Diageo has appointed former Kenya Breweries Limited (KBL) Managing Director John Musunga as Managing Director, Africa, effective July 1, placing a Kenyan executive in charge of the drinks giant’s remaining African operations as it accelerates a continent-wide shift to an asset-light business model.<\/p>\n
\u2022Musunga will be based in Nairobi, relocating from London after serving as Managing Director for South, West and Central Africa, where he oversaw operations across more than 30 markets.
\n\u2022Before joining Diageo n 2021, he spent more than two decades at GSK, holding senior commercial and leadership positions across Africa, Europe and Asia.
\n\u2022The appointment comes as Diageo restructures its African portfolio through a series of major disposals.<\/p>\n
Since 2022, the company has sold Ethiopia’s Meta Abo Brewery to Castel, exited Guinness Cameroun, disposed of its controlling stake in Guinness Nigeria to Tolaram, sold Guinness Ghana Breweries to Castel Group, and exited Seychelles Breweries. It is also seeking to complete the sale of its 65% stake in East African Breweries Plc (EABL) and its holding in UDV Kenya to Japan’s Asahi Group Holdings in a US$2.3 billion transaction that remains subject to ongoing legal proceedings.<\/p>\n
Rather than withdrawing from Africa, Diageo is pivoting away from owning breweries toward licensing, brand management and third-party production. Under the strategy, it will continue marketing global brands including Guinness, Johnnie Walker, Smirnoff, Baileys, Captain Morgan and Gordon’s, while relying on local partners to brew, distribute and commercialise products in several markets. In East Africa, EABL will continue producing and distributing selected Diageo brands under long-term licensing agreements once the Asahi transaction is completed.<\/p>\n
Musunga joined Diageo in 2021 as Managing Director of KBL, leading the brewer’s recovery after the COVID-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n
He was subsequently appointed Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director of Guinness Nigeria before taking charge of Diageo’s South, West and Central Africa business.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Diageo has appointed former Kenya Breweries Limited (KBL) Managing Director John Musunga as Managing Director, Africa, effective July…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":74028,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[21250],"tags":[30425,4110,33619,30424,160],"class_list":["post-74027","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-diageo","tag-african-business-news","tag-diageo","tag-executive-appointments","tag-kenya-business-news","tag-markets"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@UnitedKingdom\/116843835729665558","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74027","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74027"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74027\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/74028"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74027"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74027"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74027"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}