Nicholas Ithondeka
Nicholas Ithondeka is a Kenyan investment executive steering Co-operative Bank’s asset-management arm to record scale. A University of Nairobi Actuarial Science graduate and Associate of the UK’s Institute & Faculty of Actuaries, he joined Co-op Trust Investment Services Ltd. (CISL) in 2016 after portfolio-management roles at GenAfrica and Old Mutual. Elevated to Managing Director and CEO in 2019, he has tripled assets under management, from KSh 40 billion to more than KSh 120 billion (US $930 million), making CISL Kenya’s fastest-growing fund manager by client inflows.
Ithondeka has diversified the product suite beyond traditional balanced funds to include a Shariah-compliant income fund, a dollar-denominated money-market fund, and Kenya’s first agriculture-linked private-credit vehicle. He launched the Co-opTrust Go! digital portal, allowing 200,000 retail savers to open unit-trust accounts on M-Pesa in minutes, and embedded an ESG screening framework that now covers 85 percent of listed-equity holdings.
As chair of the Fund Managers Association’s Alternative Investments Committee, Ithondeka championed 2024 regulations that opened Kenyan pensions to infrastructure and VC allocations, unlocking KSh 27 billion for climate-resilient projects. He mentors start-up CFOs through Endeavor Kenya and speaks regularly at the East Africa Pensions Summit, underscoring his commitment to mobilising domestic capital for inclusive growth.