Meet Kenyan CEO Who Earns Ksh1.2 Million Per Day

How long would it take you to earn Ksh1.2 million? Well, for some, it would take a month, others a year but for one Kenyan CEO, it is a day’s earning.

According to financial revelations by the Co-operative Bank of Kenya, its CEO Gideon Muriuki earned Ksh455.5 million in 2023. With such earnings, he becomes Kenya’s highest-earning CEO, as per official figures, with a daily average income of Ksh1.25 million.

Muriuki earned a salary of Ksh154.39 million and a bonus pay of Ksh301.14 million, translating to a monthly pay of Ksh37.9 million, which is 209 times the Ksh181,618 average pay that workers in Kenya’s financial sector took home in 2022.

Muriuki earned Ksh428.2 million in salary and bonuses in 2022, meaning he got a Ksh27.2 million pay rise as the lender recorded a 5.2 per cent rise in net profit to Ksh23.2 billion.

The bank says the rise in salaries and bonuses for its staff led by Muriuki is a result of their performance over the years, which has catapulted the lender to the top.

“A key pillar of this transformation has been the board of directors successfully implementing a performance-based bonus reward system applicable to all staff, both management and unionised staff, wherein the individual salary review/increase for the year and the bonus award each year is directly linked to attainment of the profitability performance targets for the year,” the lender said.

Mr Muriuki joined Co-op Bank in 1996 as a senior corporate manager and rose to the position of director for corporate and institutional banking in 1999 before he was appointed Managing Director in 2001.

Co-operative Bank is now Kenya’s third most profitable lender after Equity Group (Ksh41.98 billion) and KCB Group (Ksh3Z46 billion). NCBA ranks fourth with a net profit of Ksh21.4 billion.