- James Mwangi is among 100 global leaders selected by Ernst & Young’s Meaningful Business 100 (MB 100) 2021
- Mwangi was selected under the financial services category, for championing initiatives that address the 17 SDGs and specifically focusing on alleviating poverty and inequality
- The 2021 nominees included corporate CEOs, entrepreneurs, sustainability leaders and impact investors
Equity Group Managing Director and CEO, Dr. James Mwangi is among 100 global leaders selected by Ernst & Young’s Meaningful Business 100 (MB 100) 2021.
The third edition of the awards hailed leaders for their role in tackling the world’s most pressing issues and for fostering the achievement of the UN Global Goals.
Dr. James Mwangi was selected under the financial services category, for championing initiatives that address the 17 SDGs and specifically focusing on alleviating poverty and inequality at the bottom of the socio-economic pyramid.
This has been realized through his vision and through his efforts to drive Equity’s business model which focuses on financial inclusion and for running a high volume and low margin corporate, with a purpose to transform lives, give dignity and expand opportunities for wealth creation aligned with a call to push for a purpose first economy in the six markets the Group operates in.
According to MB 100, its membership takes a people-centred approach, placing the wellbeing of employees and those impacted by the business, at the forefront of the strategy.
Each leader must have either created positive, direct and intended impact aligned to one or more SDGs in the last 12 months or must have been the driving force behind the product, service or project that combines purpose and profit.
The 2021 nominees included corporate CEOs, entrepreneurs, sustainability leaders and impact investors, representing the best of what business, entrepreneurship and social innovation can be from 33 countries worldwide.
The recognition was curated by an expert panel of 21 judges and the winners were scored across five key areas: Impact, Leadership, Innovation, Durability and Scope.
The 2021 panel of judges included Nikhil Seth an assistant Secretary-General at the UN, Stasia Mitchell, the Global Entrepreneurship Lead at audit firm EY and Paul Lindley the founder of Ella’s Kitchen among others.
Over the past few years, Kenyan corporates have increasingly become conscious of how their operations, consumption and production are impacting the environment and community.
This has seen not just Dr. Mwangi receive the recognition but another 4 Kenyans have also been selected from a pool of 500 nominations from 75 countries globally.
Last year Mwangi joined a league of 14 global CEOs with a proposed roadmap to “build the economic system better” after the COVID-19 pandemic.
He is also an honoree of the 2020 Oslo Business for Peace Award. In 2012, Dr. James Mwangi won the Ernst & Young World Entrepreneur of the Year, becoming the first business leader from Sub Saharan Africa to win this prestigious award among others.
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Equity’s performance
The award comes at a time when the group has continued to register profit, against a background of the COVID-19 pandemic and its consequent disruption of global economic activities with the resultant social disruptions.
Last week, the group reported an 85% growth in profit before tax, a 27% growth in total assets and a 25% growth in total income in the first half of the year.
At the same time, the group’s contribution to deposits grew by 42% up from 40%, revenue to 37% up from 30% on the back of a resilient execution of an offensive and defensive.
During the period, diversification driven by a regional approach with operations in 6 countries helped in diversifying sovereign risks and a currency mix risk of 56.6% local currency and 43.4% foreign currency risk-mitigating exchange and translation risks.
The Group is increasingly shifting from its legacy brick and mortar model of the fixed cost structure of branches and ATMs to variable cost, self-service model of client’s own electronic devices or third-party infrastructure.
Out of the 975.1 million transactions processed for the 9 months of the year, only 30.1 million transactions or 3% of all transactions were handled at the legacy bank by branches and ATMs with the digital bank handling and processing 945 million transactions or 97% of all the transactions with the self-service customers’ own device mobile channel handling and processing 90% of digital transactions.
“Increasingly mobile internet and e-commerce are becoming the preferred channels of choice for payment processing and lifestyle fulfillment with 74% of customers opting for cashless transactions, “said Dr. Mwangi the Group CEO while releasing the results.
Equity Group continues to defy pandemic as net profit climbs by 79%
