Bankers, it would seem, tread with padded paws. Moving without disturbing the air too much. Michael Mutiga talks like that. Measured. Each word set down gently, like a glass on a table in someone else’s house. Or how you close the door to the room of a sleeping baby.
He has been CEO of Stanbic Bank Kenya for a few months, long enough to feel the weight of it, not long enough to know everyone who knows him.
“A lot of people know you,” he says, “but you don’t know them.”
He sounds like a Renaissance man, and his childhood explains why. His father, a professor at Kabete, chased his degrees around the world and took the family with him: Australia, Addis Ababa just after Mengistu rule, South Africa just after Mandela and the worldwide fever of his release.
Michael, the firstborn, saw most of it, often as the only black child in class. Back home, his parents enrolled him at Visa Oshwal Primary, to the bewilderment of uncles and aunts. “Why not our schools?” they asked. His parents wanted him to learn how to navigate.
He studied law and, like a great many lawyers, never practised it. Instead, he went to the deal rooms of Barclays and Citi, collected five Corporate Banker of the Year awards, and learned, as a young man who stammered, to slow his mind down so his mouth could catch up.
Then he left banking for Safaricom, dancing on rigs in villages, building strategy for a machine serving 50 million people. He enjoyed that, he admits. Now he is back, no longer “the trombone player or the one on the piano,” but the one conducting the orchestra.
He is 50. “Unfortunately,” he says, and laughs. He talks about this stage with the familiar introspection of a man poking a campfire with a long stick.
We spoke on Zoom before the rain came. Then it rained, and rained some more, before the sun came out shyly. Michael, who has spent much of his life learning to navigate different climates, seemed at home with the changes. A different climate altogether.
How was your childhood, and how did it shape the journey to where you are today?
I am the firstborn in our family and I think the whole adage around firstborns and leadership and responsibility is somewhat true. But the biggest shaper for me was that my father used to work at the university, and when I was growing up, he was going through his titles: his Bachelor’s degree, Master’s degree, his PhD. So we wound up travelling a lot.
We lived in Australia for a while when I was a youngster, lived in Addis Ababa for a bit, and in South Africa on one of his sabbaticals, about ‘95.
It exposed me to different cultures. As a child, I was often the only black child in the class. In Ethiopia, we were there just after the Mengistu Haile Mariam era. In South Africa, it was just after Nelson Mandela came to power, and they were still grappling with the post-apartheid era. So, what I remember most about childhood is variety, and a lot of uncomfortable situations.
When we came back to Kenya, I was enrolled at Visa Oshwal Primary School, and in those days it was very much a large Indian community. I remember uncles and aunts asking, why are you doing that? Why not our schools? But my parents were keen on me experiencing different cultures, different situations, and figuring out a way to navigate them.
Your dad sounds like an interesting chap.
He was. He died a few years ago. He was a professor at Kabete. Extremely clever, a brilliant guy, but he didn’t carry it on his shoulders.
He’d come from a meeting talking agriculture policy with the minister, and the next morning he was in his jeans and slippers talking to the butcher. He never carried titles, never tried to show you how smart he was. He was just who he was.
How has that childhood helped you navigate life as an adult?
I’m comfortable with unknowns, taking risks. I’m comfortable being around people of different cultures and backgrounds. But above all, it taught me how to find my way. It ingrained in me that there’s no one else who’s going to be there. It’s up to me.
Each generation has a responsibility to change the profile of the family. Your parents gave you so much. What’s your responsibility to your children…you have children?
Fair. But you will want children?
So what’s your responsibility towards them?
When my grandfather passed away, 26 years ago, actually, I remember coming back from our upcountry home and thinking about it. My parents moved from what were basically mud huts and thatched houses, went to the city and made something of their lives. And they bequeathed us so much more than they started with.
So I’ve actually had a thought about what people will say when it’s my turn. It was really hard for them to take that huge step from the comfort of the village to the unknown of the city. I think it’s harder for us, because you’ve got a roof over your head and it’s a brick house, so to speak.
The way I look at it, my role is maybe not necessarily how I move the family along. It’s how I move the institution along, the country along, what I’ve been entrusted with, because those are the levers I have. There’s an obligation to make better what I’ve been given. But that gap is harder to achieve now.
When you finally leave Stanbic, how do you want the people there to describe you?
Wow, that’s a hard question. [Pause] That I made an impact, not just on our shareholders, but on people’s careers. It would be great to be said that I helped shape Stanbic into the best bank, not necessarily the biggest, but the bank that provides consistent excellence in service, product, and ideas. In the end, I hope it is said that I actually built better and moved things along further.
When was the last time something greatly unsettled you?
I have to pause to think about that, because with time I’ve learned to look at things for what they are. I don’t get angry; I don’t get fazed easily.
One of my professors put it this way: you don’t steal third base with your foot on second. In baseball, a steal is when the pitcher hasn’t quite pitched, and you sneak across to the next base. You might be caught out between second and third, but you’ll never make progress unless you get your foot off second.
So, I don’t have a problem with people trying to steal third base, so to speak. What I struggle with, and get really flustered with is bad faith.
When people act with malice and engage in, say, corruption, theft. Because you don’t have to do that. You don’t have to get ahead by undermining others or bashing others. I don’t think you win by others losing. It’s those sorts of things that fluster me, because I don’t understand them.
You are not 50 yet, are you?
I just turned 50, unfortunately. [Laughs]
What headspace is a newly 50-year-old man in?
It’s a strange place to be. On one hand, you still want to grow; you still have ambition, you still have drive. On the other, you’re more reflective. I’m past my halfway mark, maybe much further than that. So how do I give? How do I mentor people?
I’ve had some great mentors. One of my bosses, a guy from Pakistan, didn’t know me personally. But he saw something in me, spent his time trying to nurture me, and gave me my first leadership roles when I didn’t know what I was doing. The same was the case with other mentors who saw potential in me. So, at 50, I feel I have a responsibility to play the same role for others.
Is there a season you’d do again? A season you miss?
I wouldn’t say I miss them. I’ve always taken them as building blocks. But the season I really enjoyed was being a transactor on the deal side, where I as thrown at the deep end, and I had to figure out how to win a deal.
The other banks were taking no prisoners. It was a fun time. I had to sharpen my thinking, and presentation. I used to struggle a lot with stuttering and mumbling, but I had to shape up, right? In such a very competitive environment you have to get better at how you speak.
I also enjoyed my time at Safaricom. We’d go to towns and villages across the country, sometimes dancing on rigs, trying to convince people to buy our products. I was not a traditional telco guy, but I learned the ropes quickly.
Stanbic Bank Kenya and South Sudan Chief Executive Michael Mutiga pictured after the interview at his office on November 10, 2026.
Photo credit: Francis Nderitu | Nation Media Group
What would you like people to know about those who stammer?
Good question. One of my mentors, I won’t say his name, also has a really tough stammer. I was lucky to meet him very early in my career, and what I learned from him was: you know what? Don’t let those things stop you. You are who you are. Embrace it and move on.
When I went for coaching, I learned that stammering is sometimes a function of your mind moving ahead of your mouth.
So how do you slow down your thinking so that your mouth catches up? They tell you things like practise tongue twisters. Take a deep breath and slowly exhale as you speak. So you find coping mechanisms. I still struggle with things like the fillers. But those are efforts to get the pace of your thinking in line with the pace of your speaking.
At this halfway point, what are you slowly changing your mind about?
I think it’s reinforced the value of things like family and friendships. I’m a lot more deliberate about the time I spend with people, because it’s that network that nurtures you through the good andthe bad. They’ve been the pillars of my support, sometimes silent pillars.
And maybe a different perspective on what ambition means. You have to maintain a sense of humility. My entire life has been a lesson that there are people who know a lot more than you, a lot smarter than you. So be thankful, be humble, and still be ambitious, without a sense of arrogance or pride. Just do your thing well and be thankful.
What are you struggling with now?
I wouldn’t call it struggling. I’m coming back into banking, and banking has changed. So it’s getting my head around not just where we are, but where we need to get to, and the pace at which we need to get there.
On the personal front, it’s finding the right balance. Most of my career, 14-hour days were a regular thing. But now it’s not how many hours I’m clocking. It’s the quality and precision of my outputs. A leader I’ve known for a while told me,’You have to manage others; you have to manage yourself, and managing yourself is a priority’.
How has being CEO changed your life?
I sure do have a greater sense of responsibility. From the askari at the gate all the way to my leadership team, to our shareholders, they’re looking at me for direction. The old expression from Harry Truman [the 33rd President of the US], the buck stops here, is true.
But I’ve also learnt that it’s not only me. The role is like that of an orchestrator. Look at how the conductor is directing: that’s when the trombone comes in, that’s when the flutes come in, that’s how you temper down the cellos. You’re not the trombone player or the one on the piano. You’re conducting, making sure all the pieces are in symphony.
And I’ve realised that a lot of people know me, but I don’t know them. So I find ways to be gracious, to listen. It really helps to have a circle of people who’ve known you a long time, who see you for who you are, not for the title.
Is there a failure you still carry around, something that changed you?
I believe you’re better having tried than not having tried at all. I truly work on the philosophy of: give it your best shot. Don’t look back, don’t hold back, give it your 100 percent. You will never look back and say, ‘I wish I had done more’.
It’s easy to talk strategy. Executing it is always a big challenge. You only know how principled you are when your principles are challenged. You only know how resilient you are when your resilience is challenged. I wouldn’t call them failures. They’re moments of test, challenging at the time, but important facets of defining who I am.
