Breaking: Nation Media CEO Stephen Gitagama resigns, 80% of board to leave

Stephen Gitagama, the chief executive of Nation Media Group (NMG), East Africa’s largest media house, will leave at the end of July 2024. NMG’s chief financial officer, Richard Tobiko, will become interim CEO.

“My tenure as CEO at NMG will come to an end by August 1st,” Gitagama, who served as CEO for seven years, told employees on Friday. “I’m leaving behind a very strong team, and with the dedication you have, I believe you will go far.”

Gitagama’s departure follows the company’s May and June layoffs, which affected more than 16 employees. This was the fifth round of layoffs since Gitagama took over from former CEO Joe Muganda.

NGM did not immediately respond to a request for comments.

At the same staff meeting, NMG board chair Wilfred Kiboro said that 80% of board members would also leave the company by the end of 2024, raising questions about the company’s future direction after the restructuring.

While Gitagama didn’t disclose the reason for his exit, one person with direct knowledge of the matter told TechCabal that the board was not pleased by the pace of NMG’s digital transformation. Faced with declining newspaper circulation and ad revenue, the company recently revamped its digital publications.

Kiboro admitted that the company, with publications in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, and Rwanda, faces a “dying product” and is undergoing a major shift. In 2023, the Daily Nation newspaper, NMG’s revenue driver made a loss for the first time in decades, sinking the company into a KES 205.7 million ($1.6 million) loss. NMG is also the parent company for Business Daily and NTV business publications.

“The print business is a dying product. With a change of mindset to think digital first is very important,” Kiboro said. “We are going to form a new company which is wholly digital. We have to think differently from what we have been doing before.”

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