CMA to start search for new boss after Muthaura exit notice

The Capital Markets Authority (CMA) is set to launch its search for a new chief executive after Paul Muthaura, who has been at the helm for seven and a half years, announced his plan to exit at the end of the year.

Mr Muthaura, 41, informed the board of his decision to exit the markets regulator during a meeting on Friday morning.

“Mr Muthaura had scored highly in all his performance appraisals since becoming chief executive,” CMA chairman James Ndegwa said in a statement. “While respecting his decision, the board would have gladly considered a further renewal of Mr Muthaura’s contract.”

Mr Muthaura joined the CMA in 2005 as a legal expert mandated to set up a legal framework for the regulator.

At the time he was working at the law firm of Daley & Figgis (now Daley & Inamdar) as a senior commercial associate.

He would later be elevated to the position of acting chief executive after the departure of Stella Kilonzo in June 2012, serving until he was appointed substantively in January 2016 on a four-year contract.

Chief executives of State corporations are normally handed four-year contracts, renewable once, meaning they serve a maximum of eight years.

Their terms can, however, be extended for a shorter period, usually a year, under special considerations as was the case with the former Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) commissioner-general, John Njiraini.

Mr Ndegwa said in the statement that Mr Muthaura had been instrumental in enhancing the regulatory and legal framework, and expanding the scope of products that have positioned Kenya in the regional and global capital markets arena. New products introduced in Kenya’s capital markets on his watch include real estate investment trusts in 2015, global depository receipts (2017) and derivatives (2019).

Before moving to the corner office, he was the director of regulatory policy and strategy and also headed new units of legal framework development and enforcement.