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Nancy Matimu

MD, MULTICHOICE KENYA

In 2021, Nancy Matimu was nominated as one of the most influential CEO for her role in leading Kenya’s largest video entertainment company in enriching the lives of the communities they operate in.

All these was made possible by her transformational leadership. Since taking over leadership of the MultiChoice Kenya (MCK) business, she has turned it around.

Upon her assumption of office as the first-ever woman CEO of Multichoice Kenya in 2019, Nancy Matimu took charge with a clear business turn-around strategy in mind: Multichoice Kenya had to more than ever entrench its pole position as the undisputable number one brand within the video entertainment space. That went according to plan and it was time to unveil a new milestone.

Early in 2022, Nancy and her team set the stage to develop and adopt an updated Undisputed Number One Strategy (UNOS). Beyond the updated strategy, it was important to promote the power of the MCK corporate culture and work ethic, review and adopt updated routines and templates as well as promoting execution excellence. The strategy continues to evolve and bear results.

The business that Nancy leads continues to bag numerous awards due to her transformation. In 2021, MultiChoice Kenya won the Public Relations Society of Kenya (PRSK) Excellence Awards for their Showcase event’s creativity in unveiling new content during a pandemic year. After scooping 4 KUZA Broadcasting Awards in 2021 sponsored by Communications Authority in Kenya, MultiChoice this year took an additional 4 awards. This demonstrates commitment and hard work.

Nancy has focused on evolving the work-ethic and organizational culture using cross leadership framework and redefining a DNA dubbed SEPETTUKA that was anchored on speed, energy, passion, excellence, trust and teamwork whilst promoting Multichoice Group behaviours.  Secondly, she set out to strengthen an already successful business model with a robust focus on customer experience, excellence and regionalization. Other factors of success have been distribution excellence, brand and communications excellence, digital platforms deepening and cost optimization. This has led to a highly-engaged workforce, accelerated rate of customer acquisition, significant shift in brand consideration, NPS and growth in customer satisfaction. To date, these initiatives, have born immense fruits

Nancy has enhanced the DStv and GOtv brand visibility, expanding the distribution network by more than doubling the points of sale across the country, and upgrading existing customer service to state-of-the-art call centres.

‘Since we improved our self-service platforms on *423#, MyDStv and MyGOtv apps, customers are able to buy decoders and full kits, change packages, pay the subscriptions, and clear errors amongst other services at their convenience wherever they are.’

Nancy states in a recent press release.

Nancy further directed her efforts towards upgrading and refreshing the branches look and feel to deliver a fresh modern, digital, open and collaborative experience. She has strengthened the quality of partnerships with market-renowned players across sales, marketing and operations agencies to elevate the quality of execution in the marketplace.

Heading to three years since her journey with MCK begun, Nancy has through a highly-engaged and energized leadership team significantly improved the working environment and culture at Multichoice Kenya, grown the brand positioning, and improved the financial health of the Kenya business within this very short span of time.

“Previously, our business operations were centralized in Nairobi as the main hub.  However, it became increasingly apparent that to grow faster and connect better with our customers and distribution partners across the country, it was critical to redesign the operation model and set up the company for success.

“We divided the country into 5 regions with substantive hubs supported by heads of regions. This way, we regionalized our operations to widen our footprint for a greater reach. We also set out to create presence through dealers and accredited agents across all key towns. Today, we are present in every key town in just about all sub-counties of our country”, reveals Nancy in an earlier interview where Multichoice Kenya was celebrated, recognized and ranked as number 3 among the Top 25 Brands Transforming the Lives of Kenyans 2021.

Despite the fact that her appointment came just before the wake of the COVID-19 Pandemic that affected the organization’s momentum, Nancy strategically managed to enhance MultiChoice Kenya’s market leadership position evermore.

“This has been possible, thanks in great part to our highly engaged employees, accredited dealers who are now moving more volume and connecting more customers than ever, accredited installers and agencies that make our world-class video entertainment service available to more Kenyans. Many homes are now enjoying the quality entertainment we offer on DStv and GOtv,” adds Nancy Matimu.

Further, the company has been on a journey to further expand its DTT GOtv network with 5 sites have already added in Nanyuki, Bomet, Nyahururu, Busia counties and soon in Voi sub-County.

In a nutshell, Multichoice, as a service brand, is quickly spreading to where the customers are. “We are listening to our customers to address demand, understand their changing lives, the pressures they face and what matters most to them. We are committed to understanding patterns in the marketplace, using trends, data and clear consumer insights to put customers at the heart of all the decisions that each of us make every day in the organization because we know it is the power that fuels our growth in a hyper competitive world,” reveals Nancy.

On the commercial side, Nancy has recently steered her team to revamp DStv Business packages to ensure different industry sectors like hotels, pubs and clubs, offices, guest houses and serviced apartments are able to grow their businesses with better cashflows and profits. “We understand that every business has unique needs and we have made it our business to ensure our commercial partners entertainment needs are considered and incorporated in our improvement decisions, based on their feedback. We have simplified and revamped DStv Business packages to connect customers to profits no matter the business size,” says Nancy.

When not handling matters MultiChoice, Nancy dedicates her time to serving on the boards of local and global firms. She is a member of the global board of trustees for Education sub-Saharan Africa (ESSA) where she serves as the Business Engagement Lead.

As Nancy continues to make significant strides in the digital economy, she was recently recognized as an honoree in the Top 100 Most Influential Women in Africa 2020 Edition that are advancing positive transformation on the continent for excellence in leadership and performance, personal accomplishments, commitment to sharing knowledge, breaking the status quo and being an accomplished African Woman.

Nancy has had an illustrious 15-year career, having led and driven growth through transformation of businesses, capacity building in brand, products and innovation as well as sales and operational excellence, in her previous tours of duty, that have included top local and global brands.

Nancy holds a Master of Business Administration (MBA) degree in Strategic Management from Strathmore University Business School (SUBS), a Bachelor’s degree in Environmental Studies from Kenyatta University (KU) and a Post Graduate Diploma in Marketing from the Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM) in the UK. She is also a graduate of the Advanced Management Program (AMP) and Chief Executive Program (CEP) from Strathmore, IESE and Lagos Business Schools. Nancy has also pursued executive education courses with INSEAD, Duke University corporate education and Harvard Business School.