The answer to life, according to Paras Shah, is in family and work. Family, because he left Kenya at 18, and by the time his father passed on, he realised he’d never spent enough time with him. “I think he was stressed about many things,” he says, “and I’d have asked him how I could have helped him deal with that stress.” Work because that’s all he’s ever known. Returning to Kenya at the tail end of the Moi era. Selling cloth at his father’s shop along River Road. It is there, in downtown Nairobi, where he learned more about resilience than any highbrow MBA could ever teach him.
Now he’s 52 and the managing partner at Bowmans. “There is a history of poor health in my family, so I’m careful to control what I can,” he says. He gave up smoking. Drinks very little, sleeps well. He wants to leave something that will outlive him. The philosophy: Don’t do it for the income; do it for the outcome.
