Inside the rise of NTSA’s new little-known Director General Nashon Kondiwa

Nashon Kondiwa has been appointed as the new Director General of the National Transport and Safety Authority (NTSA).

Kondiwa brings to the role more than two decades of experience spanning telecommunications, cybersecurity, enterprise systems, and public-sector digital transformation. 

His career has largely revolved around designing systems, managing transformation programmes and overseeing digital service delivery platforms across both public and private institutions.

Unlike political appointees with administrative careers, his trajectory has been technical, moving from network systems administration to executive-level ICT leadership.

Before his appointment as Director General, he served for over eight years at NTSA in various capacities. 

Since April 2021, he has been Director of Information Communication Technology and Innovation, where he led teams responsible for delivering digital platforms supporting road transport services.

In that role, he oversaw technology officers working on secure and reliable service delivery systems.

His portfolio involved driving innovation within the authority and steering its digital transformation agenda, particularly around fully digitising government-facing transport services.

Between November 2017 and April 2021, he worked as Manager of ICT Projects and Innovation at NTSA. 

His responsibilities included project scoping, sourcing funding, building business cases for innovation and implementing technology-driven improvements to existing systems and infrastructure.

Before joining NTSA, he held senior roles at Telkom Kenya, then operating under the Orange brand.

As Fixed Network Transformation Program Manager between 2013 and 2014, he developed a roadmap for fixed network transformation in line with corporate strategic objectives. 

He oversaw the replacement of legacy switches with multi-service access nodes and managed vendor-led rollouts, including fibre-to-the-business and fibre-to-the-home deployments as well as GPON upgrades.

He also managed upgrades to IP MPLS infrastructure, expanding service offerings such as network-based internet gateways, mobile access and secure customer premises equipment.

His role required coordination between vendors, IT and network teams, and business units, alongside budget reporting and operational oversight.

Earlier, as Corporate Data Product Manager, he conceptualised and designed business connectivity products that increased corporate data revenues within one year. 

He also led the shift from legacy point-to-point data connections to IP-based MPLS solutions and oversaw the implementation of a customer service delivery platform with workflow systems and performance indicators.

From 2010 to 2011, he worked as a Pre-Sales Solutions Consultant and Senior Projects Manager at Orange Telkom Kenya. 

During that period, he designed connectivity solutions for financial and government institutions and implemented unified communication systems and video conferencing platforms. 

He also developed internal workflow tools for task tracking and project management.

Between 2006 and 2010, he served as a Project Telecommunications Systems Administrator at the United Nations Office at Nairobi. 

There, he designed and implemented an integrated information and telecommunications system linking 16 project sites under a UNESCO Media HIV initiative.

His responsibilities included vendor selection, procurement administration and stakeholder communication.

He later moved into private-sector project oversight as PMO Manager at The Copycat Limited, where he developed performance dashboards, issue tracking systems and escalation frameworks. 

His work emphasised adherence to formal project management methodologies, including PMI PMBOK standards.

He holds a Master of Technology in Electrical Engineering (Telecommunication) from Tshwane University of Technology and a Master of Science in Electronics from ESIEE Paris.

He earned his Bachelor of Science in Computer Science and Engineering from Maseno University, where he was involved in student leadership.

Professionally, he is a Certified Information Systems Security Professional accredited by (ISC)² and a Project Management Professional certified by the Project Management Institute.

His appointment comes at a time when NTSA continues to rely heavily on digital platforms for service delivery, data management and regulatory oversight.

Having previously overseen ICT and innovation at the authority, he assumes leadership with direct institutional memory of its systems and digital infrastructure.

Whether that technical grounding will translate into broader regulatory and enforcement leadership remains to be seen.