Ninth CEO’s Most Respected Company Survey ends

Kampala, 28th November 2008: Safaricom has emerged as East Africa’s most respected company for the second year running in the just concluded PricewaterhouseCoopers’ survey. Kenya Airways and Zain were second and third respectively.

The key drivers for respect in this year’s survey, were strong brand and market presence, product innovation and expansion into new markets. As a result, companies that manage and own brands firmly rooted in the region, emerged as most respected in East Africa.

Under the theme, “Growth in a changing market”, most of the CEO’s attached greatest importance to Brand and Corporate reputation as well as adaptability to change as key in driving their business growth.

Charles Muchene, Survey Director and Country Leader, PricewaterhouseCoopers Kenya said, “The program has over the years held a mirror up to the development of our economies with winners often from currently successful and dominant market players, reflecting the growth and opportunity in the industry.”

With the continued diversification of the businesses across East Africa, this year’s survey did away with the industry-specific awards but retained the most respected companies award’ in each country and across East Africa. There were 7 awards in total, one per country and the overall East Africa awards.

In the country specific awards, Safaricom emerged most respected in Kenya and Kenya Airways emerged second. Equity emerged third in Kenya and was the only financial services firm to be nominated among top three country awards in East Africa.

MTN was Uganda’s most respected companies followed by Mukwano group of companies and Zain Uganda while Precision Air emerged the most respected company in Tanzania. IPP Media, the only media firm to be nominated across the region also emerged second and Vodacom Tanzania third.

Rwanda, which was included for the first time in this survey reflected similar trends with the other East African companies with the telecommunication sector dominating the top position. MTN emerging most respected, Bralirwa Breweries second and Serena Hotel third.

“ The inclusion of Rwanda into the East Africa community and the growing realisation that we can achieve more as a block, will stand us in good stead in what is clearly a dynamic marketplace. The current global economic crisis presents the emerging markets with an opportunity to depend on and collaborate more with each other, reducing the traditional dependency on the developed markets.” Said Linus Gitahi, Group CEO Nation Media Group.

The findings for this year’s survey were announced at a colourful fete at the Serena Hotel in Kampala attended by the region’s top CEOs.

This year’s awards also included a round table session where the CEO’s deliberated the survey findings as well as several issues they were facing across the region. This will soon be televised across Africa on CNBC.

The survey was run independently by research house, Steadman Synovate and the Nation Media Group is the media partner.