Gitahi walks away with CEO of the Year crown

When Mr Linus Gitahi took over as CEO of Nation Media Group on November 1, 2006, he made a bold promise.

“As I take over,” he said after Mr Wilfred Kiboro handed over the reins, “I would like to assure all shareholders that their investments will be safe.”

Four years later, he has outperformed his dreams, and that success has caught the attention of industry watchers, among them the Kenya Institute of Management, which on Wednesday feted him as the CEO of the Year for 2010.

KIM runs the Company of the Year Awards or COYA, the prestigious local recognition for outstanding performance among participating firms.

“This CEO has sustained stakeholder confidence and market leadership and has grown the business between 2006 and 2010,” COYA judges said in their citation.

NMG’s pretax profit has grown from Sh1 billion when Mr Gitahi took over to Sh1.6 billion in 2009 and the company is primed to touch the Sh2 billion market in the current year, after returning pretax profit of Sh891.6 million for the half-year to June this year.

Turnover has also grown significantly to Sh8.2 billion by end of last year.

Under Mr Gitahi’s watch, the Nation Media Group has diversified its products, introducing one more radio station, Qfm in Kenya and a digital division as well as the Africa Review online portal.

Newspapers have been revamped with expanded content that climaxed with a redesign mid this year.

COYA also recognised Mr Gitahi for the cultural transformation at the NMG and introduction of “a new way of doing things in a backdrop of taking over from a respected regional executive.”

Also, they said, he has initiated his own philosophy — “I am born in a Kenyan tribe but I belong to Kenya” — which has cut him the image of a nationalist.

“The CEO has initiated projects that are very far from his home area and are defined by a radius from the CEO’s home place,” COYA judges said of NMG’s numerous corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives.

“This CEO creates champions out of people and promotes succession planning.

Mr Gitahi, 49, joined the group after a long career as a senior executive with pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline in East and West Africa, the Middle East and Europe.