Felix Rop has travelled quite the distance from a village in Nandi County to the corner office on Waiyaki Way from where he oversees the technological side of Safaricom’s financial services.

A tall, well-built, clean-shaven man with a ready smile and a hearty laugh, Rop dresses unlike other tech bros.

On the day the Safaricom Newsroom met him, he was in a well-fitting blue suit, blue shirt, and red tie. Yet the scribbling on his whiteboard shows he is still one to get his hands dirty, mixing it up with his team on code and systems configuration.

A foldable bed next to his neat desk and his two phones that get hundreds of alerts constantly, are a reminder of the critical nature of his job, keeping M-PESA on always.

Expectedly, his time is scarce. Our interview was moved forward to 2pm at 1pm and condensed to 30 minutes. It stretched to 46 minutes, but to his credit, he only looked at his Garmin Approach S70 watch once.

A sole picture taken in China with colleagues during an excursion holds pride of place on his desk, perhaps a reminder of his role in shaping the future of the platform. A thermos and Kericho Gold tea leaves are at hand to provide balm and a taste of home.

For the last 3 years, you have been the Head of Financial Services IT at Safaricom PLC. What does your role entail?

My role entails evolving the Financial Services platforms, that is the M-PESA core and the systems in that ecosystem. So, driving the roadmap of where we will be in the next five years, 10 years. But most importantly, my job is to ensure that the systems in the financial services are stable and M-PESA is always on.

What do you do day-to-day?

I have been part of the M-PESA family since 2015, when I was working with Huawei. I was part of the team that brought M-PESA home. We have been evolving the system, in keeping with Safaricom’s vision to be a tech company. So as part of what I do day-to-day, I am tracking the initiatives that we’ve committed to the business, guiding my teams, and ensuring that we proactively pick risks.

Talking of risks, what do you do when M-PESA is down?

Oh, that is a big problem. My team and I must stay here until we fix it. You can see next to my desk is a foldable bed that I use to take a rest at such times. Thankfully, in the last four years, we’ve had only one major outage, sometime at the beginning of last year. What happens then is I quickly swing into action, bringing the team together. We usually monitor M-PESA 24/7. We have a team that sits here 24/7. We have a run book, which is an emergency handling guide, that we use to quickly get the systems up again.

An interesting thing that happens to you when the M-PESA system is glitching?

My friends, business associates, even CEOs, will call me to ask, “M-PESA iko sawa ama iko na shida”? I do not know why they think I can talk at that time, (laughs heartily). Remember, every minute matters during an incident as we try as much as possible to come back up within the shortest time. But our biggest priority is to ensure that as much as we come up quickly, the data is consistent. We should never lose the customers’ balances, otherwise we may end up in a crisis from which Safaricom may never be able to recover.

You keep mentioning the evolution of M-PESA…

Remember, about 2015, upgrading M-PESA would take even up to eight hours. I just had a planned change, this past Sunday into Monday. We had communicated that we’re going to be down for 30 minutes, but within four minutes, we had completed the maintenance. We’ve been able to evolve that to that level because in the last three years, we’ve done a lot for M-PESA to be a more flexible, resilient, scalable and even more secure platform.

Share a career highlight that you treasure.

In 2018, I was still with Huawei but handling Safaricom. We had a unique scenario after upgrading the system. We went live and it was okay, but two weeks later, the systems started failing and the M-PESA database hung. The software president of Huawei flew into Kenya. We spent two days on site trying to fix it, on the 10th and 11th of December. On 12th at 7 am, a Safaricom top executive came in and said he needed to know what the root cause was. My Chinese boss got tongue-tied and I had to step in and explain. Eventually, we fixed the issue, and from that, I learnt that there are times one must really step up in the spirit of customer centricity. My handling of that crisis won me the Huawei Gold Medal Award issued by the founder and president of the company.

You joined Huawei as a Network Operations Engineer. 10 years later you had risen to Deputy Director, Software Business Unit. What fueled your rise? Share the lessons picked.

Started at Huawei, checking whether the base stations were running on a battery, generator or the Kenya Power mains. What I do today is totally different. I value customer obsession and integrity. I am also a champion of working hard and smart. Continuous improvement is key, and luckily, my boss was very supportive. I was happy to spend more hours at work to understand emerging technologies, sales, project management and that fast-tracked my career. I would spend up to 16 hours in the office.

How did working at Huawei prepare you for your current role at Safaricom?

It prepared me very well. During my interview process, one of the things that I kept asking myself was, is there something that I sold that in case I get this job I would have a problem dealing with it? But for sure, everything that I sold while at Huawei, I could stand for it and support it. When I joined Safaricom, of course, on Huawei, there was a bit of panic, because nobody could come and tell me stories, because I know everything in terms of their processes.

You earned a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science at Kabarak University. Favourite memories of Kabarak?

It was great graduating as the Best Graduand with First-class Honors. It was fun running to be the student president and winning. My friends are the ones who convinced me to run. It was exciting to have had a strategic poster campaign to confuse my competitors, selling my manifesto. One of the things in my manifesto was to have Wi-Fi in hostels, which I delivered. That was a good experience. I learned a lot of things.

Would you consider running for political office in the future?

(laughs heartily) No. From where I sit today, I’m a technology enthusiast, I enjoy what I do, and I’m passionate about what I do, which is transforming lives greatly. You can transform lives in different ways, and I’m happy with what I am doing.

Who or what inspired the passion for tech, computers? Are you living your childhood dream?

When I was in primary school there was a guy called Walter who ran a cybercafé in the village in Nandi County. I would go there, and I remember there was an application called Paint that would really fascinate me. In high school, I did computer applications, did my first program and eventually went to university for my Computer Science degree. But all this started from spending time in Walter’s cybercafé.

For your Master of Science in Mobile Telecommunication and Innovation at Strathmore University, your thesis focuses on ‘the development of an Android-based mobile application that will address the current gap of accessing mentors and investors’. Status of the app?

I developed the app but to be honest, I never progressed with it. Come to think of it, I should revisit that app as it was a good one. But with the tech stack that I used then, I don’t think it can fly. I just need to pick the same idea and use a new tech stack to build it.

Do you consider yourself a tech bro and which tech bro are you most like – Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Tim Cook or Sundar Pichai?

Yes, I do consider myself a tech bro and I admire Sundar (Pichai, Google head). For him it is a question of the opportunity which is there and using technology to address it. Listening to him, I get inspiration from the fact that he’s somebody who is always forward-looking in terms of the technological stuff, always pushing forward towards getting the solutions that can address the problems and seeking to remain ahead of the curve.

Financial Services IT gets us into the arena of fintech. Talk about how you see fintech at Safaricom empowering people even more.

Safaricom is now moving to the next space of insure-tech, going into the space of savings with Ziidi. We are also innovating to make payments more seamless in terms of the customer journeys. We should be able to get to a position where somebody says, “back then it used to take me a couple of steps to do an M-PESA transaction, now it is almost seamless”. Soon, we are looking at offering wearables where you’re able to tap and a payment goes through plus where you can also receive money just by tapping.

Future of M-PESA…

From a technological point of view, the goal is to have a more resilient platform, have a more secure platform, that drives a lifestyle. So, mine is to set the foundation, the enabler, and then that will drive a lifestyle, because the more M-PESA is stable, the more customers trust it, the more they are able to do more with M-PESA. We are also doing a lot of things to up our technology stack on the app, doing a lot of things on the app, just to ensure that we effect the feedback that we get from our customers.

M-PESA contributes more than 40 per cent of Safaricom revenue…

Oh, that does not make things easy for me, to be honest. Because unfortunately, everybody expects that M-PESA should always be up. You can imagine what that means. So, you are always working so hard. Everybody expects that your target is 100 per cent. So, you are working so hard not to come to 99 per cent which really puts a lot of pressure, but it’s good pressure, because again, as I told you, I am very passionate about what I do and what the team does, and therefore, I would say it’s a good thing. I’m very proud of it. I am always happy to wake up in the morning. Safaricom is a happy family to be part of.

If you had a chance to change careers, what would you be? 

Remember, I started selling my strategy on campus and at Huawei I was also able to sell? So, I think I would do well in sales. But for sure what is in the horizon for me is becoming a CEO and leading a business. Of course, there’s a lot of continuous improvement towards getting there. I may not be able to define the number of years between now and then, but being a CEO is one of the positions that I would really be glad to attain.

Something people do not know about you…

Most of the times people see me in suits so they do not know that I cycle at times and that I play lawn tennis.

Who is Felix Rop away from the office?

Felix Rop is a father of two and a family man. As much as most of my time is spent here, there is time that I dedicate to the family. I am also someone who is keen on building meaningful relationships.

Thank you for your time. And talking about time, tell me about your watch…

This is a Garmin Approach S70. I started a new hobby last year, golf. A while back, a friend suggested that we go to the course and when I took a swing everyone said I was a natural. So, I got my clubs and then I left them for almost a year without using them. Then another friend pushed me, and I finally started playing. It has been amazing; every time I find time, considering how busy I am, I play nine holes just to keep fit. I am now handicap 18.9.