East African Breweries Plc is facing another senior departure after Hina Nagarajan resigned from the company’s board with effect from August 1, 2026, less than one year after joining the brewer.
Nagarajan joined the EABL board on August 4, 2025, and served on the Nominations and Remuneration Committee before the company announced her resignation through a public notice dated August 1.
Her departure comes shortly after former Group Chief Financial Officer and Executive Director Risper Ohaga left the company on June 30, 2026, with Justin Mollel taking over the finance position from July 1.
The two exits have added to the changes taking place at EABL as the company prepares for the planned transfer of Diageo’s controlling stake to Japan’s Asahi Group.
Diageo agreed to sell its 65 percent stake in EABL together with its direct interest in UDV Kenya, bringing one of the biggest ownership changes in the brewer’s history.
The transaction is expected to be completed after the remaining approvals are secured, with EABL set to move from long standing Diageo control into a new ownership structure.
The change is taking place as EABL continues facing several legal and commercial disputes involving distributors, marketing agencies, former employees and tax authorities.
One of the latest cases involves Steizon Limited, a digital marketing company associated with media personality Willis Raburu, which is seeking Sh10 million over work linked to the Furaha City Festival.
Steizon says it provided influencer marketing, content production, artist coordination, logistics and event support after being brought into the assignment through Game Changer Marketing Limited.
The company says it produced more than sixty promotional reels, created over one hundred static social media posts and coordinated more than fifty influencers during the campaign.
Steizon says the work reached more than one million people, but the company was not paid the Sh10 million claimed in the suit after completing the assignment and submitting its report.
Game Changer Marketing denies hiring Steizon for the Furaha City Festival and says its dealings with the company concerned a separate campus activation campaign that had already been paid for.
EABL denies liability and says Furaha City was part of the wider Wabebe campaign, which covered thirteen campus activations under a Sh10 million budget that had already been settled.
The brewer says there was no separate purchase order, written offer or approved contract covering the extra Sh10 million claimed by Steizon.
A Milimani court declined to order immediate payment before the hearing but directed EABL to deposit Sh10 million into a joint interest earning account as security until the case is determined.
The ruling did not find EABL liable, but it placed the disputed amount under court control as the parties prepare to present emails, campaign records, payment documents and witness evidence.
EABL and its subsidiaries have faced other long running disputes involving distributors whose businesses depended on access to routes, territories and stock supplied by the brewer.
Bia Tosha Distributors Limited has spent years in court with Kenya Breweries Limited and related companies over disputed beer distribution territories and alleged interference with its business.
The distributor later attempted to stop the sale of Diageo’s controlling stake to Asahi until the older commercial dispute was concluded, but the court allowed the ownership transaction to proceed separately.
Other distributors, including Natex Distributors, Tony West Limited and Outlook Index Limited, have previously taken Kenya Breweries to court over cancelled agreements and contested territories.
Those cases involved markets including Kawangware, Kitengela, Athi River, Rongai, Lang’ata, Ngong Road and Upper Hill, where control of distribution routes carried major commercial value.
The disputes have repeatedly placed EABL’s relationship with smaller businesses under examination, particularly where distributors claimed that routes or supply arrangements had been changed after years of investment.
A separate employment case exposed the movement of Sh300,000 from a distributor to an employee working inside EABL’s finance department through another company employee.
The employee who transported the money was dismissed, and the court later upheld the dismissal after finding that the conduct breached the brewer’s internal rules.
The case did not hold EABL responsible for bribery, but it recorded cash moving from a distributor towards a worker based inside the company’s financial operations.
UDV Kenya and other companies within the EABL group have also spent years contesting tax assessments involving excise duty, value added tax and the treatment of alcoholic products.
Some of those disputes involved demands running into hundreds of millions of shillings and moved through the Tax Appeals Tribunal and the courts.
The board changes are taking place as EABL remains one of the largest and most profitable consumer companies in East Africa, with major operations in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania.
Nagarajan’s resignation does not by itself show financial trouble, but it adds to the leadership changes taking place before the Asahi transaction is completed.
The incoming owner will take control of a company with dominant brands, major production assets and a wide distribution network, together with court cases and commercial disputes inherited from the Diageo period.
EABL will enter that new period with a changed finance leadership, a changing board and several unresolved cases involving agencies, distributors and other businesses tied to its operations.
