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LILIAN ONYACH
HEAD MARKETING & CORPORATE COMMUNICATIONS, STANBIC KENYA & SOUTH SUDAN
Lilian’s career is one that has been marked by breadth and depth. Her ability to mesh business and communications has seen her sit at the marketing helm of tier 1 companies in the aviation, telecommunication, insurance and banking industries in Kenya, and across the region.
Lilian’s career took off at Kenya Airways (KQ), during a period when the national carrier was looking to reposition itself. As part of the Management Trainee program, Lilian worked across a broad spectrum of communication specialties, handling public relations (PR), product and brand marketing. Owing to the complexity of the industry as well as a vast number of stakeholders, she had to employ strategic and innovative communication approaches, which saw her introduce and implement effective ideas for an improved brand positioning. Notably, she oversaw the carrier’s brand relaunch, launched over 24 routes, managed the 2007 Douala crisis communication, overhauled the in-flight service and oversaw the refresh of the award winning Msafiri magazine.
Well versed with transitions and complex communication scenarios, she moved to Safaricom when M-PESA was in its infancy, with a goal to position M-PESA as a diversified ecosystem. This meant that she needed to employ insight led communication approaches for maximum impact. Her innovative approach, which aligned with the business strategy, saw M-Shwari, (a relatively new concept in the market) attract 10 million customers over a 3-month period.
Lilian also led the marketing and communication team behind ‘M-PESA is coming home’, building a sense of consumer ownership and enthusiasm among Kenyans. Her team also led the ‘Lipa na M-PESA’ campaign, drawing a substantial number of merchants and users to the platform. This included empowering individuals to utilise the full spectrum of Safaricom’s payment solutions, activated through the ‘Relax, uko na M-PESA’ campaign.
Her highlight at Safaricom was getting to work with Bob Collymore to cascade the Safaricom 2.0 strategy which was geared at making Safaricom a customer centric organisation. By utilising strategic internal communications, her team was able to get buy-in from internal stakeholders and build a sense of ownership for Safaricom’s purpose to transform lives.
Through personalised, innovative and holistic approaches, she helped shape Safaricom’s narrative to ‘more than a telco’.
After this, she transitioned to Sanlam. She joined the team during a period when the East, North and West Africa companies were undergoing an acquisition. For Sanlam, this posited the need for a seasoned leader in communication and rebranding, traits that Lilian had demonstrated during her career.
In her role, she worked across 5 countries, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Zambia, Rwanda, working with the in-market teams to ensure that key stakeholders, including staff and regulators were well versed with the acquisition. Working on multiple acquisitions, and across various markets, she demonstrated her depth in communication and management, both on a local and regional level. Recognising the need for in-depth financial journalism, she also oversaw the school of journalism, an initiative by Sanlam to build financial reporting capacity of journalists in Africa.
She then moved to Stanbic, where she is currently stationed as Head of marketing and Corporate Communications. During her initial months at the bank, she led the repositioning of DADA – an inclusive platform for women that provides financial and non-financial services to enable one to start and grow in business – which was a huge success. In the course of this period, she saw the team get voted as the best marketing and communications team in the Standard Bank Group. Throughout her time at Stanbic, she has run the retail business, which has added on to her business acumen.
This year, the bank unveiled its new three-year strategy, which Lilian will lead from a marketing and communication viewpoint. With elements of repositioning included, Lilian’s experience is poised to be of added advantage.
Lilian was voted among Africa’s Top 50 Corporate Female Leaders by Leading Ladies Africa, owing to the phenomenal strides she has made in the corporate and business sector.
She values resilience, hard work and discipline, attributing these traits for her continued success. Throughout her career, she has seen the impact of ‘lifting one’s hand up’ when opportunities come by, especially when they stretch one’s skills and expertise.
Accumulating core communication and business skills over the years, Lilian’s breadth and depth is a distinguishing factor, and one that is likely to keep her at the top of the corporate space. Lilian has a Master of Business Administration (MBA) degree from the Strathmore Business School (SBS) and a Bachelor’s degree in International Business Administration-Marketing from the United States International University – Africa (USIU-A). She also holds a Diploma in Digital Marketing from Columbia University. She sits on the Stanbic Kenya Foundation Board and has served as a council member of the Marketing Society of Kenya (MSK).
