Patricia Ithau to head Stanford business school unit in East Africa

Stanford Graduate School of Business has appointed Patricia Ithau as the regional director of its East Africa’s ‘Seed Transformation Programme.’
She will drive the US varsity’s programme launched in Kenya on Monday.

“Patricia’s key roles are really to represent Stanford on the ground, Stanford Seed is not a short-term programme but a long-term investment in the region. Stanford was attracted to Patricia because of her energy, her knowledge and involvement in the East African business landscape as well as her motivation to see how our region could transform with advancement in private-sector innovation.” said Stanford in a statement.

The programme will train entrepreneurs from Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda, Uganda and Ethiopia. The business leaders selected under the programme will undertake a 12-month course in Nairobi to encourage private-sector-led development.

The programme aims at building a network of “like-minded individuals from Silicon Valley-to sub-Saharan Africa” and addressing regional challenges such as leadership, strategy and value-chain innovation.

Ms Ithau has years of experience in the corporate world, having served in executive positions at regional subsidiaries of Unilever and Diageo.
She also served as the chief executive of cosmetics firm L’Oréal East Africa which she quit in 2014 after three years.

In January she was appointed a non-executive director of Barclays Bank of Kenya.

She holds an MBA in Strategic Management from the United States International University and a Bachelor of Commerce degree from the University of Nairobi.

READ: Former L’Oréal EA chief executive Patricia Ithau named Barclays director

Stanford Business School is known for offering innovative and practical management education “that pairs best practice with advanced theory drawn from rigorous research.”

Nike, Victoria’s Secret, General Motors, Warner Brothers, General Mills, and AmBev are examples of companies founded by graduates from the business school.

The programme will also be working with students. “Seed has the transformation programme but also invites Stanford students to work with local businesses and is continually dedicating research to analysing and solving challenges faced by East African entrepreneurs and private-sector,” the statement read.

“One of the goals for our Seed centres is to help stimulate local and regional ecosystems to bring the Silicon Valley spirit to those environments,” said Jesper Sorensen, executive director of the Seed programme.

The first initiative in the continent was started in West Africa.