Egumbo’s journey to defend OMN legacy
One on one with the recently appointed Group Chief Executive of Old Mutual Namibia, Kosmas Egumbo (Photograph by Musa Carter )
The Economist sat down with Kosmas Egumbo to find out what he is going to bring to the table with his appointment into the firm.
Said Egumbo, “I am humbled by having been entrusted by executives of this global company and the Board of Old Mutual Namibia to lead this great company to the next level and hand it over to the next generation of leaders in better shape. I had the privilege to have been part of a very competent Namibia Exco team and am proud and excited to be leading every member of the Old Mutual Namibia family in focusing on the customers and delivering value to all stakeholders. We need to make a positive difference in the lives of many more Namibians.”
His key responsibility when he officially takes to office will be to help Old Mutual Namibia deliver on its stated strategic objective of maintaining its market leading position, accelerating the delivery of its corporate strategy including digital distribution and the continued strengthening of local talent development.
Egumbo who holds a BSC Electrical Engineering degree and has completed leadership and management programmes traced back his roots up the corporate ladder and said, “I started my career in 1993 as a junior Engineer at Namdeb (then CDM) and worked my way up the corporate ladder. My engineering training provided me with solid foundation to analyse and scope problems, manage risks and figures then design and execute solutions.”
“The journey I travelled allowed me to develop leadership skills, professionalism and desire to succeed even in any situation. I have for the past 9 years operated at a level that required me to craft strategies and models that can ensure business viability both financially and socio economically,” he added.
The engineer turned corporate boss said, “Old Mutual Namibia occupies a market leading position which we will defend.”
Added Egumbo,“We exist to ‘enable positive futures’ by being most available face to face and digitally and provide solutions that most certainly will deliver on our promises, provide best financial advice and we will go about our business in a manner that is most supportive of communities we serve.”
“I have joined the company, OMN with a very strong leadership team, people with high aspirations, people with a strong desire to succeed people and motivated to make a difference in the country and return handsomely to the share holders while meeting our promise,” he said.
“We will be looking at rolling out aggressively our digital play through OMTS and I am exited with what it holds for us,” he cited.
Focusing on the aspect of local talent search in Namibia Egumbo said,“We are proud to have attracted and developed a local talent to this extent. We will continually drive our talent management process because we want to ensure a solid pool of talented Namibians that can fill vacancies as they arise in Namibia and in the group especially in emerging markets as we grow in Africa and other selected emerging markets.”
“We equally have to export Namibians and expose them to different environments, and when we export them we need to equally leverage better skills from out of the country so that we can up the skills levels and competency we have in the country and we will continue to do so as we still have a long way to go,” he added.
He encouraged more Namibians to look beyond Namibia so that they can sharpen their skills outside of Namibia with a view of improving competitiveness.
