Eva Ngigi Sarwari, managing director of Finserve Africa and Equity Group’s director of payments and international banking, has died at 45 while on a business trip to China.
Her colleagues announced her death on Tuesday 20 October and called the news a “sudden and profound shock”.
The statement gave no cause or date of death. It said updates would follow as details became available and that “thoughts and prayers are with Eva’s family, friends and colleagues”. Equity Group had not issued a separate public statement in the first reports.
From an internship to Equity Group’s payments business
Ngigi Sarwari’s career ran for more than two decades and followed the shift of East African banking from branches to digital payments. She started with an internship at Kenya Wine Agencies in 2003. In June 2005 she joined Co-operative Bank of Kenya as a relationship manager, where she sold electronic banking, installed systems and trained customers. She stayed until August 2010.
She then spent two years at Stanbic Bank Kenya managing sales of transactional products and services. In November 2012 she joined Standard Chartered as a principal in transaction banking. She sold to development organisations and public sector clients across East Africa. In July 2017 she became Head of Transaction Banking for Commercial Banking in Kenya and East Africa, with responsibility for profit and balance sheet growth. In January 2020 she moved to SC Ventures as a venture lead.
Visa hired her in September 2020 as Senior Director and Country Manager for Kenya, South Sudan and Somalia, a post she held until December 2024. Visa East Africa General Manager Corine Mbiaketcha said at the time: “We are excited to bring Eva on board to lead our business in Kenya.”
She joined Equity in January 2025 as Group Director for Payments and International Banking, executing the group’s payments strategy across Africa. In April 2026 she became Managing Director of Finserve Africa, which gave her strategic, commercial and operational charge of the group’s payments and digital financial services subsidiary. She held the post for seven months.
What Finserve Africa does
Equity Group spun Finserve out in 2018 as an autonomous commercial subsidiary. It runs the Equitel mobile network, the Jenga API platform and the Jenga Payment Gateway. Khusoko covered its e-commerce award in 2021, when Lanre Bamisebi was managing director.
In her words: technology, clients and inclusion
Her professional profile described a career of structuring working capital and cash management solutions for governments, multilateral and development organisations, and large and mid sized local companies. She named the work she was proudest of: delivering “transformational working capital and digital solutions that changed how clients operate”.
“I see technology as an enabler,” she wrote. She tied it to inclusion: “Paired with an obsession for client value, it is how we drive financial inclusion.” On clients, she said, “Relationships sit at the centre of how I work.” She said she took time to understand a client’s business, constraints and vision before proposing anything.
At Visa in 2024 she argued that financial education and the uptake of digital payments could widen inclusion for small businesses in Kenya and Tanzania. In an earlier interview with The Standard she noted that it was “only now that we are seeing more women in leadership” in financial services. The Africa CEO Forum listed her among Kenya’s Top 25 Most Powerful Women in the C Suite.
Education
She held an MBA in Strategic Management from the University of Nairobi (2010) and a Bachelor of Business Management in marketing from Moi University (2004). She also completed a postgraduate diploma in digital business through Emeritus, the Oxford Fintech Programme in 2019 and the Oxford Strategic Management Executive Programme at Saïd Business School in 2022 and 2023.
Family tribute
A tribute notice describes her as the wife of Hidayat Khan Sarwari and a mother of three. It also names her parents, two brothers, in laws, nieces and nephews. It says her “warmth, intellect, and leadership touched countless lives”. The notices reviewed did not give funeral arrangements.
