Robert “Bob” Collymore, the bubbly Safaricom CEO, passed on early Monday morning at his Nairobi home.
Collymore had in the past two years been fighting Acute Myeloid Leukemia – a type of cancer that starts in the blood-forming cells of the bone marrow.
Born 61 years ago in the Caribbean country of Guyana where he also received his primary school education, he moved to live with his mother to England at the age of 16.
Warwick University
In England, he completed his high school and was offered a place at Warwick University but could not proceed because he could not afford the school fees.
“I didn’t get to university because honestly, we didn’t have the money so I went out to work,” he said while narrating his life – adding that his first job was cleaning floors at a shop.
“My first break is not in the conventional case, I worked at a shop, opening the store, cleaning the floor and stacking the shelves. That was my first break because for me, it is not that I am the Safaricom CEO, it is because of the person that I am and that job made me the person I am. It helped me understand how those people you see at the shop, it helped me understand what its like to be like them,” Collymore recalled.
He later joined the telecommunications industry where he started out a junior officer before rising through the ranks.
Collymore worked for British Telcom for sixteen years before he was picked to become the Handset Strategy Manager at Cellnet (now Telefonica UK Limited), later moving to British electronics retailer, Dixon Group as a senior manager.
Collymore at Vodafone
Form 1998, Collymore has worked for the Vodafone Group in various capacities – starting out as the Handset Purchasing Director.
