CEO who wakes up at 3am for cold shower and prayer
Churchill Winstones was a shoe shiner. Then a cleaner. He went back to school after 13 years. Now, he is a top dog at Safaricom Investment Cooperative.
Churchill Winstones, CEO Safaricom Investments Cooperative.
Photo credit: Francis Nderitu | Nation Media Group
It is a long way from the boy in Kaloleni, rising through his bootstraps. At his expansive office along Waiyaki Way, he takes me on a walk through his childhood, his father’s rhumba music and why taking a cold shower at 3am has changed him.
Moses Nderitu: Battling the stigma of being unmarried at 51
While most hold most of their cards close to their chest, Moses Nderitu puts all his cards on the table. He’s the managing director of BasiGo, the e-mobility startup known for its electric bus technology.
Basi Go managing director Moses Nderitu pictured at the Rivaan Centre in Nairobi on November 28, 2024.
Photo credit: Billy Ogada | Nation Media Group
He’s the type that started off selling sanitary pads, skipped university, started at the bottom of the production industry, and rose. He thought he’d get filthy rich building affordable houses, become a billionaire, and retire to a villa by a tropical beach. Never happened.
But other exciting things happened, like having children; half a dozen of them. Like motorbikes, he's loved riding for a long time.
Banking executive who led transformative initiatives loses long battle with Lupus
Nuru Mugambi wasn’t meant to live beyond 40 years of age. She was to die seven years after being diagnosed with a rare and severe autoimmune disease called Catastrophic Antiphospholipid Syndrome or Lupus.
Nuru Mugambi. She was a recognised authority in sustainable finance and responsible investment across Africa.
Photo credit: Joseph Barasa | Nation Media Group
On August 5, 2024, she was admitted to the Aga Khan University Hospital in Nairobi. She never made it out. The final stretch of her illness seemed to have been characterised by hospitalisation, fundraisers, and prayers, easily casting her as a ‘warrior” or a poster child for Lupus.
It reduces everything a person ever achieved, the dreams they dreamt of, to their terminal disease. It shouldn’t, because Nuru was a lot more than Lupus. First, and perhaps more importantly, she leaves behind a strong and inspired teenage daughter, Makena, who she has always spoken of, with the same arousing affection most mothers talk of their children.
Felix Kimanthi: There are positions you can’t get if you’re not married
Felix Kimanthi will tell you that luck is not something you mention in the presence of self-made men. Now the CEO of Olympia Holdings —a holding company comprising several businesses in East and Southern Africa—he is the Wikipedia version of “a wolf on the hill is not as hungry as the wolf climbing the hill.”
Olympia Holdings CEO Felix Kimanthi poses for a picture after the interview at Ngong Hills Hotel on March 7, 2024. PHOTO | FRANCIS NDERITU | NMG
He took a chance on quitting his job at 32. Took a chance on joining Olympia. Took a chance on his wife. But he will not take a chance on his omelette.
Why Jonathan Kinisu dims his light for his C-suite wife
With a warm voice as a glass of brandy, Jonathan Kinisu, Tetra Pak East Africa managing director ushers me into the coffee area of his offices, where he rolls up his sleeves to make me—what else?—a cup of coffee.
Jonathan Kinisu, the Tetra Pak East Africa managing director. FILE PHOTO | COURTESY
“I make a mean apple pie; my wife is a big fan. His wife, is also a big shot, the CEO of Prudential Life Assurance. They are a dream team. Of the two, he is the shy one.
Dressed in a powder blue caftan, Sieka Gatabaki, the Programme Director for Mercy Corps AgriFi, meets me in his Lavington driveway looking like the heir apparent to a wizened African traditional king. He is growing baby locks now, which makes him look less like a scion of a colonial chief and more like a deluxe prodigal son. “I am not my hair. I am challenging conventions, I have earned my stripes, people can look past my hair,” he says.
Programme Director for Mercy Corps AgriFin, Sieka Gatabaki.
Photo credit: Francis Nderitu | Nation Media Group
He grew up here, a few blocks from where he lives now. By the time he finished university, he had gone to almost 30 countries.
“I have had girlfriends from, name a country and I was loved there haha! It makes it harder to integrate into local society because you see things in a certain way and most people have their social norms,” he says.
Mike Mwangi, the General Manager/CEO of Tribe Hotel, always knew what he wanted to do. As a child, he’d shimmy at his grandfather’s lodge, peeling potatoes, making beds, helping. He didn’t know it then, but this is what set him on his path from promise to promised land.
Tribe Hotel CEO and General Manager Mike Mwangi during the interview on February 1, 2024. PHOTO | LUCY WANJIRU | NMG
At his artsy office, I snoop around, and my eyes fall on his Wall of Fame. A picture with homages from friends and colleagues from his last job posting. Some call him Mikey, others Bro, most just Big Mike; all effusive, all saying he deserves it, the big boy becoming the main man.
How did he turn his passion into a paycheck? “My grandparents, who raised me, were in this business. I was close to my grandfather. He started in hotels and went into distribution, then into an inn, bars and restaurants,” he says.
Mercy Wangari: Secret man who set me on path to success
Mercy Wangari, the CEO of Spa by Xenaxia, says life itself feels like a journey in healing, not by water but by forward propulsion, from a spa attendant to the owner of a string of wellness establishments she owns fully or manages in partnership.
Chief Executive Officer of SPA by XenaXia Africa Mercy Wangari during an interview on July 25, 2024 at Movenpic hotel in Nairobi.
Photo credit: Billy Ogada | Nation Media Group
She owns the spas in Wadi Degla Club, Movenpick Hotel, Norfolk, Fairmont the Norfolk, Lake Elementaita Mountain Lodge, and is in partnership with the spas at Crowne Plaza JKIA, JW Marriott in Mara and Kigali. She started as a spa attendant intern at the Villa Rosa Kempinski Hotel.
When she talks about her journey, she has to talk of her departed mother who gave birth to her at 14, and the struggles that ensued. She cries through a great deal of this interview when she looks back at that road.
“The industry is predominantly run by people from the Indian community and white people. My journey here wasn’t something that was planned,” she says.
Evelyn Gitau wanted to be a mechanic. She liked the idea of getting under cars, pulling everything apart, and bringing it all up together again. “Absolutely not! You are not doing no such thing,” her late father, an economist, said. “You do sciences or arts.”
African Population and Health Research Center Director of Programmes Evelyn Gitau during an interview at her home on February 14, 2024. PHOTO | BONFACE BOGITA | NMG
That’s what she went and did; a Bachelor of Science in Chemistry and Biology, a Master of Science in Biomedical Sciences, and a PhD in Life Science at 31 years of age.
“When Covid happened and a lot of people, some my parents' age, didn't want to be vaccinated my mom said, ‘We spent our lives educating our child, if she tells us to get vaccinated, we are going to get vaccinated. That was a great moment in my education,” she says.
If you randomly broke into George Odenyo, the CEO of American Tower Company (ATC), an American real estate investment firm that owns, develops, and operates wireless and broadcast communication infrastructure - towers, telecom masts, you would face two puzzling scenarios.
One, you wouldn’t be able to nick anything, and two, you’d be hard-pressed to know what he does for a living. This is because his office is bare. There is a table with a computer. No papers. No trays, no photos of his family. No trophies. There is a lonesome coat hanger and a small glass plaque that his children gifted him for Father’s Day. It brings to mind that quote by Ram Dass: “Emptiness is not really empty, emptiness is full of everything. The ‘everything’ just isn't manifest.”
America Tower Corporation Kenya CEO George Odenyo during the interview on June 24, 2024 at his office in Nairobi.
Photo credit: Billy Ogada | Nation Media Group
“I have the right team in the company, so my desk doesn’t have to look busy. Part of me is also opposed to holding onto things, I try to release them as soon as possible. If there's nothing I can do with it, I give it to the next person who can address it,” he says.
