Afrigather Peter Njonjo, the CEO and co-founder of Twiga, has resigned from the corporate board, arguing that he can solely add “little or no worth” to the corporate sooner or later, seemingly confirming earlier studies that he was pressured out as CEO final yr.
Njonjo based Twiga in 2013 and led the corporate till December 2023, when he abruptly introduced that he would take a six-month sabbatical.
On the time, TechCabal reported that the timing steered Njonjo was probably being pushed out by Creadev and Juven. Each buyers participated in a $35 million funding spherical that helped cash-strapped Twiga pay its obligations to distributors it owed.
“At present, the strategic course and day by day operations are actually firmly within the arms of Juven and Creadev, and there may be little or no worth I can add from this level on,” Njonjo’s letter to his agency’s board, dated January 4, 2024, mentioned. Njonjo mentioned he had agreed to work by way of a six-month transition on the board’s request after his preliminary “resignation” to permit the board to recruit a brand new CEO.
By describing his sabbatical as a resignation, Njonjo’s newest letter appears to substantiate TechCabal’s earlier reporting that buyers and long-time gamers in Kenya’s know-how ecosystem privately speculated that his sabbatical was a cover for his eventual exit.
Peter Njonjo has not replied to TechCabal’s request for feedback enquiries on the time of this report.
Njonjo closed a $35 million convertible bond to assist Twiga repay distributors it owed two weeks earlier than asserting his 6-month sabbatical in December 2023.
Njonjo advised Enterprise Day by day, the Kenyan publication that revealed excerpts of Njonjo’s resignation letter, that he had contributed $1 million in that spherical led by Juven and Creadev. The extra funds have been supposed for use to pay distributors and suppliers Twiga owes. Not less than one provider Twiga is locked in litigation with says they haven’t been paid or notified of a fee plan (regardless of Twiga saying it notified round 100 distributors). The corporate is now in casual talks with Twiga representatives, TechCabal realized.
Njonjo says he will probably be a supportive shareholder after his exit from the board and is already contemplating different alternatives that may take up his time.
Njonjo just isn’t the one Twiga chief who has departed the struggling firm. In keeping with his LinkedIn profile, Yebeltal Getachew, a former managing director for the Nigerian workplace of Coca-Cola who was employed in 2021 as the top of Twiga’s East Africa enterprise, additionally left the corporate in December. Getachew was employed when the corporate ready to pursue an aggressive growth technique.
Juven didn’t reply to enquiries despatched to them by the point of this report. Messages despatched to Creadev’s Africa managing director haven’t been replied to on the time of this submitting.
