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ANNEPEACE MUTHONI ALWALA – COUNTRY LEAD AND VICE PRESIDENT, GLOBAL DELIVERY AT SAMA
Ms. Annepeace Alwala has played a key role in positioning Kenya as the leading artificial intelligence value chain outsourcing destination in sub-Saharan Africa. As the Country Lead and Vice President for Global Delivery at Sama, Ms Alwala oversees one of the world’s most advanced artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) models’ delivery centres in Nairobi, Kenya.
Born and raised in Githurai, Nairobi, she understands all too well what it means to build from scratch. Annepeace studied Linguistics and Literature at the University of Nairobi (UoN), Kikuyu campus. She then went on to work as a voice over artist, before she made the usual career pivot, into customer care. Annepeace gradually rose through the ranks in operations and contact-center management roles, from agent to team leader to center head. As luck would shine on her, she has an opportunity to work in South Africa those early years of its independence, where she managed a delivery center. This hands-on experience across different countries, work cultures and operational roles laid the groundwork for her current position, where she combines deep operational knowledge with strategic leadership in AI service delivery.
Through Sama’s “impact sourcing” model, she provides individuals who are most likely to be excluded from for – mal sector jobs with quality work and skills transfer opportunities in the digital economy and ICT superhighway, as espoused by the Bottom-Up Economic Transformation Agenda (BETA). The Sama Kenya EPZ Delivery Centre, which was inaugurated in Nairobi by President William Ruto, accompanied by visiting Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, in February 2024, is one of the Delivery centres for Sama, now a global leader in data annotation solutions for computer vision that power AI and ML models serving leading international corporations out of Nairobi. Sama is also Kenya’s largest dedicated Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) investment facility that serves over 25% of Fortune 50 companies, including Google, NVIDIA, General Motors, Walmart, Ford, Microsoft, eBay, and Glassdoor. These companies trust Sama to help them deliver industry-leading ML models.
Ms Alwala leads a team of more than 3,000 directly employed Kenyan youth. Under her belt, Sama has marked several strong achievements. In 2025, it became a Certified B Corporation, reflecting its social impact ethos, and was ranked among the top workplaces in Middle and East Africa for its cul ture of wellbeing, inclusion, mentorship and learning. At the Africa Digital Economy Awards, Sama was named Most Innovative BPO Provider, and Annepeace received the Digital Woman of the Year Award for expanding Sama’s impact and advancing women’s inclusion in tech. At the 2025 Employer of the Year Awards by the Federation of Kenya Employers (FKE), Sama won the Innovation and Productivity category, reinforcing its reputation for workplace excellence. Economic data indicates that Kenya’s BPO market accounts for an estimated 40% of the Global Business Services (GBS) industry at $272 million. Ms. Alwala is an avowed champion for AI Value Chain development, as Kenya is well-positioned to claim a bigger piece of the global AI data collection and labelling market, which is estimated to reach the US$18 billion mark in the next six years.
Ms Alwala also provides invaluable technical support to the Government of Kenya through her technical advice to President William Ruto. She continues to assist in policy formulation and related advisory support to the Ministry of Information, Communications, and the Digital Economy under Principal Secretary, Eng. John Tanui. She also offered technical input in the KenInvest BPO Sector Investment Pitch Deck 2025.
With 3,000 directly employed youth, the Sama Kenya EPZ Delivery Centre indirectly supports more than 30,000 families, effectively expanding opportunities for underserved individuals through the digital economy. Sama has additionally helped more than 65,000 people lift themselves out of poverty through a number of opportunities and linkages. By far, Sama is the single-largest Safaricom broadband data consumer connecting to client virtual and physical data centres worldwide. From Nairobi, the firm’s solutions minimize the risk of model failure and lower the total cost of owner ship through an enterprise-ready ML-powered platform and SamaIQTM, actionable data insights uncovered by proprietary algorithms and a highly skilled on-staff team of over 3,000 data experts.
