Entrepreneur bets on women to boost Kenya’s growth

June Nyakan Munyeki speaks with a lot of enthusiasm; women, she says, are the pillars to the much-needed growth in any economy, including Kenya. Her zeal is not misplaced.

In 2004, she was diagnosed with a terminal illness while pregnant and her doctor told her that she only had five months to live.

A second medical opinion, and a risky operation later, both her and her child made it through safely.

Ms Munyeki told Enterprise that this experience changed her, making her want to play a bigger role in developing other people’s lives since life, as she puts it “is unpredictable, you never know about tomorrow”.

The Computer Science graduate from the Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture quit her six-figure job in an American multinational to set up her own company - Timeless and Dynamics Services.

One of the firm’s service is in the real estate industry where they construct and design visually-appealing buildings (both offices and homes) as model landscapes in tasteful ways.

The company also develops business models and helps their clients execute them, including linking them with partners and employers. They also train women in male-dominated fields such as oil and gas and construction and plumbing.

Ms Munyeki had chalked up 18 years working as a marketing consultant, assisting multinational companies turn their business around but this job did not satisfy her.

“I had grown and made all the money but I felt compelled to work closer with people and really transform lives,” she told the Business Daily.

When she started out, she says she did not have the relevant contacts and getting the business off the ground proved tougher than she had anticipated. The business only had two employees and Ms Munyeki was forced to hire consultants to get some jobs done.

She relied on quality service delivery and reasonable pricing to win clients and within three months, referrals became inevitable and the number of clients surged. Today, her human resource team is made up of 20 permanent staffers and about 50 volunteers.

Ms Munyeki’s business places its focus on women, arguing that Kenya and other countries across the world have not lived up to their full potential due to sidelining this critical segment of the society.

She is critical of the continued dependency on donor funds in the development sector, adding that Africa is still not taking responsibility for its problems yet it is gifted with vast resources including informed people.

“People want to invest in Africa but most of the economic structures are led by men who hold approximately 70 per cent of the world’s wealth,” “How much more money can you make if you involve the women?”

Timeless and Magnificent Places, one of the company’s subsidiaries, deals in construction and design. The company receives orders of up to Sh8 million to transform private and public spaces among other construction works, Ms Munyeki said.

A social model employed in the development sector, for instance, is a farming tools project where her company sourced donor money, procured irrigation tools and provided them to poor farmers at subsidised rates.

In the corporate sector, a business would be advised to contract women groups to provide eggs and chicks as a guarantee of supply but still keep the women in business hence making social impact while satisfying the ecosystem economically.

Another way that Timeless and Dynamics Services empowers women is by training them on how to excel in the boardroom. This is through a five-month programme for which Ms Munyeki charges between Sh10,000 and Sh100,000 per hour.

In the past year, Ms Munyeki’s for organisation, Timeless Women of Wonder Foundation has empowered over 320 women from Kibera slums on an entrepreneurship program in fields most women shy away from due to perceptions.

These women were trained in construction works in conjunction with the National Construction Authority (NCA) and will be absorbed by local companies that have partnered with the company.