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Tuesday, December 11, 2012

Chebitwey, Washington Akumu shortlisted for Telkom Kenya job

The current CEO of the Kenya Yearbook, Dennis Chebitwey and the former Safaricom Public Relations and Promotions manager Washington Akumu, are among those shortlisted for the corporate affairs head position at Telkom Kenya that was recently vacated by Angela Mumo.

They are joined on the shortlist by Nelly Githaka who used to be the sponsorships manager at Safaricom before leaving in 2010 and Tom Ogola who formerly worked under Angela Mumo before heading to Mabati Rolling Mills.

Mumo left the job for a similar position at Microsoft that had been advertised a couple of months ago.

Chebitwey is a veteran PR strategist who used to work at Gina Din Communications before leaving for the Kenya Yearbook position.

Akumu on the other hand came from the newsroom serving as the Business Editor at the Daily Nation before he took up the post at Safaricom.

Ogola has also been in PR. He worked at the Africa Practice agency handling such clients as GTV, Telkom Kenya and so on before he took a position as a Media & External Stakeholders Relations manager at Telkom.

He then moved to Mabati Rolling Mills and then on to a law firm before starting his own consultancy.

Nelly Githaka has worked for Safaricom and is currently the general manager of Emergency Plus Medical Services.

All these candidates are excellent choices for a post said to command upwards of Sh800,000 a month.

Chebitwey is an excellent PR guy not just in practice but in person. He can work his way through the labyrinth of government offices and parliament and has a keen understanding of lobbying legislators.

Akumu of course brings experience from Safaricom a much bigger entity than Telkom and also understands the news business.

Ogola has the advantage of having worked at Telkom before and having handled many of the duties that will be required of the position.

Githaka would seem to the dark horse in this race but undoubtedly she has her qualities if she was shortlisted along with such a calibre of individuals.

It will be hard to call this one but we see it coming down to Chebitwey because of his experience and inside knowledge of the workings of the government machinery (the government is a key stakeholder for Telkom) and Ogola because of his insider credentials.

Akumu and Githaka are excellent choices too who could be disadvantaged by their "outsider" status.

But at the end of the day it will come down to what exactly Telkom is looking for in the person it wants to hire.

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