Today represents a profound milestone for me as a writer. It marks my 500th Business Talk article culminating in finishing my tenth year writing in the Business Daily newspaper.
In a break from my traditional article styles and business themes, I would like to thank you, the readers. From the time when the Business Daily launched in 2007, it has built a loyal, sophisticated, and well-informed readership from right here in Kenya and around the world.
Since 2013 when I started writing for the newspaper, I frequently receive emails and Tweets requesting more information on my article topics, ideas for new topics, and even criticisms for some content logic.
I have also been recognised by readers across the world while on holiday or business meetings from being on a cruise ship in Helsinki, to the Embassy in Washington D.C, the airport in Doha, or on safari in Samburu, those chance meetings have turned into long-term professional friendships.
I also owe a vote of thanks to the remarkable Republic of Kenya and its indelible noble citizenry. In no other country in all my travels have I felt a greater affinity.
In Kenya, we hold a remarkable unique culture that is second to none. We consistently rate the highest internationally on the power and wit of our humour.
Kenyans are adept at injecting hilarity into work situations and diffusing tense circumstances.
Even watching State House television clips on YouTube from former President Uhuru Kenyatta or current President William Ruto and we see that our distinctly Kenyan charm incorporates humour on the world stage and helps our nation secure lucrative beneficial trade deals that our regional neighbours can only dream about.
Kenya also thrives as a global hotbed of entrepreneurship. The entrepreneurial spirit drives millions of us across the nation.
We excel as the world leader in financial technology, hold our very own Silicon Savannah in Kilimani and Westlands, are a global powerhouse in safari tourism, run financial services firms as the hub for our entire region, also maintain a leading regional health hub, and retain the most professionalised NGO sector in the world.
Kenya ranks among the highest countries globally on entrepreneurial orientation and entrepreneurial intention in academic studies.
Some advice for international business leaders: if you have a problem and do not know how to solve it, then hire a Kenyan to work on it and project manage it and they will exceed your expectations.
The nation also retains remarkably high levels of professionalism in our service and manufacturing sectors.
Kenyans are highly educated across dozens of business, technology, communications, other social sciences, and engineering disciplines combined with globally competitive literacy and university completion rates.
Our civic knowledge rates dwarf other countries as Kenyans stay on top of the news and are keenly aware of local and national politics.
Our gross domestic product growth climbs many years among the top world economies. Even though everything here is not perfect and surely there do exist areas for improvement, we achieve all this as a country while staying true to a sense of hope and optimism.
Unlike several of our neighbouring nations, Kenya excels without the sad widespread fatalism that affects the citizenry in other countries.
We stay largely true to our ethos of Harambee and Ubuntu. Even during my dark days of cancer in 2019, my whole community and the USIU-Africa family surrounded me with love and support.
In closing, I humbly say thank you to my beloved adopted country. May I always live a life worthy of being a Kenyan in this great nation. Also, a big asenteni sana for the joy of interacting with all of you Business Daily readers over the past decade and cheers for a hopefully additional 10 years to come.
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