Procter & Gamble boss rides on top brands to spur growth

It’s a Monday, which means Adema Sangole is in her office.

For many other Kenyan CEOs, this is an unremarkable occurrence. For the 34-year-old mother of two, however, it is the exception rather than the norm.

Every three weeks, her job calls for her to travel to the other regional offices she oversees, putting her out of her home base in Nairobi for a month each time.

On the cusp of such a trip, the unassuming slight figure standing in the corridor waiting to usher me into her offices at Proctor and Gamble’s (P&G) Nairobi headquarters does not bring to mind the image of your typical female corporate executive.

Wrapped in a flowing sweater, hair dressed in almost schoolgirl like braids and wearing flats in the place of the power stilettos you would expect, Ms Sangole gives the air of a colleague rather than the lady in charge of four East African countries, 54 distributors and 30 direct reports.

It is only on close examination, upon listening to her quiet yet confident voice, that you realise that there is more to the diminutive CEO than meets the eye.

Sh240 billion

But then, that appears to be Ms Sangole’s modus operandi. With a quiet determination, she has pulled herself from being a graduate recruit at the firm to regional managing director of a Sh240 billon company.

An alumnus of USIU and later Oxford University, she joined Procter and Gamble as a result of a university recruitment programme.

Her interests led her to the heart of any P&G operation anywhere in the world — its marketing department.

Having served as a brand manager for Always and Pampers in Kenya, Nigeria and Poland, P&G decided to elevate her to the position of associate director of external relations for Africa, based on her passionate yet subtle management style.

Unlike many of her peers, she has only had one employer throughout her career – P&G.

“It’s never been a job for me, it’s a lifestyle. I am a P&G citizen,” she says.

You get the sense that she is not just spewing the company line when she relates a harrowing schedule sees her board a plane every seven days or so.

As she settles into a 20-minute personalised power point presentation (rarely, if ever, performed for journalists by CEOs in this country) that becomes more apparent.