Showmax appoints Emma Gichonge as General Manager in East Africa

With its customers across 44 African markets now moving onto a powerful new streaming platform, Showmax is pleased to announce the appointment of talented Kenyan tech and product executive Emma Gichonge as its first ever General Manager: Operations for East Africa. 

"Driven by a strong partnership between the MultiChoice Group and Comcast NBC Universal, Showmax is embarking on a new era with a game-changing Premier League in your pocket plan, alongside a slate of sensational African and international content,” says Showmax Chief Operating Officer Joe Heshu. “With our ambition to be Africa’s No 1 streamer, we’re very happy to welcome Emma, whose wealth of experience will serve our customers in the key East African market.” 

A highly qualified leader, Gichonge’s reputation for building high-performance teams was honed working across multiple industries and countries. This includes time at start-up tech company Yutap, where she led the implementation of mobile money solutions across Africa and Asia. She also led the migration of the legacy M-Pesa mobile money platform at Safaricom, pioneering an Enterprise Project Management Office within the company. Mostly recently, she was Managing Director at MultiChoice Malawi, responsible for several commercial initiatives in the country.  

Speaking on her new role, Gichonge says, "Showmax is a bold business, and is in an exciting stage in its story – moving onto the globally scaled Peacock platform, increasing its loved local content slate and introducing affordable new plans. With my passion for innovation, and for East Africa, I’m looking forward to building the business with the Kenyan Showmax team. We’re already hard at work with our partners Safaricom to re-integrate in-app M-Pesa payments with our new technology. Currently customers can pay using M-Pesa USSD (*375#) but full M-Pesa options will launch soon.” 

Gichonge holds a Masters degree (IT Management) and a Bachelor of Science degree (Information Technology). 

Highlights on Showmax includes a new season of female-focused Kenyan series Single Kiasi premiering on 5 March and the drama-loaded Second Family with its high stakes succession battles. Meanwhile the Showmax Premier League plan for mobile is already bringing the best of the world’s biggest league to East African fans as current leaders Liverpool, Man City and Arsenal chase 2023/2024 title glory.