Meet Emirates Kenya boss with the giant personality

Anita’s personality seems to strain against a weak leash. She is bubbly, effervescent and uber confident.

She literally fills up a room with character. That was my first impression, at least. The second impression was her hair; framed over her head, like a halo. Her father was a Cameroonian and her mom half-Lebanese, half English. She went to school in the UK and Switzerland.

Anita landed in Kenya four months ago to run Emirates’ Kenyan office, bringing with her 20 years of experience in the aviation industry after stints in Zurich where she started off in a different career before ending up at Emirates six years later.

We met at the Emirates offices at 9-West Building in Westlands.

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What do you think your hair says about you?

My hair? (Laughs) Oh. I just wanted to be me, to be natural. I like it this way. I get a lot of compliments and I hope I inspire young girls to keep natural hair and not use chemicals like I did in my younger days.

What are you struggling with in your life right now?

Hmm. I don’t want to get political but I also want to be politically correct, which leaves me in a conundrum. I’m trying to settle in this beautiful, absolutely stunning city and also struggling with the security issue pumped up by the media.

I say pumped up because when I go out there, I don’t feel the insecurity. All this is a little scary and sad because Nairobi is a beautiful city with great weather. It would be nice to enjoy this without thinking about security.

Which side of your lineage is more prominent in you?

African side. Because I was always conscious of the fact that that’s who I am and that’s who I was going to be seen as. I don’t shy away from my mixed race, though.

I’m proud to embrace my black side. I spent part of my life in Africa. It doesn’t matter what box people choose to put me in because deep inside me, my African roots is who I am.

What is your greatest strength?

My resilience. I’m also quite humane, I like to give. I don’t know if that’s a strength.

And weakness?

I can trust very quickly. Sometimes it’s difficult to separate the head and heart. Does that make sense?

Yes. So are you a romantic?

I think I’m a die-hard romantic. (Laughs hard). My partner might say otherwise but I am.

You are married?
No, I’m not.

Planning to get married, have kids, the works?

No. I don’t have kids and I’m not planning to get married. I’m in a fulfilling relationship and I’m not in the market. (Smiles)

What do you do to unwind?

I think many people would be ashamed to say this but I watch a lot of TV – a lot of talk shows. I learn a lot about the mainstream. I also like to travel, hang out with friends, you know… banter.

When were you the saddest in your life?

(Sigh) That could make me cry. I’ve had a lot of personal tragedies in my life, a lot of deaths in the family. (Pause) I try to move on because every time I think about that, I get sad. I get really, really sad.

OK then, what about the happiest moment in your life?

Those are many! (Laughs) The last time I was really, really happy is when I got the opportunity to come to Kenya. Cliché but it was a truism, a dream come true because I always wanted to do something in Africa.

Africa right now is the most lucrative, emerging market and this is the place to be. So now that I’m in Kenya, life can begin on a different lane. My dad would be so proud of me.

I don’t mean to be sexist but....

You can be if you want, we are used to it. (Laughs)

Do you think you face the same challenges a man of your position faces in the workplace?

I think sometimes even more than a man. I don’t want to step on any male toes here.

Forget about their toes, they will be fine.

(Laughs). Look, even in Europe, you have to deal with gender issues at the workplace on a daily basis. I’m resilient in terms of the tragedies I have had to endure in life but also, as a woman in the business world, whether the men like it or not, we sometimes feel like we work in a man’s world but that doesn’t faze us.

But at the end of the day when I walk into a room, I don’t walk in as a woman but as a professional.

You have a very strong voice full of character. If this doesn’t work out, you should consider radio…

(Laughs hard). Oh really? My, Jackson! We could get into business. I will be in touch.

Do you ever use your voice as leverage? Are you even conscious of your voice?

Yes, I am conscious of it. People say I laugh like Tina Turner. But listen, I grew up with a single dad who raised me to believe that you had to be strong in the way you express yourself and tackle defeat.

I was blessed with a voice that feeds into that. But also I used to be a smoker for 20 years and I think it did something really bad to my voice. I used to gasp when I spoke. Sadly, my mom, also a smoker all her life, passed on not too long ago from lung cancer. I quickly smelled the coffee.

Do you sometimes miss smoking?

No, it’s a psychological thing for me. I control it mentally.

I think about what it did to my mom and other people and we have to take it seriously. But I won’t preach anti-smoking; it’s not my role. It doesn’t bother me to be around smokers.

Do you intimidate men with this robust personality and if you do, do you secretly enjoy it?

(Laughs hard) I’m not a sadist! I think when I’m in meetings… I don’t know if I can say this on the record, but when you are in meetings and you are the only woman in the room and the men decide to take off the gloves and …(Pause)…I…can get confrontational. I can let them know that I’m also capable of intimidation.

However, I think the best way to intimidate anybody is to do it intellectually and not to take it to a personal level.

Are you a product of your father? Would you have turned out differently had you grown up with your mom and dad?

Well, I am a product of my dad for sure, but would I have turned out differently? (Sighs) No, I wouldn’t go down to that because that would kind of devalue who my mom was.

What’s your greatest fear?

(Thinks) Disappointing people.

Who did you last disappoint?

(Pause). I have to think. (Pause). I hope not my mom, although something tells me it’s my mom.

Why?

Oh, that is off the record! (Laughs). That’s something that might haunt one for the rest of their lives, but it’s a very genuine question. I’m glad you posed it. (Thinks).

What makes you most vulnerable?

My weakness is that I’m quick to trust people and that is my biggest vulnerability.

You are 51 now; at what age do you think you came into your womanness?

(Long pause) Womanness…that’s a very good way to put it. (Thinks) It’s difficult to answer that because I don’t look at myself as a female when I interact with men or women. I was a tomboy growing up and so there was no saying what I wouldn’t do. But I don’t think that there was a specific age that I felt that I was shifting.

Are you happy?

I wasn’t always happy but I’m at the happiest point in my life right now.