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Annastacia Kimtai

RETAIL DIRECTOR KCB BANK KENYA

Meet Annastacia Kimtai: The champion for financial inclusion, who runs the biggest banking retail chain in Kenya.

Annastacia Kimtai is an astute career banker with over 23 years’ experience in banking, 10 of those being in senior management roles in strategic leadership and business development. She previously held roles including Regional Business Manager and Branch Manager.

Mrs Kimtai has risen through the ranks, becoming Retail Director, KCB in 2011. KCB is Kenya’s largest and most profitable Bank in East Africa with over 25 million customers and 200 branches.

She has a proven history of successful work with cross functional teams to deliver exceptional results in growing retail business market share and improving bottom line by optimizing operational processes while mitigating business risks. Annastacia is also proficient in building, training, mentoring, coaching, and developing careers of highly engaged retail teams.

She has gained immense experience and competence across various disciplines such as business growth, leadership and talent development, business risk and compliance, change management, channel optimization, card business, mobile banking and agency banking, among others.

As the custodian of KCB’s retail banking franchise in Kenya, Annastacia has seen significant growth in the network’s profit before tax from Kshs 4.4 billion in 2011 to Kshs 17.1 billion in 2019 which was a 290% jump. This pushed up retail banking’s contribution to KCB Group profitability from 33 % to 52% during this period.

During the same period, the retail customers deposits have grown from Kshs.84 billion in 2011 to Kshs.231 billion, with the retail loan book growing from Kshs. 55 billion to Kshs 182 billion.

In her tenure at the Bank, Annastacia has championed financial inclusion for customers at the bottom of the pyramid by developing products and services to serve this niche. She is currently leading the Women’s Proposition at KCB where the bank is enabling the progress of Women in Business.

The Bank is supporting women led micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs), by giving them tailor made services like long term loans and overdrafts, asset finance and insurance premium financing, mortgages, local purchase orders (LPOs) and invoice discounting, bank guarantees and credit cards.

She has supported the revenue growth of the Women Proposition and so far, they have managed to open over 170,000 new accounts and issued loans worth over Kshs.15.3 billion to help the women scale up their businesses.

She is constantly championing the empowerment of women through trainings and thus far, over 3,000 women have been trained and armed with appropriate level of business skills.

She is driving the bank to grow into the go to bank for women in business by equipping all staff within the entire branch network to specialize in relationship management and credit methodology to ensure that the bank offers the best customer service and customer experience as well as to underscore financial inclusivity to the women-led businesses.

On safe environment for work, Mrs Kimtai advises all women to speak up to be heard, with raised voices and be emotionally intelligent. She encourages women to support and empower one another, in addition to inculcating moral courage and integrity at the workplace at all times.

Notably, Annastacia runs the Inua Jamii senior citizens’ scheme, which is a tax-financed pension-tested social pension offering universal pension coverage for all citizens of Kenya once they attain 70 years of age. The Kenyan government has been disbursing funds through KCB Bank since 2015. For instance, in 2020, over Kshs.11.2 billion cash transfers were disbursed through the bank.

Annastacia is also a board member of KCB Foundation which manages   the 2jiajiri programme, a Kshs. 50 Billion flagship youth empowerment aimed at tackling youth unemployment by creating jobs through skills development and vocational scholarships in the informal sector trades and ICT.  The term 2jiajiri is coined from the Swahili word meaning ‘let us employ ourselves’, and the target is to reach 10,000 beneficiaries annually.

Annastacia is responsible for a team of over 3000 employees and believes in strong leaders doing things and being accountable for results, effectiveness, reliability, and competence.

Annastacia holds a master’s degree in Business Administration and Strategic Management, Master of Arts degree in Rural Economics and Co-operation and a Bachelor of Arts degree. She is a Certified Executive Coach from the Academy of Executive Coaching (AOEC). She also holds a Certificate in Senior Executive Program for Africa (SEPA) from Harvard University. Annastacia is also a board member of KCB Foundation, the social investment arm of KCB Group.

Humble to a fault, Mrs Kimtai spends time between her official duties and responsibilities mentoring and counselling her colleagues at work, on matters that go beyond the normal call of duty.

She is also a loving wife and mother and sets time aside to enjoy her time with her family and friends, in addition to nurturing her spiritual life.