Absa Bank Kenya has confirmed Yusuf Omari as Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer with immediate effect, ending a leadership transition that began three months ago.
The board announced the appointment after Omari cleared all required regulatory and internal approvals, moving him from interim to substantive head of the bank. He had held the interim post since July 1, 2026, when the board turned to him following Absa Bank Kenya’s confirmation of Abdi Mohamed’s move to I&M Bank Kenya, closing a three year run that saw the bank’s share price double and its cost to income ratio tighten from 41 percent to 37 percent.
Announcing the decision, Absa Bank Kenya described Omari as a banking executive with more than two decades of leadership experience spanning finance, treasury, risk management, governance, sustainability, strategy, transformation and executive management, adding that he is well positioned to lead the next chapter of the business.
A career built inside the bank
Omari’s rise to the top office caps a career spent mostly at Absa. He joined the bank in 2004, then known as Barclays Bank Kenya, after roughly six years at KPMG Kenya, where he worked as a senior auditor and later served as Head of Compliance. At Absa, he began as Head of Internal Audit for the East and West Africa cluster before moving into compliance leadership. He became Chief Financial Officer in 2009, a post he held until his elevation this year.
As CFO, Omari helped strengthen the bank’s financial performance, improve its cost to income ratio, optimise capital and support growth across corporate, investment and business banking. This is also not his first time steering the bank through a transition. He previously served as interim Managing Director between November 2022 and August 2025, following the exit of former CEO Jeremy Awori, and again ahead of Abdi Mohamed’s own appointment in 2023.
Omari is a Director and Member of the Institute of Certified Public Accountants of Kenya (ICPAK) and a Member of the Institute of Internal Auditors Kenya. He holds an MBA from Strathmore Business School and a degree from the University of Nairobi, and appears regularly on regional platforms including CNBC Africa and CGTN.
What the bank said
“We are pleased to announce the appointment of Yusuf Omari as Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Absa Bank Kenya, with immediate effect,” the bank said in a statement announcing the confirmation.
Board chairman Mohammed Nyaoga said the appointment reflects Omari’s institutional knowledge, market experience and relationships with regulators, adding that the board is confident he will strengthen the bank’s competitiveness, deepen customer relationships and deliver sustainable growth. Saviour Chibiya, Absa Group’s Regional Executive for East Africa, described Omari as a leader whose track record embodies the group’s values.
Responding to the appointment, Omari said he was honoured by the confidence the board and Absa Group had placed in him, and pointed to deepening customer relationships, accelerating growth and investing in staff as priorities going forward.
Omari takes over a bank that reported robust profit growth in the first half of 2026, and inherits a leadership bench the board has been rebuilding across recent senior appointments. His task now is to convert two decades of institutional knowledge into a strategy the board and Absa Group can point to as their own, rather than a placeholder between permanent CEOs.
