Absa Group appoints Safaricom’s Naima Yusuf as Executive Head of Absa Pay

Absa Group has appointed veteran telecommunications executive Naima Yusuf as the new Executive Head of Absa Pay.

Yusuf joins the banking institution after an illustrious 19-year career at Safaricom, where she played an instrumental role in shaping the mobile money landscape across the African continent.

Her departure from Safaricom was officially announced in a heartfelt LinkedIn post on Wednesday, October 28. Yusuf’s exit marks the conclusion of a nearly two-decade journey that began humbly in Kenya’s coastal city of Mombasa and culminated in high-level regional executive roles within M-PESA Africa.

Yusuf’s long tenure with Safaricom began in July 2007, when she stepped into the telecommunications giant as a retail centre agent in Mombasa.

In her early professional chapters, she handled diverse front-line responsibilities, ranging from customer service and sales to payment transactions and retail operations. Her exceptional work ethic quickly set her apart.

According to her professional profile, she once sold mobile phones worth more than Sh 1 million in a single month, earning her the title of Sales Person of the Month for recording the highest sales figures.

After spending six months as a retail agent, she transitioned into senior retail roles and later spent more than five years overseeing retail support, handling complex customer service issues, service activations, staff training, and operational procedures.

Between March 2015 and September 2017, Yusuf expanded her professional scope by working in human resources as a Learning and Development Officer. During this period, she also took part in key national initiatives, including the Safe City Project, which involved deploying high-tech CCTV security cameras across Mombasa in collaboration with the National Police Service.

The defining era of Yusuf’s career at Safaricom unfolded within its digital financial services division. In September 2017, she joined the M-PESA product team as a Product Manager with a primary focus on merchant payments.

Over the subsequent years, she took on progressive responsibilities spanning financial services products and credit integration contributing significantly to the development of credit strategies. By March 2023, her expertise earned her the position of Senior Product Manager for Universal Payments.

Her regional footprint deepened significantly in April 2024, when she was appointed Executive Head of Global Payments at M-PESA Africa.

Exactly a year later, in April 2025, she transitioned to head business payments. In these roles, she spearheaded product strategy, international expansion, and collaborative initiatives with partners across the African continent to scale global payment services.

Reflecting on her departure, Yusuf expressed profound gratitude for the opportunities and relationships that defined her time at the company.

“Nineteen years and 3 months ago, I walked into Safaricom as a retail Centre agent. Today I walked away with experience, friendships and lessons that have shaped both my career and who I am,” Yusuf shared in her farewell message.

She added that her tenure offered her the unique privilege of working across multiple vital functions, from human resources and special security projects to the digital product evolution of M-PESA.

“Over the years, I had the privilege of working across multiple functions, including HR, special projects (deploying the CCTV cameras across Mombasa with the national police) and ultimately M-Pesa from a digital product lens, where I spent some of the most rewarding years of my career,” she noted.

Among her proudest milestones, Yusuf highlighted her contributions on the board of Safaricom Mobile Money Services Limited (SMTSL) and her efforts to scale cross-border payment solutions.

“Some of my proudest moments include serving on the SMTSL board and working with colleagues and partners across Africa to expand global and international payments,” she added. “To everyone who has been part of this journey, thank you. The impact we’ve created together will always remain one of the highlights of my personal life. The next chapter begins, and I’m excited for what lies ahead.”

Yusuf’s recruitment is part of a broader, strategic push by Absa Group to attract top-tier talent from the mobile money and telecommunications sectors as traditional financial institutions race to dominate the technology-driven digital payments ecosystem.

Her appointment closely follows Absa’s high-profile recruitment of former M-PESA Africa Chief Executive Sitoyo Lopokoiyit. Appointed earlier in the year, Lopokoiyit assumed leadership of Absa’s Personal and Private Banking business across the group's regional markets, bringing deep mobile money expertise directly into the bank’s executive framework.

While Lopokoiyit took the helm of personal and private banking, Yusuf will bring her extensive product strategy and international payments experience to head Absa Pay, steering the bank's digital payment solutions as competition in the fintech and banking space intensifies.

Yusuf brings a well-rounded academic and professional background to her new role at Absa Pay. Her training bridges business administration, human resources, and modern digital product management.

She holds a Bachelor of International Business Administration from the United States International University-Africa (USIU-A) and a higher diploma in human resource management from the College of Human Resource Management (CHRM).

Additionally, she has sharpened her leadership and product acumen through specialized international programs, including an Innovation Leadership Bootcamp at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 2021 and a digital product management credential through Boston University’s edX program.