A total of 130 candidates submitted applications, among whom 12 passed the first round of selection and were interviewed by a panel of five senior managers on August 31.

Along with Gachuhi, the other successful candidates are David Mug, Olivia Mengich and Diana Kimani, who were named manager of freight marketing, deputy manager of corporate culture and deputy manager of passenger transport, respectively.

According to Li, there have been more than 200 Kenyan employees have served in the leadership of the Mombasa-Nairobi SGR operation company, ranking from department leaders to company management positions.

The general manager also said that the company's localization rate has reached 80 percent among the 3,453 employees, which suggests that phase one of the SGR project will meet its promise of 90 percent localization by 2022.

In some departments, the localization goal has already been met

The localization rate in the passenger transport fleet for example has already reached 98 percent.

According to the contract between the operation company and the Kenya Railways Corporation, owner of the Mombasa-Nairobi SGR, Afristar, is responsible for the operation, maintenance and service management of the 480-kilometer SGR for 10 years starting from May 31, 2017.

After this period, local Kenyans will take over the operation of the SGR.