•He was appointed the CEO of the Bank amidst shareholder revolt following a historic Sh2.3 billion loss that the Bank reported in 2001.
• Muriuki led in the increase in Loans and Advances from Sh15 billion in 2001, to over Sh300 billion in 2021.
Image: Handout
Cooperative Bank of Kenya Group managing director and CEO Gideon Muriuki was on Friday conferred an honorary doctorate for his work in the banking sector.
The career banker has been recognized by Co-operative University of Kenya as a transformational leader, a cooperator, a distinguished private sector servant, a polished innovator, and a prime mover of no comparable influence in the cooperative movement.
This is Muriku's second honorary doctorate degree award after the 2011 Ph.D. in Businesses Leadership from the privately-owned Kabarak University.
"Muriuki has steered the Bank out of near-collapse to achieve record profitability, ” the university said.
He was appointed the CEO of the Bank amidst shareholder revolt following a historic Sh2.3 billion loss that the Bank reported in 2001.
During his leadership at the Bank, despite the frightening legacy of challenges including huge levels of non-performing assets; weak management controls; and, fierce competition in the market Muriuki managed to increase in total assets from Sh24 billion in 2001, to over Sh 600 billion.
He has been honored for moving the Bank from a huge loss of Sh2.3 billion in 2001,to a profit before tax of over Sh16.5 billion for the first nine months of 2021 while increasing customers from 125,000 in 2001, to 9 million in the same period.
The university also recognized the consistent payouts of dividends of the bank under Muriuki's leadership.
"In the last six years, Kenyan co-operatives through their shareholding entity (Co-op Holdings Co-operative Society) have received in excess of Sh21.5 billion in dividend payments from Co-op Bank, which is a most attractive return on their original investment in the Bank," the University said.
In 2007, in his focus to supporting the cooperative movement, Muriuki delivered a project intended to enable Savings and Credit Cooperatives Societies (SACCOS) customers to have convenient access to their funds saved with SACCOs.
The bank invested in a switch, named Coopswitch, which interlinks the SACCO banking systems with those of the Bank. This enables SACCO members to access the Visa network worldwide.
Muriuki led in the increase in Service Network from 27 branches and three ATMs in 2001 to 158 branches in Kenya, four branches in South Sudan, 589 ATMs, and over 25,000 Co-op Kwa Jiraniagency banking outlets.
He also oversaw the increase in Loans and Advances at Cooperative Bank from Sh15 billion in 2001, to over Sh300 billion in 2021 as customer deposits increased to over Sh420 billion from Sh17 billion in 2001.
Besides his work at the Co-operative Bank, Muriuki has had concern for and direct intervention in the cooperative movement.
He has enriched and strengthened the bonds of partnership between apex co-operative institutions in Kenya.
A case in point is the Co-operative Insurance Company (CIC Group) and Co-op Bank Strategic Business Partnership established in 2010.
Co-op Bank solidly supported the recapitalization of CIC which is majority-owned by the cooperative movement, with Co-op Bank as the largest and strategic shareholder in CIC with a 24.8 per cent stake.
The strategic business relationship between the Co-operative Bank of Kenya and CIC Group has significantly boosted the shared interests of the two partners.
"The extension of this Co-op Bank-CIC partnership to other countries in Africa will foster a much-needed revival and recovery of co-operative insurance across Africa," the institution notes.
Co-op Bank has also maintained linkages with the Co-operative University of Kenya, a premier institution of higher learning in cooperative training, research, and consultancy.
Muriuki has greatly supported the recovery of marketing cooperatives, especially coffee societies which had long suffered the effects of the 1990’s global price collapse.
He submitted Structured Debt Relief Proposals to the government, achieving a write-off of the massive legacy debts that coffee co-operatives owed Co-op Bank and the World Bank.