Long-form conversations with the people designing, regulating and operating financial systems.
Tala began with one lender learning enough about one woman to trust her. Fifteen years later, its systems have served more than 15 million people. Siroya’s unfinished work is to ensure that the financial identity Tala creates becomes an asset for the borrower, not only an advantage for the lender.
CEO Spotlight · 6 Sep 2026 · 12 min read
James Mwangi grew up watching formal finance exclude families like his. He later left a senior banking career to help rescue an insolvent building society and turn it into a regional group with KSh2.16 trillion in assets. More than three decades later, Equity's hardest task is to preserve its purpose, controls and judgement at a scale that no longer resembles the institution he joined.
CEO Spotlight · 28 Aug 2026 · 18 min read
Paul Russo’s rise from human resources to the top of KCB Group has been defined by difficult assignments, from helping reopen Chase Bank and rehabilitating National Bank to cleaning up KCB’s loan book and reshaping leadership across a seven-country footprint. With assets now above KSh2 trillion, profits at record levels and new bets on payments and fintech infrastructure, his harder task is institutional: turning a people-led leadership philosophy into systems, local management and controls strong enough to hold together a regional banking group at scale.
CEO Spotlight · 25 Aug 2026 · 16 min read
Dr Gideon Muriuki took charge of Co-operative Bank in 2001 after a KSh2.3 billion loss and has since helped build it into a group approaching KSh1 trillion in assets, with record profits, millions of customers and an expanding financial-services portfolio. But after 25 years at the helm, the defining question is shifting from turnaround to succession: whether Co-op Bank can convert the judgement, relationships and institutional discipline accumulated under one chief executive into a governance structure capable of sustaining growth without depending on him.
CEO Spotlight · 25 Aug 2026 · 13 min read