News 

Monday, May 12, 2014 

MWANZA, Tanzania – CRDB Managing Director, Dr. Charles Kimei has been shortlisted for this year’s (2014) African Banker of the Year Award.

Dr. Kimei is among seven finalists in the Managing Directors/Chief Executives category.

The winners will be announced at the prestigious a gala dinner on May 21, in Kigali, Rwanda, during the African Development Bank Annual Meetings scheduled for next week.

The aim of the award is to celebrate and recognize individuals and financial institutions contributing to the rapid modernization of Africa’s banking industry. 

It’s a competition event exclusively for the African banking community and be endorsed by the African Development Bank (AfDB), the High Patron of the event and the leading sponsor. 

The African Banker Awards is organized by African Banker Magazine and BusinessinAfrica Events.

This is the second time Dr Kimei has been shortlisted since the award was launched over 12 years ago.

Dr Kimei, an economist, has been in the banking sector for over 30 years. Before joining CRDB he was Bank of Tanzania’s Director of Policy and Research.

He took over the then Cooperative and Rural Development Bank (CRDB) when the bank was a loss-making institution on the verge of collapse.

Dr Kimei turned it around to become one of Tanzania’s largest commercial banks in terms of assets, deposits and profitability.

Much of this is a result of privatization, restructuring and recapitalization of the bank. DANIDA, supported the restructuring process.

CRDB Bank provides commercial banking services to individuals, small-to-medium sized corporate clients and large corporations. As of December 2013, CRDB Bank’s total assets were valued at about $2.154 billion.

By Andrew Zablon, Monday, May 12th, 2014