The Standard Group, groping in a wild market for leadership, has appointed its top editor, Chaacha Mwita, as acting Group Chief Executive Officer. The appointment, which took effect from 1st July 2025, follows the exit of Ms Marion Gathoga-Mwangi.
Mr Mwita, the chief executive editor at Standard, has also been appointed as an Executive Director to the company’s Board, throwing him back in the deep end of operations at the struggling media company.
In a notice, Company Secretary Millicent Ngetich said Mwita’s appointment was necessitated by Ms Gathoga-Mwangi’s resignation on 30th June, just a year after taking the helm at Standard Centre on 15th July, 2024. “Ms Gathoga exits to pursue other career interests,” Ms Ngetich said. “The Board takes this opportunity to thank Ms Gathoga for her invaluable service and leadership, and wishes her all the best in her future pursuits,” the notice said.
Mr Mwita is said to have over 20 years of extensive local and international experience in leadership, communication and policy engagement, with a strong foundation in journalism. He joins the ranks of a handful editor’s who have risen to management.
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Notable examples of editorial-to-management transitions include Waruru Wachira, former Standard Managing Editor who rose to lead KBC and Royal Media Services. Waithaka Waihenya, also former Standard newspaper editor, ended up as KBC managing director as did Dr Naim Bilal, who worked at Nation newspapers before being appointed MD at KBC. Samuel Maina, editor-in-chief at KBC acted as MD for sometime before being pushed out for committing the corporation to pay $5 billion in a contractual dispute.
The Board said Mr Mwita’s solid achievements as a journalist and media leader will add value to the organisation as it seeks to reinvigorate its journalism to uphold its tenets of boldness and independence. More importantly, this will be expected to help the company to wade through its loss-making streak and find its footing in the market. According to the financial results released on 4th June, Standard Group recorded a loss of Ksh 1.1 billion in 2024, just Ksh100 million lower than Ksh 1.2 billion in 2023.
Mr Chaacha Mwita joined the company in April 2025 as the Group Chief Executive Editor and has been setting the media house to actualise its 2025-2027 strategy, by re-orienting its content on all its platforms and refining the business model.
Some of his professional accolades include conducting comprehensive media assessments in several African countries among them Kenya, Botswana, Zambia and Uganda; and leadership roles at the Standard Group (previously as Editorial Director and recently in the Board), Nation Media Group, Aga Khan Foundation, African Population and Health Research Centre (APHRC) and Thompson Foundation (London, UK).
Academically, Mr Mwita holds a Bachelor of Education (Arts) degree from the University of Nairobi, and a postgraduate diploma in Mass Communication from the University of Nairobi’s School of Journalism. He also has an MBA from the University of St Gallen, Switzerland.
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Mr Mwita has also participated in executive development programmes at the Haas School of Business (University of California at Berkeley, USA) and the University of Luxembourg, Luxembourg.
“We believe Chaacha’s solid achievements as a distinguished journalist and media leader will add value to the organisation as it seeks to reinvigorate its journalism to uphold its tenets of boldness and independence,” the Board said.
Will the board trust him enough to officially hand him the CEO job? It is hard to guess since the Standard Board is fashioned in two camps, each supporting their respective principal shareholders, making it hard for the company to find a neutral CEO with the board’s total support.
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