Former World Bank executive prospers in clothing venture

After specialising in international development and poverty alleviation, Wandia Gichuru spent 15 years working with the United Nations, World Bank and UK government.

But despite a high profile career at the most influential and best funded organisations in the world, her Aha moment only came when she opened a retail clothing store in Nairobi called Vivo Activewear.

Three years down the line, with just a modicum of resources at her disposal, she feels much closer to having helped alleviate poverty in Kenya in her small way.

Healthy lifestyle

Vivo Activewear started importing fitness and dance clothing from South Africa, Thailand and China and the UK in 2011. Its attire is suited to the needs of someone with a healthy lifestyle, and most designs are made from stretch fabric like lycra and jersey which contour to the shape of the body.

“As you become more exposed and have a bit more time and money that’s something you think more about, as opposed to when you’re living to make ends meet,” said Wandia the co-founder and managing director of the company.

A couple years into the business, the 46-year-old realised that aside from quality and pricing, the main challenges posed by imports was the discrepancy between the size of women in different parts of the world.

“I am a large in Asia and in Kenya I am a small. So (by importing from Asia) we couldn’t cater to anything beyond a size 14 which is average for women in Kenya,” she said.

She also began to question the market perception which dictated it would be cheaper to import rather than manufacture locally. And so eight months ago, she went against the tide, imported fabric from Asia and set up a workshop on Ngong Road in Nairobi with seven tailors. The concept worked well, and between 40 to 50 per cent of what she sells in her stores today is locally made.

“Everyone told me it is very expensive to do and you won’t make as much money when you do it locally. But I am finding that on some products it is cheaper for me than to buy from the wholesale markets in Bangkok,” she said.

She admits, however, that what may have worked in her favour is that she had an established distribution channel in place, a reputation and a clientele base when she started manufacturing locally — an advantage that young local designers often do not have.

Being an employer

But the satisfaction of making a business model work that many had cautioned against was nothing compared to the feeling of being an employer.

“One of the first tailors I hired had been working at a factory behind River Road for 17 years,” she said, and when she met him he was earning a salary of just Sh17,000.

“Sh17,000 and he’d been there 17 years!” she repeated for emphasis.

After a two-week trial, she hired him, doubled his salary and agreed to partly recompense him for the loss of a Sh80,000 severance package from his previous employer with Sh50,000. Six months later he bought his first piece of land in Kakamega.

“When I started working for myself I knew I’d enjoy being self-employed but I didn’t know that I’d enjoy being an employer,” said Wandia. “In 17 years (with that other company) he had nothing. In six months with Vivo, he had enough to buy a piece of land. Creating these opportunities is empowerment.”

Wandia is proud that a business she sunk all her savings into is prospering, and even prouder that she empowers her employees in a way that she never saw the millions of pounds and dollars doing in her former career.

The mall culture

When Wandia opened her first Vivo shop, she knew nothing about textiles or manufacturing or design.

“I came to this (line of work) completely ignorant,” she said. But considers her lack of experience as an advantage because it rids of her preconceptions, and allows her to ask questions and consult on the best way forward.

This year, she intends to complement her stores at Galleria, Junction, New Muthaiga and in Mombasa by opening two additional ones in Hurlingham and Thika.

Both will be within a mall, even though she admits she is in a quandary about the benefits of running a clothing store in a mall set up.

While the mall offers high foot traffic and bestows a prestige on the brand, she is highly aware that her competitors are not the high-end brands that populate shopping malls but the exhibition halls of Tom Mboya Street and Moi Avenue.

“These exhibition stalls bring in dresses from Turkey for Sh7,000,” she said, adding that their clothes are more expensive than Vivo where an average dress costs around Sh3,500. And despite the outward appearance and cramped insides of the labyrinth exhibition hall structure, they do a booming trade with some turning more than Sh4 million a month. And yet most privileged Kenyans, she said, would not want to be seen frequenting there.

The paradox is that while Kenya’s privileged look down on exhibition halls, the identity of the mall visitor is changing rapidly.

Her experience at the Nakumatt’s latest store on Thika Super Highway recently convinces her of this.

“Thika Road Mall is pulling in a whole bunch of people that typically would never have gone to malls. I could see that people were scared of getting on an escalator, and kids at the bumper cars didn’t speak English. It’s fabulous. These are people who now can spend Sh50,000 on a weekend that 10 years ago wouldn’t have had it,” she said.

The thought excites her as a businesswoman and she is considering of how best to capitalise on the opportunity, but she is unsure of how well placed some of the international brands at the Thika Road Mall are.