Some of the Top 40 Under 40 Women 2014, from left: Sumra Rehmet, Managing Director, Roma Company Limited, 27; Captain Irene Mutungi, Pilot, Kenya Airways, 38; Sara Koki Kinagwi, Medical doctor, 38; and Lupita Nyong’o, Film and Fashion Queen, Oscar Award Winner, 31. Photos/DIANA NGILA/AFP
What you need to know:
Highlights of key stories
Boardroom still a strange place for Kenya women
Profiles of Kenya’s Top 40 Women Under 40 2014
There is a silent revolution for women in enterprise in Kenya
Every year the Top 40 Under 40 list comes with a mixed bag of routine inputs and equal measure of freshness that only shapes up at the tail end of the production process.
As we have done consistently in the past six years, the Business Daily invited its readers to nominate women aged under 40 who in their view have made significant achievements in whatever segments of our society and economy.
That is then followed by the convening of a panel of judges who do the hard job of sifting through the hundreds of entries and picking out the outstanding nominees for recognition in this annual listing that has become very competitive.
In the past, accolades have come our way for recognising these beautiful minds whose efforts and work the media does not ordinarily feature. But we have also had to deal with a measure of criticism on very critical areas such as the age of the candidates and some of the things they claim to have done.
Appearing in the Top 40 Under 40 list has become so critical to hundreds of Kenyan women that some appear to have decided that they would be on it regardless of their qualifications to do so.
So this late there has been a great measure of cutting corners, compression of age, canvassing and misrepresentation of facts to fit the bill.
The BD team has tried the best it can to keep the faith and stay the course to come up with a list that truly has women who represent Kenya’s promise in the corporate world, research, science, the arts, theatre, professionalism and entrepreneurs.
In compiling this list of Women to Watch, the Business Daily has attempted to go beyond the basic list of fame and influence to interrogating each candidate’s ingenuity, performance and staying power in whatever they do.
We have then ascertained each candidate’s age, and considered data on the size of the business they do, its scope and complexity (i.e whether it is a national/multi-national or cross-sectoral operation), and the competitive landscape in the segment of the economy it operates.
Women running or occupying senior positions in companies with a multi-national reach scored higher marks than those in charge of national/local agencies.
In this list are also women professionals such as lawyers, architects, and partners in accounting firms, included purely on the basis of the size (value) of the work they have done.
The Top 40 Under 40 project has also awarded high marks to women who have excelled in professions that have been and remain male dominated such as software engineering, aviation and engineering. This is because the newspaper believes there should be no gender-based glass ceiling on any career aspiration.
Ochieng’ Rapuro, Managing Editor
Here is the full list of women who made it to Business Daily's 2014 ranks of Top 40 Under 40, arranged in descending order of age:
Alfetta Koome, 39, Country Manager, FirstRand Bank
Ann Gitao, 39, Head of Marketing for Africa, Vivo Energy
Anne Maingi, 39, Head of Strategic Capability, Unilever Nigeria
Catherine Mutisya, 39, Psychiatrist
Charity Mutegi, 39, Aflatoxin Maize Researcher
Lornah Kiplagat, 39, World Class Athlete, Proprietor of Training Centre
