibre and enterprise services is an immediate opportunity.

We believe that we can really make a difference by providing superior fibre services to the communities. We are also growing mobile financial services. If you have immediate low-hanging fruit, you must jump on that and then you must build up for the midterm, and then the long-term.

What’s your take on the competition in Kenya’s telecoms sector?

I have a lot of respect for our competition, and I will say it bluntly. Safaricom has been at the forefront of creating, building and expanding mobile financial services, not only in Kenya but in Africa.

It's a reference for all professionals. As an African, I'm very proud of that. Telkom has also played a key role in being the first operator in the country.

However, as CEO of Airtel Kenya, I'm here to make sure that we will claim our fair share of the market. We believe in fair competition, and I believe that the CA (Competition Authority of Kenya) and all other regulatory bodies have the same vision.

I also believe in collaboration and working together as an industry because we always have common industry interests, and those interests are for the benefit of the customers.

My approach is that I am willing to work closely with our peers in the industry, obviously on a very fair level playing field.

What’s the status of your licence applications with the CA?

We have renewed our operating licence for another 25 years and have also renewed our spectrum which reassures that we are here to stay. We have stronger confidence in Kenya than ever, and we don't think as investors that uncertainty is an issue.

On the direct-to-cell (D2C) application, all the security issues have been resolved, and it has been a very transparent process. It's just a matter of administrative procedures, but we are very confident that within weeks, the CA should be coming to us with our approval.

What’s your plan on sustaining the momentum created in the business like the rise of Airtel Money?

Rising to the top is difficult but the most important thing is to maintain your position there. There is no secret when it comes to telecoms. You must always have the customer in mind and be hungry about customer satisfaction.

If you can provide customer satisfaction, that momentum will never fade. To do so, you need to invest consistently in your network. Obviously, investment must also be cost-effective. We also must get valuable people.

I am a CEO who believes strongly in people. The capabilities of our people are critical and as such, my role is to make sure that I will improve, enhance and strengthen the capabilities of execution for the Airtel Kenya staff and this is something I'm very excited about.

Given the literacy rate in Kenya, which is one of the highest in Africa, the atmosphere and civil society consciousness, it's an exciting time for me to be in this country.

How do you keep hold of your talent pool as rivals circle above?

It's a very tough question, and I'll be honest with you, it's a challenge, but then again, for me, there's what we call an employer of choice. If we become an employer of choice, we will always be able to retain our top talent.

To do so, you must run a very comprehensive strategy around it. You have to offer a very competitive package and bring value and purpose for those who are joining us beyond financial remuneration and material benefits. It’s not a recipe I keep, but one works on it on a day-by-day basis.

No one can guarantee you that your top talent will not be poached. You've seen recently the drama between Google, Apple, Meta and other AI firms, where top talents are being lured with packages worth millions of dollars. It’s not something you can predict.

→ kmuiruri@ke.nationmedia.com

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