Equity Group hires World Bank official as new COO

Equity Bank #ticker:EQTY has hired John Wilson, a former manager at the World Bank’s private sector financing arm IFC, as its new chief operations officer.

The COO position was previously held by Bhartesh Shah, who takes a new role as the Group’s director for digitisation, virtualisation, analytics and artificial intelligence.

Mr Wilson will oversee Equity’s operations at the group level, focusing on the execution of strategy and operational oversight of the entire business, including its subsidiaries.

His appointment is subject to approval by the Central Bank of Kenya.
An alumni of the Ivy League Princeton University where he graduated with a Masters degree in public affairs, he was until his appointment the manager in charge of new investments in financial institutions in sub-Saharan Africa at World Bank’s International Finance Corporation (IFC).

Early this year, Equity got a $100 million (Sh10 billion) long-term loan from the IFC to shore up the capital of its Kenyan banking subsidiary and lend to local small and medium-sized firms.

Mr Wilson will oversee all subsidiary operations including fintech, digitisation, finance, shared services, corporate banking, SME banking, risk management, special projects and the treasury.

His appointment is the latest senior executive change at Equity following the exit of managing director Polycarp Igathe, who left at the end of August to return to his former employer, Vivo Energy, as vice president for sales and marketing in Africa.

He had joined Equity in May last year after a short stint at City Hall as Deputy Governor of Nairobi County.

Mr Igathe had been touted as a possible successor to Equity Group’s chief executive James Mwangi, who has occupied the bank’s corner office for 26 years.

Dr Julius Kipng’etich, now the Jubilee Insurance CEO, left the group in 2015 after serving as COO for about three years.

Equity has also seen a high turnover at its newly-formed subsidiary Finserve, which has lost two top managers this year.

Finserve Africa executive director of Strategic Execution, Eric Karobia, left for Airtel Africa Uganda while Finserve’s Managing Director, Jack Ngare, left to head Microsoft Africa Development Centre.

This year, Equity Bank’s half-year net profit increased nine per cent to Sh12 billion as the lender’s loan book expanded 17 percent (nearly Sh46 billion) to Sh320.9 billion.