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CEO, Airtel Kenya
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Ashish Malhotra is a telecommunications executive serving as Managing Director (MD) and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Airtel Kenya Ltd, the Kenyan subsidiary of Airtel Africa Plc (owned by Bharti Airtel Ltd). He was appointed to this role in July 2022. With over 20 years of experience in the telecommunications sector across various markets and senior roles within Airtel Africa, he is recognised for steering network expansion, mobile-money growth and competitive strategy in Kenya.
Under his leadership, Airtel Kenya pursued aggressive expansion of its mobile-money agent network and rural infrastructure, with his public commentary in 2025 stating intent to raise the number of mobile money agents from 120,000 to double within two years and expand mobile tower count by about one-third.
Over 20 years of eHe has steered Airtel Kenya to rapid growth in active SIM cards, with a reported 14 % growth in the first four months of 2025, outpacing a larger rival in the Kenyan market. xperience in the telecommunications sector
As a leading telecoms executive in Kenya, Malhotra operates in a sector under intense regulatory and competitive scrutiny: issues such as pricing of mobile money services, network access in rural areas, and fair competition with the dominant operator draw public and regulatory interest. While there are no significant public personal scandals attributed to him individually in available sources, his stewardship of Airtel Kenya places him in a high-visibility role where regulatory, consumer-protection and competition issues are ongoing.
Airtel Kenya’s challenge to the dominant market player (both in mobile and mobile-money) has triggered public commentary on whether the competitive dynamics are sufficiently open and whether smaller operators have fair access. Malhotra has publicly emphasised agent-growth and rural expansion to address these issues.
News articles featuring Ashish Malhotra
Malhotra oversaw network and data-centre strategy in Kenya, including participation in the launch of a large-scale data-centre project at Tatu City, signalling transformation towards digital infrastructure for enterprise clients.
He has positioned Airtel Kenya as a challenger to the market-leader through strategic focus on underserved segments, consumer value-offers and differentiated mobile-money services for a highly competitive Kenyan telecoms environment.
