Sanda Ojiambo, Safaricom’s head of sustainable business and social impact has been appointed as the executive director of the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC), the world’s largest corporate sustainability initiative.
The announcement was made by United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres. Sanda who will assume the role from June will take over from Denmark’s Lise Kingo who has been with the UN Global Compact since 2015.
“Sanda has been instrumental in leading our sustainable business team that focuses on sustainability, shared value, corporate social investment and technology for development. She has also played a major role in the integration of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) into our business operations,” said Peter Ndegwa, Safaricom’s chief executive officer.
Sanda has served as Safaricom’s head of sustainable business and social impact since 2010. Before that she was a senior manager of Safaricom and M-Pesa Foundations during which she led the implementation of several public-private partnership initiatives between Safaricom and UN organisations. She holds a master of arts in public policy from the University of Minnesota, USA, and a bachelor of arts in economics and international development from McGill University, Canada.
Launched in July 2000, the United Nations Global Compact is a strategic policy and advocacy initiative calling for the alignment of business operations and strategies with ten universal principles in the areas of human rights, labour, environment and anti-corruption. It motivates companies to integrate the SDGs into their core operations and funding activities.
Safaricom is an active member of the UN Global Compact. It is the only African Global Compact lead company. Lead companies are identified for their high levels of engagement. They are uniquely positioned to inspire widespread uptake of sustainability solutions among businesses around the world. Other Global Compact lead companies include Unilever, Accenture and Nestle.
