top 40 under 40

Friday June 3rd, 2011BDLife

2 BUSINESS DAILY | FRIDAY, JUNE 3, 2011

Top 40 women under 40

Passion does it fo≥ winning women

Inside this issue

CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER Linus Gitahi EDITORIAL DIRECTOR

Joseph Odindo MANAGING EDITOR

Ochieng’ Rapuro ADVERTISING MANAGER

Julie KisakaEDITORIAL DESIGN DIRECTOR

Kathleen Bogan SENIOR DESIGNER

Marc MweraPRODUCTION EDITOR

Diana MwangoPHOTOS

Fredrick Onyango

3 Best Paying Jobs for Women Technology makes a big leap for women on the fast lane, but survey still finds being in the corner office the best paying job in many countries across the globe

4 Maternity law scores own goal for working women LARISA BROWN finds that the maternity leave provided for in Kenya’s labour laws has erected a new obstacle to women’s survival in the corporate world.

6 We need more women leaders, how do we get them? BARBARA ADACHI argues that women already constitute a large fraction of the workforce and providing room for them to develop careers in whatever direction they want is the key to getting them into leadership positions

10 Top 40 under 40 women Read on the selected finalists of this yearsTop 40 Under 40 women in corporate Kenya

EDITION, JUNE 3rd, 2011The Top40 under 40 women is available online atbusinessdailyafrica.com

How the Top 40 we≥e pickedBD’s TOP 40 Under 40 is an annual ranking of women who have risen to occupy positions of influence in society before the age of 40 and are therefore headed for top careers in the next decade.It has been said that what sets so-cieties apart in terms of human and economic development is the lack of diversity (especially on gender) in key decision making positions – be it in business or public policy. The reality in Kenya is, however, that a growing number of women have stood their ground and are

making it in nearly every segment of the economy – including the corporate world, government, and enterprise. These are the women whose achievements we hope to highlight and celebrate because it is our view that by highlighting their achieve-ment, we encourage other ambi-tious women to meet the challeng-es and that many still face in their bid to reach the summit of their ca-reers and aspirations.Highlighting the achievements of these high performing women who

are mostly in their 30s we contrib-ute to the revolution that is taking place in Kenya’s social and econom-ic space and hopefully contribute to the much desired advancement of our society. In picking the winners therefore, the panel strives to make a judg-ment call based on what the can-didates have achieved (their influ-ence in society so far that qualifies them as a Top under 40 woman) and the potential they have to scale the ladder in the post 40 career path.

BY JENNY LUESBY

Success is a hard-won outcome. But the key, it appears from the women selected this year as Kenya’s Top 40

Women Under 40 to Watch, is passion. A surprising number of the young

leaders to have emerged in this year’s line-up changed careers along the way. Some turned their back on glamorous options early on. Some rose in one field, only to rise again and more spectacularly in a second.

Many shone at school. But some didn’t. Yet al-most all of our Top 40 have revealed a commitment to further education. Bris-tling with MBAs, diplomas and professional qualifica-tions, many have done more than balance life and work: they have balanced life, work and study.

Reading their stories, it’s hard not to be awed at the dedication of these su-perwomen, so full of drive, creativity and vision.

Yet something they all appear to have in common is their passion for what they do. Time and again they explain their love for the work, why it matters, and what motivated them in choosing the fields they did.

From the London School of Econom-ics-trained professional who abandoned economics to spread the word about nutrition, to the venture capitalist who moved into film production, or the oil industry MD who initially planned to enter banking, Kenya’s women leaders have emerged based on key decisions they took along the way.

Each one of them is where they are now based on choices, and what informed those choices was a belief in what was possible: which is why it is our privilege to honour these women. Because from them, we can all learn. For every single

one of these women has taken on chal-lenges, and pre-vailed. They have broken through glass ceilings, juggled long hours, and devised

ground-breaking solutions to seem-ingly intractable

problems. And that, it seems, is what it takes to succeed as a women in Kenya today. Because making it economically is getting harder, not easier.

In the pages of this report, we also car-ry shocking figures showing how women have retreated in the nation’s workforce in the last five years. Maternity legislation designed to aide women in honouring their responsibilities as mothers has bit-ten back at all women: chased down by a class of employers who argue there is no gain to them from employing women who they might have to grant extra paid leave. With their backs turned firmly against taking any responsibility for the welfare of the nation’s children, many SMEs have simply locked out women in their 20s and 30s from the workforce.

In an economy where there a few large or even middle-sized organisations, and where SMEs drive employment, it’s a

shift, since 2007, that has in some years seen the number of women in formal sec-tor jobs actually fall. Altogether, over the last half a decade, Kenyan women have moved backwards economically, now ac-counting for just 28.7 per cent of formal sector jobs, compared with 30.3 per cent five years ago.

For the more than half of Kenyans the wrong side of the gender line, the problem, it seems, is not so much a glass ceiling, as a glass wall: many cannot even get in. Reports both locally and globally likewise show women retreating from sectors that are now driving the world, in ICT, science and engineering.

Yet Kenya has spawned now more than its global share of exceptional leaders in the ICT industry, with its own clutch of women MDs, country manag-ers and leaders fanning out across the world’s ICT multinationals.

These women, who believe it’s pos-sible and find ways to deliver on every front, are proving that the sky is the lim-it. Yet there are other heroes in many of their stories. A few remain single, but almost all of the women selected within this year’s line-up are married, and with children, and repeatedly they cite their families and their husbands as the source of their strength.

Survey also finds that career change and going back to school for professional qualifications is key to staying the course of climbing the influence ladder

PHOT

OS.C

OM

Nearly all the successful

women reveal their

love for work and why it matters in

their careers

EDIT

OR

’S N

OTE

PHOT

OS.C

OM

FRIDAY, JUNE 3, 2011 | BUSINESS DAILY 3


What happens when women make up half of the work-force and they are more likely than ever before to

be primary or co-breadwinners in their families? It means it’s increas-ingly crucial for women to earn top dollar for their labor.

To rank the 10 best-paying jobs for women the median weekly earnings of female, full-time wage and salary workers was tabulated. Across the globe, men are still earning more across industries—about 20 per cent more than women per week—but women are quickly closing the gap. A slim majority (51 per cent) of workers in high-paying management and pro-fessional jobs are female, according to an International Labour Organisa-tion report.

This top 10 list is equal parts a les-son in the importance of math and sci-ence skills, a showcase for the obvious (doctors, lawyers), a reinterpretation of “women’s work” and an attempt to forecast the high-paying jobs of the future.

Chief executive came in at No.1 on our list as the top-paying job for women. Female chief executives made a median of $1,553 (Sh132,005) per week, or about $81,000 (Sh6.9 mil-lion) in 2009. However, their total numbers are still low, and they aren’t

earning equally to men. Women comprise just a quarter of all chief executive positions and earn 75 per cent as much as their male peers. But younger women may be moving into business more than previous genera-tions. In 2007, women received 44 per cent of all MBAs, according to the US Department of Education, while in 1997 they earned 39 per cent, trans-lating to a 75 per cent increase in the last 10 years.

“Chief executives will remain well-paid in years to come, and it’s a position you can work your way into,” says Al Lee, director of quantitative

analysis for Payscale, an online pro-vider of employee compensation data. “Becoming a CEO might be easier than becoming a doctor. You can be a CEO at age 35, when a doctor is just getting done with training.”

Like last year, a career in phar-macy was a top contender. Pharma-cist placed second on our list--above lawyers (No. 3) and physicians and surgeons (No. 6). Female pharma-cists earned a median of about $76,500 (Sh6.5 million) for the year. Women are flocking to the field, now holding almost half of pharmacist positions—and with good reason. The BLS

expects the field to expand faster than most, with pharmacist posi-tions projected to increase 17per cent by 2018.

Asking why physicians and sur-geons rank lower than pharmacists? It’s because the category is so large. It includes neurosurgeons as well as interns and residents, who make drastically less. Furthermore, there is a broad array of specialties. Women often choose the lower-paying special-ties like family practice and pediatrics, he says, which brings down the pay

average. Computer programmer, a new addition to the list, came in at No. 7. Women constitute only 21 per cent of the field, but earn nearly equally to men. Female computer pro-grammers earn a median of $62,000 a year, and those in the top 10per cent of the field make a salary of $111,000.

Some other upsides of the job: Most programmers work standard 40-hour weeks, and telecommuting is becoming more common. Plus, employers typically re-quire only a bachelor’s de-gree, which is particularly appealing to women who want high earnings with-out the educational invest-ment required by fields like medicine or law.

A surprising new en-trant, occupational thera-

pists came in at No. 10. This is the only profession on the list dominated by women, who hold 82per cent of all positions. It’s also the only field in which women earn equally to men. Occupational therapists typically have a master’s degree or higher and earn a median of $60,000 yearly. They help patients recover or improve basic motor skills so they can perform daily tasks like dressing, cooking and eat-ing. Plus, it’s an in-demand job.

10 Best Paying Jobs fo≥ WomenTechnology makes a big leap for women on the fast lane, but survey still finds being in the corner office the best paying job in many countries across the globe

PHOT

OS.C

OM

The top 10 list is equals a

lesson in the importance

of math and science

skills, a showcase for

the obvious

PACESETTER

BY KEN MACHARIA

When projects don’t seem to moving as fast as they should at the Treasury, one of the names that is often floated for possible in-tervention is Ms Anne Waiguru.

As the Acting Director in charge of the Integrated Financial Management and In-formation Systems (IFMIS) and also Head of the Governance Unit, Anne is tasked with heading two crucial departments at the Treasury. But her twin roles comple-ment each other, with Ms Waiguru seeing the IFMIS project as the ultimate solution to governance issues facing the nation. At 40 years, Ms Waiguru is one of the few younger civil servants occupying a senior position in Government, reporting directly to the PS, Treasury. She was roped in from the private sector to head the governance office after the critical department was restructured following the departure of Mr. Githongo.

Later, Ms Waiguru headed the Economic Stimulus Programme, and has recently become the acting director of the newly formed IFMIS department when the government saw the slow pace of the deployment of the system.

“IFMIS has been in government since 2004, but only three of a minimum 12 modules required for effective public financial management are being used. I was asked to fast- track its full deploy-ment,” says Anne, a mother of three. An economics graduate from Egerton University, with a Masters from the Univer-sity of Nairobi, Anne started her career at the Kenya Leadership Institute as a programme officer working on the Kenya Bribery Index. Later on, she moved to the World Bank as the Eastern African regional representa-tive for the parliamentary network. She was charged with coordinating members of parliament monitoring World Bank

projects cov-ering eight countries. Three years on, the World Bank seconded her to the Cabi-net office as a technical advisor on issues of governance, leadership and reforms in the public sector. “I was instrumental in formulating a performance management system that saw the review of performance appraisals, and the introduction of perform-

ance contracts and the rapid results initiative,” says Anne After a few years at the cabinet office, Anne left the World Bank and joined CitiBank as a senior Public Sector Manager.

“I achieved my two year target within the first six months,” says Anne, perhaps indicating her track record of being an over-achiever – an inclination she attributes to her Christian upbring-ing that made her appreciate the value of hard work.

Of her recent achievements, she is proudest of her role in making the im-plementation of the Economic Stimulus Programme (ESP) transparent. As head of governance, Anne’s objective is to ensure the Sh22 billion programme goes to the intend-ed projects and recipients in all constituen-cies in the country. With the help of Google, Anne created a GIS website that tracked the expenditure of ESP funds up to location lev-els, mapping all on-going and completed ESP projects on a public website. The web-site also gives details of officials in charge of specific projects, contracts awarded, to who they were awarded and how much has been paid to the contractors.

Making her mark in Treasury ‘s corridors



Women make up more than half the pop-ulation of Kenya, yet the obstacles they face in rising and thriving are formi-

dable, chief among them being their near sole responsibility for the nation’s children.

With attitudes at every level stacked against women in balancing home and work, both legisla-tion and shifts in society have served to move more women into poverty and out of formal work, for, far from advancing, the last five years have seen Kenya’s women move backwards economically.

An instrumental turning point was the intro-duction of legislation in 2007 extending paid ma-ternity leave from two to three months. Despite the law’s honourable intentions, it has left them further behind men than they were in 2005.

Today, women’s share of formal employment is just 28.7 per cent, down dramatically from 2005, when it had reached 30.3 per cent.

While 252,600 jobs were created during this period, 82.4 per cent of them went to men, with only 17.6 per cent going to women, according to the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics.

Women lost, men gainedBetween 2008 and 2009, women even lost jobs. The increase in the number of employed was 56,000, but men gained a net 73,000 jobs, while women lost a staggering 16,700 jobs.

This has largely been ascribed to the decision to implement the Employment Act in 2007, ex-tending working women’s maternity leave from two months to three months - a change that drew widespread criticism from employers in the private sector who argued they were bearing the burden of paying employees while receiving nothing in return.

The short-sightedness of the claim, in a society where women of child-bearing age constitute the single largest shared of the educated labour pool, reflects the skewed na-ture of the Kenyan economy, with most formal-sector jobs falling within SMEs often struggling with cash flow and paying little attention to building long-term talent to drive forward their busi-nesses.

In this environment, the price of even a single four week’s of paid leave, and the additional time off catering for the illness and emergency that can arise in young families, has seen many employers simply lock women out.“The maternity-leave has caused a huge challenge, as employers have been more hesitant to recruit women who are in their 20s and 30s as they do not want to pay them during pregnancy. Employ-ers also predict women will take more days off after maternity leave as their young children get sick,” said Mr Venantio Karanja Mwangi, the di-rector of Venavic, a human resource recruitment

consultants. “I rang up one employer after they refused to give a woman a job. They told me because she had a child less than one-year-old they pre-dicted the number of off days and did not want to employ her,” he said.

Even women who do secure jobs, and are granted maternity leave, often return to find their positions filled by the person employed as a temporary replacement.

“Last year, I had six testimonies from women who had taken maternity leave and then had come back to their job to have found their posi-tion filled”, Mr Mwangi said.

The main problem, he says, is that in small businesses, a company simply cannot survive with a post unfilled for three months.

In other cases, women are not given maternity leave in the first place, and are being sacked as soon as they show signs of pregnancy.

Last September, the Tailors and Textile Work-ers Union of Kenya accused an Athi River-based

Global Export Processing Zone company of un-lawfully sacking 24 women. It was claimed the company, which employs female textile workers, had dismissed all of the women because they had become pregnant and the company did not want them to proceed on to maternity leave.

In interviews, women will often be asked about their intentions for children and their marital status, so employers can assess whether there will be any work interruption other than their annual leave.

Yet a more debilitating problem still has been the general breakdown in fathers themselves tak-ing responsibility for children. The number of children in Kenya being raised by single parents has continued to rise, seeing ever more women caught in a trap where they can only work when their own employment earns enough to pay child-care costs while they are working.

It’s a hurdle many fail to leap, seeing babies as young as a few months old often locked indoors while their mother goes to work.

Informal child care is also widespread, with

young children left with neighbours, family or older children who have dropped out of school. Many mothers also resort to leaving their children up country with their own mother while they go to the cities to find employment.

Patricia Apondi Ajouga is a single mother and widow, looking after five children, after her husband died from alcohol poisoning and her brother and his wife died from Aids, leaving two children behind.

Left her jobIn 1995, when her husband died, she was work-ing as a full time teacher, as well as managing six children. Without work, she would have been unable to feed all those under her care.

Patricia was forced to pay a 12-year-old school dropout from Kibera to look after her last born. She could not afford to pay a proper nanny or to make use of child-care facilities. The 12-year-old was paid between Sh1,000 and Sh1,500 a month, less than a dollar a day.

But in 1997 Patricia left her job, unable to cope with the stress of full-time work as a single mother, and joined a contract teaching organisation.

“It was so hard and I have never experienced so much pain as I did during those days. Lots of women have a huge burden as men run away from them when it gets too hard with the kids. Many just leave their babies to play in the house when they go out to work, and just close the door. It is normal.”

Agnes Kijalas is a single mother who has moved to Mombasa for work. She has been forced to sepa-rate from her daughter for the last two years due to the expensive school fees at the coast.

Agnes’s daughter, Clara, now seven years old, lives with Agnes’ mother in Mbololo, in Taita dis-trict, four hours away from Mombasa.

“I visit her about six times a year, whenever I get holiday or sometimes at the weekend. It is re-ally difficult because I miss her and I would love to be able to be with her, but we need the money.”

Against this backdrop, Kenya is now seeing a take-off in care facilities for children too young to go to school. But for the more than half of Kenya charged with raising the nation’s children, the vast majority seem set to remain in poverty, their numbers growing constantly —in a society where a rising number of employers, and of men, accept no similar responsibility.

-AFRICAN LAUGHTER

Mate≥nity law sco≥es own goal fo≥ wo≥king womenLARISA BROWN finds that the maternity leave provided for in Kenya’s labour laws has erected a new obstacle to women’s survival in the corporate world. Employers have been hesitant to recruit those in their 20s and 30s as they do not want to pay them during pregnancy

EMPLOYMENT

Women have taken maternity

leave only to come back

and find their positions

filled.

Kenya Jobs

17.6%Percentage of the 252,600 jobs created this year that went to women. Today, women’s share of formal employment is just 28.7 per cent, down dramatically from 2005, when it had reached 30.3 per cent.



Since time immemorial, men have been trying to figure women out. I

stumbled across the following advice to men on the warning signs they need to watch out for when dealing with their female partners. (If you’re a man read-ing this, get your scissors ready to cut this piece out and stick it on your computer screen!) My own summary is men will never figure us out. But have we as women figured out our role in the professional career front? After 10 years of employ-ment, I came to the conclusion that ‘It’s not a man’s world, it’s just the world’. We’ll never be men. We’ll never be like men. And we need to come to that conclusion quickly for our own professional sanity.

The fact of the matter is that the higher you climb in your career ladder, the more responsibility you will be sad-dled with. Such responsibility more often than not includes supervising a team, driving them to deliver a pre-deter-mined target while ensuring that your team objectives are aligned with the organisation’s strategic targets.

Routine humdrum of marriageThis alignment requires sev-eral periodic meetings with your peer managers. If you’re working in a multinational environment, you probably have a regional office that you have to constantly provide reports and consult on every-thing from the cost of a pin at the local supermarket to the Kenya Shilling versus US Dollar for the rest of the year and its effects on your budget. You have to support, guide and mentor your own team. And all this is supposed to happen within 40 hours of one week or sim-ply stated, between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m.

At 5 p.m. you are supposed to start your journey home to supervise dinner (or cook it yourself), provide homework consultations for the children, have a relaxing chat with your husband about his day (assum-ing the fellow has not been

Mututho’d and passed by his local) and settle down into the very routine humdrum of mari-tal life. The hours after 5 p.m. are technically YOURS. But it doesn’t happen that way, does it? 5 p.m. is the magic hour when external calls stop com-ing and official work meet-ings end, allowing you to sit at your desk and attend to the

numerous e-mails and pend-ing unwritten reports. Before you know it, it’s 9 p.m. and you’re munching a very cold, limp sandwich that used to be lunch and wondering whether you can read your children a bedtime story on Skype.

The scenario so described is not unique to women manag-ers. It’s unique to all managers

and is simply the cost of sen-iority. We have been socialised that it is the role of the man to go out and hunt for food while the women stay home and take care of the children.

Today’s working life throws that theory out on its head as the woman also goes out to hunt for the proverbial food. But our domestic situations

still demand, we go home to take care of children and spouse where applicable! If we can’t hack those demands that are rarely differentiated for women then we have to find the career or the employer that is willing to abide by our own rules.

[email protected]

It is not a man’s wo≥ld ladies, it is just the wo≥ld CAROL MUSYOKA takes a hard look at the workplace and concludes that whoever wants to scale the ladder must be prepared to take the heat

DON’T CRACK YOUR HEADS MEN, THIS IS WHAT SHE MEANS

1) “Fine” – this means she is right. The argument is over. You need to shut up.

2) “That’s okay” - One of the most dangerous statements a woman can make to a man. “That’s okay” means she wants to think hard and long before deciding when and how you’ll pay for your mistake.

3) “Nothing” - The calm before the storm. This means “Something” and you better be on your toes. Arguments that start with “Nothing” usually end with “Fine”

4) “Five minutes” - If getting dressed, this means half an hour. Gentlemen don’t be mad about this. It’s the same definition for you when it’s your turn to do some work around the house.

5) “Don’t worry about it, I got it” - The second most dangerous statement a woman can make. It means that a woman has asked a man several times to do something and is now doing it herself. (This will result in you asking at a later date, “What’s wrong?” For the woman’s response, see 3 above.)



B≥iefcase essentials’ exce≥pt: Whe≥e’s the beef?In her new book, Briefcase

Essentials: Discover Your 12 Natural Talents for Achieving Success in a Male-Dominated Workplace, Susan Tose Spencer offers advice for women trying to succeed in male-dominated industries. As a woman who started a clothing manufacturing

company, acted as general manager for the Philadelphia

Eagles, and ran food distribu-tion and processing busi-nesses, she knows the chal-lenges first-hand. Below is an excerpt from a chapter in her

book. My first big challenge as the owner of Allied Steaks was a bloody one…. About two weeks after I bought Allied, I received a shipment of 5,000 pounds of raw meat from a large, interna-tional distributor who had been Allied’s supplier for many years. I’d observed the inadequate re-ceiving process long enough and was determined on that day to check out the consistency of the meat and confirm the weights . . . one way or another. “How do we know that all the meat in the barrel is good without inspecting

the meat under the top pieces?” I questioned Burt [the former owner who had stayed on as a salesperson]. “We’ve never had a problem, so why should we check it?” he replied. Question-ing him further, I asked, “Why is it that we never spot-check the barrels to make sure we’re re-ceiving the weight that’s on the invoice?”“I trust the suppliers,” he replied. “They’re big companies. They wouldn’t short-weight us.”“Well, I’m just gonna weigh some meat and see if the weight

matches my receiving ticket,” I said. ,Burt turned to me as if to dare me. “It’s impossible, Susan,” he said. “We only have small scales. You’ll never be able to weigh a whole barrel.”Impossible!? I’d heard that be-fore. As I headed toward the first thousand-pound barrel, I turned back to Burt and shouted to him, “Watch me.” After washing my hands, I grabbed a large plastic bag, stuck my hands into the bar-rel, and started pulling out pieces of raw meat and stuffing them into the bag. I weighed the bag

on a small scale in the process-ing room and recorded the weight. I continued this process for another four or five bags be-fore asking two plant employees who had helped me weigh the initial bags to follow my lead and finish the barrel.When all the meat in the barrel was weighed, we discovered that the barrel content was short by seventy-five pounds. But merely rolled his eyes as I instructed the workers to weigh the other four barrels the same way.

BARBARA ADACHI argues that women already constitute a large fraction of the workforce and providing room for them to develop careers in whatever direction they want is the key to getting them into leadership positions

They say it’s lonely at the top … I say it’s lonely to be the only woman at the table.

It was not long ago when I arrived at my first management com-mittee meeting at Deloitte and my feelings of excitement were quickly reduced to feelings of isolation upon seeing the room filled merely with men. Not only was I outnumbered, I felt overlooked--as if I were invis-ible.

Things have certainly improved since that uncomfortable day, but women continue to struggle to break down barriers to advancement in a male-dominated business world.

The fact is, women remain des-perately underrepresented in Wall Street firms and financial services companies. Putting aside my per-sonal feelings as a woman, there’s a much bigger issue at stake: the un-derrepresentation of women is hav-ing a profoundly negative effect on company bottom lines.

My organisation, Deloitte LLP,

celebrated an important milestone last year: We now have more than 1,000 women serving as partners, principals, or directors—our most senior roles.

While that achievement is im-pressive, let’s not kid ourselves: Those 1,000 talented women serve alongside 3,200 talented men hold-ing the same roles. That’s more than three men for every woman.

Why does gender diversity matter?Research by Catalyst, a nonprofit ded-icated to expanding opportunities for women,shows that companies with the greatest female representation on boards generate a 50 per cent greater return on equity and invested capi-tal than companies with less diverse boards. We also know that diverse teams improve effectiveness and drive innovation because men and women often think differently, have different ways of approaching chal-lenges and finding solutions. Getting

to gender equality is important not because we want to achieve some artificial goal of percent-ages or absolute numbers, but because companies have a re-sponsibility to find and develop the best people to serve their clients. Indeed, the business imperative of any diversity and inclusion effort is sustaining and increasing the bottom line.But achieving equal opportunity in the work-force won’t happen until every person—regard-less of gender, race, ethnicity, disability or sexual orientation-accepts each other for the unique and individual strengths, leadership styles and talents they bring to the table. Fortunately, we are already headed in the right direction.Just a few years ago many women had to adjust

their managing style just to be noticed and heard in a meeting. This was certainly the case for me in the early stages of my career. Today we are seeing progress on this front, and with more women at the table women’s perspectives are beginning to be respected and recognized as valuable contribu-

tions to the conversation. But in some instances it takes company-wide programmes to educate employees on the impor-tance of gender equality for leadership roles.

At Deloitte, for example, we created our Wom-en as Buyers programme, which is designed to help our male executives become more effective at building productive relationships with female clients and colleagues by helping them under-stand their experiences and work styles.

If we can change the viewpoint of male ex-

Companies with the greatest female representation on boards generate a 50 per cent greater return on equity and invested capital than companies with less diverse boards.

We need mo≥e women leade≥s,how do we get them?

BRIEFCASE

Just a few years ago

many women had to adjust

their managing style just to

be noticed and heard in a

meeting



Women leaders

We need leaders who are willing to shatter the reinforced and bullet-proof “glass ceiling” and we need men who are willing to set aside their male ego and work as a team with women and others.

If we can change the viewpoint of male executives, chances are their perspectives will trickle down to the rising generations too.

ecutives, chances are their perspec-tives will trickle down to the rising generations too.

We need to support women at eve-ry stageAlthough the last two decades have been a period of unprecedented growth and achievement for women in the workforce, we have made very few inroads into the boardrooms and the executive suites of America’s leading companies: Only 15per cent of board members, 9 per cent of CFOs and 3 per cent of CEOs in the 500 largest pub-lic companies are female, according to Catalyst’s study on Women in U.S. Management.

Indeed, given the changing work-force and the shrinking pool of high-ly skilled knowledge workers facing

many businesses today, we must re-ward and retain talented, creative peo-ple--whether or not they look or sound like what we’ve been trained to think a ‘leader’ looks or sounds like.

And getting more women to excel in leadership roles requires work on the macro level through committed, top-down, organisation-wide leader-ship--and on the micro level, in one-on-one interactions and mentoring situations.

We need leaders who are willing to shatter the reinforced and bullet-proof “glass ceiling” and we need men who are willing to set aside their male ego and work as a team with women and others.

I was fortunate to have the sup-port of a great mentor when I was appointed to my first operations role. First, my mentor made sure that my name was included on the slate of candidates being considered for the post; then he took a personal inter-est in my progress, coaching me and meeting with me quarterly, giving me a sounding board as I encoun-tered new challenges and increased my capacity for leadership. That kind of personal commitment is essential. It weaves inclusiveness into the very fabric of an organisation, creating last-ing change.

Gender diversity begins with breaking down the ‘Norm’One of the greatest challenges employ-ers face today is that workers--what-ever their gender--are building careers differently than they used to. With women comprising more than half the workforce and ‘traditional’ fam-ily structures and lifestyles changing rapidly, a cultural shift is underway.That shift is reaching deep into the workplace, yet many organisations still cling to the traditional corporate ladder, with its one-size-fits-all, linear career path. At Deloitte, people can move in different directions to develop their careers, following a model we call the corporate lattice.

The corporate lattice is a new standard for career progression that

is replacing the traditional corporate ladder model. To facilitate lattice ca-reers, Deloitte employs Mass Career Customization (MCC) a framework that enables our people to design their own career paths, “dialing up” or “dialing down” their careers to fit various life stages. In its first year of implementation, the MCC programme helped us increase current career-life satisfaction by 25per cent and future career-life satisfaction by 28per cent.

It’s just one programme, but it goes to show how far a little flexibility and a willingness to change the rules can go. Simply put, companies need to break out of the mindset of “this is how we do things, because this is how they’ve always been done.”

So we’ve come a long way, but there’s a lot of ground still to cover.

Today’s workforce already com-prises more than 50 per cent women. When will the composition of Ameri-ca’s business leadership reflect that reality? If we don’t fully harness the power of women in the workforce, our future growth could be at risk.

Barbara Adachi is national managing principal for Deloitte LLP’s award-winning Initiative for the Re-tention & Advancement of Women (WIN). She also serves as national chief talent officer for Deloitte LLP’s Human Capital Consulting practice.



Priscilla Nyokabi Kanyua is the execu-tive director of Kituo Cha Sheria, a post she has held since 2009. KITUO is one of the premier and oldest Human Rights and Legal Aid Organisations in Kenya, founded in 1973, that seeks to provide ‘Access to Justice’ to the poor and mar-ginalised in the society through legal aid and empowerment. KITUO’s core areas are on issues of land, labour, housing, refugee issues as well as any other case of Human Rights Violation.Ms. Kanyua is an Advocate of the High Court of Kenya and holds a Masters Degree in Law (LLM) from the Univer-sity of Nairobi. She is the Complaints Commissioner in the Media Council of Kenya, sat in the Africa Union’s Civil Society Assembly in 2009-2010and was also the Deputy Presiding Officer (E.A) Economic, Social and Cultural Rights Council.The 33-year-old mother of one daugh-ter has a passion in equal access to justice and upholding human dignity, and it is under her helm at Kituo Cha

Sheria, that the country has achieved legal landmark victories. She supervises and coordinates a 50 member strong team made of proficient lawyers and non-lawyers, in three offices (The Kili-mani Head Office, Urban Refugee Inter-vention Programme URIP in Eastleigh and the Mombasa office in Kizingo. The staff together with Priscilla work to-gether to achieve “A Society of Justice and Equity for All”.

Second womanMs Kanyua heads Kituo after several regimes of strongmen. She is the sec-ond woman to be the Executive Direc-tor, first one being Jane Weru. Other former Directors of Kituo are Dr. Willy Mutunga, Murtaza Jaffer, Harun Ndubi and Dr. Ekuru Aukot.KITUO has a programme for Refugees, to legally equip them so that they can defend themselves from constant har-assment. The Peace Justice and Reconciliation programme handles IDP issues and the Advocacy Governance and Com-

munity Partnership that seeks to em-power communities through advocacy. Kituo Cha Sheria is also the title holder of Civil Society of the Year (CSOYA) Award of 2010. Among Kituo’s other successes are the Prisoners’ landmark ruling that gave

Prisoners the right to vote in last year’s constitution referendum. Kituo was also instrumental in the formulation of the Housing Bill, and it is also following up to ensure implementation of the Evic-tion Guidelines. KITUO is also the only organization in

the country that handles lots of Public Interest Litigation (PIL) cases. Among the PIL cases are the Prisoners’ case (to vote in last year’s referendum). Other PIL cases that KITUO is working on are the Bulla Fot clan Case of a marginalised clan in Garissa, the Poys Robo case of a marginalized Samburu Community, the Muthurwa case where a temporary injunction was issued against eviction of Muthurwa residents among others.

Volunteer lawyersTo ensure all poor people can access justice all over the country, the or-ganization has a Volunteer Advocate scheme, where volunteer lawyers from all over the country can handle KITUO cases from any part of Kenya. It is in the spirit of “Access to Justice for All” that KITUO established Community Justice Centres in Kibera, Kamukunji, Shimo la Tewa, Kisauni and Nyando, to ensure the poor and marginalised can easily access justice.

Legal assistanceApart from providing legal assistance, Kituo Cha Sheria is also a formidable force in extra-curricular activities, and this saw the organization capture this year’s “UWAZICUP” victory that was organized by ICJ-Kenya. Kituo Cha She-ria seeks to empower the poor and mar-ginalised to effectively access justice and people’s rights and under Priscil-la’s stewardship, the country can only expect more from Kituo.

Centre that is driving Kenya’s legal agenda

1. The Prisoners Case

This is a case of Prisoners from Shimo La Tewa, who together with Kituo pe-titioned the government to allow them take part in last year’s referendum.The court ruled in their favour in a landmark ruling, compelling the IIEC to register all inmates from prisons all over the country as voters, so that they could take part in the constitutional plebiscite, that being the first one of its kind in Kenya.

2. Bulla Fot Case

This is a case of a marginalized clan in Garissa, consisting of about 3,000 peo-ple who have been continually harassed and evicted from their land, by succes-sive governments.They have lived in desperate conditions as squatters in their own land, so Kituo sued on their behalf and the case is up for judgment very soon, and Kituo expects the court to rule in its favour because of the convincing evidence that we have.

3. The Intersex Case

This is a case of one Richard Mwasia, who together with Kituo, sued the gov-ernment and Prison Authority because he is an intersex, yet had been put in prison with other men.He says the men raped him repeatedly, and thus lodged a suit, to compel the government to pay him for the human rights abuse he had gone through. He won the lawsuit and was awarded Ksh.500,000 in damages. This was not only a big win to Kituo and Mwa-

sia, but to other intersex who suffer in silence because they fear being alien-ated or discriminated.

4. Muthurwa Case.

This is an eviction case whereby the resi-dents of Muthurwa estate were being evicted from the land. Together with Prof. Yash Pal Ghai, Kituo sued on behalf of the residents of Muthurwa.

The Judge issued a temporary court injunction restraining the respondents from further evicting them from their land, giving the residents temporary reprieve.

5. Dandora Dumpsite

The residents of Dandora have for years lived with the haunting smell emanat-ing from the Dandora Dumpsite. This dumpsite has caused several residents

to fall sick, due to the squalid conditions surrounding the site.

Kituo and the Dandora Residents have sued the Government and Local Author-ity, compelling them to pay these resi-dents, and the case is still in court.

6. Poys Robo (Samburu Case)

The Samburu of Poys Robo have been continually harassed and evicted from their land Laikipia. The land had previ-ously been the former President Moi’s, but the Samburu had stayed on that land for over 12 years, thereby making it a case of adverse possession.The Samburu Community claim that during the evictions, their houses were burnt, property destroyed and women raped, infringing on the human Rights of these people.

7. Dhobi Women Case

Women from the Dhobi Women’s Group get their daily bread by washing for peo-ple. However, in the course of their duty, they have been raped by unsuspecting clients, and they also work under poor conditions.

Public Interest Litigation cases Kituo is handling

SPECIAL ADVERTISING SECTION

Kituo head office staff.

Priscilla Nyokabi Kanyua, executive director, Kituo Cha Sheria.COURTESY



The team of judges that picked the winne≥s THE VERDICT Sifting through the hundreds of contestants was the hard part, the Top 40 Under 40 just stood out

Joanne Mwangi

Joanne, a professional marketer, is an accomplished rapid climber of corporate Kenya’s slippery ladder. She is a successful entrepreneur who founded and manages Professional Marketing Services – the racy marketing company that won the 2010 Top 100 Medium Sized Companies Pinnacle award. She is the chair of the Federation of Women Entrepreneur Associations and is the first ever woman to head, as Vice Chair, the Kenya National Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

Ndirangu wa Maina

Mr Maina is a marketer who has worked in a multinational advertising agency and an entrepreneur who founded and runs Consumer Insight – a research firm known for its deep insight into Africa’s consumer trends.

Carol Musyoka

Carol is a banker who started her career as a lawyer having studied law and worked briefly at a leading Nairobi law firm. Her banking career began at Citibank where she worked as a management associate. She then moved to Barclays Bank and K-Rep Bank, where she retired from banking at the level of Chief Operating Officer and Executive Director. She now runs her own private consulting and is a Business Daily columnist. Her knowledge of Kenya’s corporate sector was invaluable in picking out the women to watch.

Jenny Luesby

Jenny is a professional journalist who began her career at the Financial Times of London where she worked for more than 14 years before she left for the world of entrepreneurship. Ms Luesby, a British national, who has been living in Kenya for four years, runs a media consultancy business and manages African Laughter – a new media firm she founded three years ago.

Joe Otin

As the Media Research & Monitoring Director at Synovate Pan Africa, Joe is at the core of advertising and media development in at least six African countries, where his company offers industry insights. His key areas of expertise include defining best practice in media strategy, determining ROI (return on investment) from communication activities, and delivering insights from a combination of advertising expenditure data and audience ratings.



to love the job and be enthusiastic about , ,it. It’s this enthusiasm that radiates when an insurance agent approaches a client, and ,which eventually wins the client over.

JESSICA COLACO, 28

MANAGER IHUB

If you would like to know what the next big in-novation in Kenya’s technology space will be, Jes-sica Colaco is the woman to ask. In her current position as Manager of the iHub, an incubation centre where Kenya’s aspiring software develop-ers congregate, Ms Colaco has unrivalled access to the cutting edge technologies being worked on by local developers. ,The last five years have seen Ms Colaco consolidate her strengths in the research sector and boost her networking skills, which have brought international firms like Facebook and Google to Kenya in search of the next big technology - for Ms Colaco has been in-strumental in uniting young students in Kenya’s universities with multinationals. She was a key driver of the first-ever Nairobi Facebook Developer Garage in March 2008, an event which served as a forum for students from different universities and professional software developers in Kenya

to learn about the Facebook Platform. She was involved in conducting a baseline and follow-up survey for the World Council of Credit Unions (WOCCU) in July – August 2008, working with nine SACCOs across the region to establish the facts on the ground with regards to the income and level of education of their members. Ms Co-laco also organised the country’s first-ever Mobile Boot Camp, which served as a forum for students from different universities and professional soft-ware developers in Kenya to learn about the mo-bile phone world and its infrastructure, various mobile development platforms, seek technical support from experts, share ideas and build col-laboration. Previously a research lead at SRCC, Ms Colaco has used her position at various firms to spearhead and manage their research projects, even as she has continued to court international firms to adopt Kenyan-made solutions.

It was a passion that began with her own early success as the developer, whilst still an under-graduate at Nairobi University, of a system that allowed mobile phone users to view detailed street maps of Nairobi and access user-generated point- of-interest databases. The project for her final year thesis attracted the attention ,of Google, and was among several Kenyan innovations that drew Google’s Vice President for Engineering in Eastern Africa, Nelson Mattos and Google International

OLGA ARARA – KIMANI, 36

GOOGLE COUNTRY MANAGER KENYA

Recently appointed as the Country Manager for Google Kenya, Olga Arara will take up a role as one of Google’s regional leaders as well as its local spokesperson, representing the company in all of its major business development and partner-ship opportunities and serving as the voice of the Kenyan user at Google. Olga brings a wealth of experience to the Africa Team, as well as to Goog-le. A trained electrical engineer with an MBA in Engineering Business Management, Ms Arara’s new position leverages on her extensive 15 years experience in leading the firms she has worked for in securing new business. Her new role also involves guiding the strategic direction of the in-ternet giant at a local level.

Her strategic strength was clearly apparent in her previous role as Sales Director at mobile tel-ecommunications company, Essar Telecommuni-cations Africa, where her job entailed delivering strategic business linkages that were integral to the growth of the company, including driving an ambitious acquisition and growth strategy for the region.

Responsible at Essar for a team of 87, she was detailed with handling Retail Sales, Enterprise, Corporate, Modern Trade and Distribution Management, spread across three countries in the region.

Previously, Ms Arara served in high level posi-tions at East Africa Cables, Safaricom and LanTech in combined roles that have utilized her skills both as a marketer and as an engineer.

A graduate of Manchester Business School, Ms Arara’s strengths lie in being able to improve margins through product penetration, more effi-cient and effective service delivery, and retention of existing business.

AGNES KAGURE, 36

EXECUTIVE FINANCIAL ADVISOR, CF C LIFE

Agnes Kagure was recently crowned the Associa-tion of Kenyan Insurers’s Insurance Agent of the Year for a second year running, beating the 333 agents from all over Kenya who qualified for the award, thanks to her tenacity and penchant for success. Having grown up in a village attending local schools, Kagure’s education appeared to have ended with Form Four at Kangubiri High School in Nyeri County, when her family was un-able to raise the money for college education. But her thirst for reading kept her sourcing books to read, steadily building her own library of motiva-

tional books and successful people’s biographies. “I believe that just as eating three meals a day makes us well-fed, reading one hour a day makes us wiser,” she says. After finishing her secondary education, she moved to Nairobi to stay with her aunt, in a relocation that eventually opened the door to the career she has now fallen in love with. Aged 20, she saw a newspaper advertisement for a job as a sales representative for the American Life Insurance Company (ALICO) now CFC Life. Although the minimum age requirement was 25, she gave it a shot and when she was invited for the interview, the manager was so impressed, he offered her the job.

The biggest hurdles for Agnes in those early days were the handicaps of being a novice in the industry, and her scant knowledge of the geog-raphy of Nairobi. But her gift of the gab played in her favour, as did the thrill of having something to keep her busy and her love of hard work. In 2000, she was promoted to unit manager and subsequently to Agency Manager.

However, early this year, she asked the compa-ny to relieve her of her management responsibility so that she could concentrate on sales. “I believe in being a leader without a title,” she says. Her current position in the company is as an Execu-tive Financial Advisor, which ,involves sourcing clients, analyzing their financial and insurance needs, and tailor making relevant packages for them. Her children Keith and Grace have been the pillars that have inspired her entire career, she says.

She always looks forward to spending time with them from 6pm every day, when she finishes her daily routine. ,She preaches patience and integrity in dealing with clients. Working in insurance is not , ,like any other job, she says. One has to learn

The Business Daily’s 2011 list of Kenya’s women who are tipped for higher positions of influence in the corporate, government and enterprise world. Survey finds that strength of character, focus and being able to build bridges does pay for careers

OLGA ARARA - KIMANI

Top fo≥ty unde≥ women

AGNES KAGURE

JESSICA COLACO

MAGGIE IRERI



ORY OKOLLOH, 34,

POLICY AND GOVERNMENT RELATIONS MANAGER, GOOGLE AFRICA

When internet giant Google announced that it had recruited Ory Okolloh to be its Policy Manager for Africa last year, not many within the technol-ogy industry were surprised. Ms Okolloh’s repu-tation as an online activist and her achievements as a co-founder of Ushahidi, the world changing crowd-sourcing website dedicated to information collection and interactive mapping, preceded the young lawyer and mother of two. Ms Okolloh is also known for her work as a co-founder of Mzal-endo, a website that tracks the performance of Kenyan Members of Parliament, and which once courted controversy when it listed the academic qualifications of legislators. Ms. Okolloh gradu-ated summa cum laude with a BA degree in Po-litical Science from the University of Pittsburgh, and with a JD from Harvard Law School. She was previously a summer associate with international law firm Covington and Burling in Washington DC and a Chayes Fellow at the World Bank’s De-partment of Institutional Integrity. Ms Okolloh is a frequent speaker at conferences including TED, the World Economic Forum, Poptech, CGI, Techonomy, and the Monaco Media Forum on issues around citizen journalism, the role of tech-nology in Africa, and the role of young people in reshaping Africa’s future.

She was recognized as one of the Most In-fluential Women in Technology in 2011 by Fast Company, one of the top 100 Global Thinkers by Foreign Policy Magazine, a Huffington Post 2010 Game Changer, and as a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum. Ory is also the recipi-

ent of the Monaco Media Forum Award, and the World Economic Forum Tech Pioneers award.

It would not be a stretch to say that Ms Okol-loh will be instrumental in the future growth of the internet in Africa. In her position at Google, Ms Okolloh is responsible for developing policy and strategies on a number of areas of relevance to the Internet in Africa, working heavily with government leaders, policy makers, regulators and industry groups to enable access for all.

MARION GATHOGA, 39

MANAGING DIRECTOR CADBURY KENYA

Marion is among the few female corporate ex-ecutives to have featured repeatedly in the Top 40 survey, but perhaps for the last time this year. However, just as the country representative for food conglomerate Kraft Foods turns 40 in Sep-tember, she is expected to have completed the ongoing integration of the Kenyan operation of the global food giant that in 2010 took over Cadbury plc.

As the head of a business that is a market lead-er in chocolate and food beverages in Kenya, the mother of two has delivered consistent growth in the volume of sales over the last two years. Kenya is one of the important units of the African op-erating region for the combined unit of the two iconic brands, she says.

With a degree from USIU in International Busi-ness Administration, Ms Gathoga started her ca-reer in marketing but moved on to sales where she determined to grow to become a transformational leader, impacting society positively. Apart from heading the Kenyan operation for Kraft Foods, Ms Gathoga is also a trustee at the Palm House Foundation, an education trust that finances the secondary education of deserving students and mentors them through life. She plays golf during her free time.

Prior to her current posting, Ms Gathoga worked in Zambia as a Commercial Director for generic pharmaceutical manufacturing company Circle Pharmaceuticals Zambia. She previously worked at Nestle Foods (K) Ltd in Marketing and at Bayer East Africa Consumer Care as a sales leader and general manager of the consumer care business.

MAGGIE IRERI, 36

MANAGING DIRECTOR, SYNOVATE KENYA

If the Teacher s’Service Commission was recruit-ing in 1998, Maggie Ireri might today be a French teacher, but instead she heads Synovate Kenya, or what many still refer to as Steadman. Maggie’s peers say her consistency, passion to succeed and unfaultable execution of tasks are the ingredients that have seen her rise to the pinnacle of a com-pany whose work stirs mixed emotions among Kenyans. Calm and full of self assurance, she is not amused by poor delivery or time-keeping, al-though has learnt much from her dealings with people of different cultures - from the loud table banging discussions with the Naija brothers, to the Zambians who are true African timekeep-ers, she says.

On graduating from Kenyatta University, Maggie joined Strategic Business Organization as a research assistant, and started making pres-entations to senior decision-makers at an early age. She quickly hit some bias against her as a women, but put in double effort to ensure all the details were at her finger tips. Her next move, to become a research executive at Steadman, was

Operations Director, Kannan Pashupathy to visit the country, where Google later set up its African headquarters. She has since devoted her career to promoting Kenyan applications. “The biggest challenge is finding financial backers, but for most of us, the applications we develop can compete on the world stage,” she said.

ISIS NYONG’O, 33

VP AND MANAGING DIRECTOR AFRICA, INMOBI

Isis Nyong’o has been named before as a woman to watch in Kenya’s Top 40 women under 40. But her latest appointment as Managing Director Af-rica for InMobi, the world’s second largest mobile advertising firm, is now guaranteed to ensure the young marketer cements her name in the global ICT business. She drew much attention as the business development manager of Google, where she was responsible for rolling out a row of locally relevant innovations, including the facility to send text messages from the internet. Before that, Ms Nyong’o gained extensive media and tech experi-ence while driving the launch of MTV Networks in Africa, where she was responsible for commercial relationships including distribution and sales.

She had also previously developed the market-ing strategy for Kenya’s first online recruitment service, MyJobsEye, and earned degrees from both Stanford University and Harvard Business School. Even as she read her bachelor’s degree at Stanford from 1999, Nyong’o moved into the world of fundraising, mobilising funds for the Stanford African Students Association, before moving to Harvard in 2005 for her MBA. She then built her career in both the US and Africa, working in fi-nancial services and the cyberspace before join-ing MTV Networks.

In her latest position at InMobi, she will be talking to local companies about their , products and localising the multi-national’s offerings to pro-vide the best possible solutions. It’s a bridging act that Ms Nyong’o hopes will challenge entrenched market players and global rivals, such as Google, to help her firm win over Africa’s internet ,adver-tising space. She will be driving the entire African strategy for InMobi, -an Indian-based start-up that has already risen at near lightening speed to become a global leader - and drawing on her own experience working throughout Africa, including stints in Ghana, Uganda, ,Nigeria, Uganda, South Africa and Tanzania.

ISIS NYONGO

ORY OKOLLOH

MARION GATHOGA

Top fo≥ty unde≥ women



BY EDITH FORTUNATE

Her determination has seen her reap fortunes in her ca-reer, in fact any that she decided to settle on.

Sue Muraya, managing director of Suraya Group Limited is yes above 40 years, but a mentor to the Top 40 under 40, she says hers is an undying fire that is not easily put out.

Mrs Muraya is brilliant and creative and admits that for success there should be sacrifice, it is really needed and that among the best tips you need to arm yourself with.

“I have always demanded from myself to work harder and not really in academics, but there is also the practical beat of working hard and I got this information from my

mother,” she says.Being exposed to so much enable her settle on the best

she wanted from herself, God has a purpose for everyone, she furthers and from this background you are supposed to choose whether you want to live or survive.

“The best thing that can ever happen in life is to in-vest in people and have people skills, make people your greatest investment that way it is hard to go wrong,

they will always support you and even come up with new initiative in which you can explore,” she says.

Being analytical of yourself and never putting blame on others and more so than often doing away with blame is one way to achieve according to Mrs Muraya, it helps you rethink other strate-gies. She suggests that women in the industry of corporate and management and especially those under 40 should be principled.

“You should lead the life of a normal wom-an, be a mother, a wife and a professional and balance the act and also choose solid friends with a stable character not those

who lead you into a different path that you never had an idea and that may end up

messing you.”

Top of her gameMrs Muraya has always stood out as

a woman on top of her game in any dis-cipline and she has since moved from fashion to real estate to put Suraya Group.

Being impacted by the people around her and determined to do everything she does with a passion has led to the major milestone that her organisation is experiencing.

“You should agree to have a vi-sion and should not agree to be in a comfort zone, you need to converse in stages and you also need to make it as a woman in a long term busi-ness, do not look at the present rather the future,” she adds.

The beauty of interaction can en-able one’s major success and that is Muraya’s advice to the top 40 under 40, give an ear and pick what suits you, do not rubbish people.

“Make sure that on a daily or weekly basis you find time to re-view the different occasion that have taken place and why they ex-actly did,” she says.

Above 40 and still climbing the success ladder“Lead the life of a normal woman, be a mother, a wife, a professional and balance the act”

Sue Muraya

SPECIAL ADVERTISING SECTION



a natural progression. Six months into the job she had earned the management’s confidence to the degree that they sent her to Uganda as act-ing country manager. Maggie knew that the job was hers if she performed, and in the first year, the business earnings grew by 35 per cent, and a further 33 per cent the following year. She was confirmed. Soon she began to hit limits to further growth in the Ugandan market and asked to be recalled home. Her stay was short lived, as the company opened subsidiaries in other countries and she was handed the task of opening up the new offices in Ghana, Nigeria and Mozambique. The company also sent her to evaluate the un-derperforming Zambian subsidiary, which they were contemplating closing. She recommended additional investment and remained there to give the business a new lease of life.

On the acquisition of Steadman by Synovate, Maggie was selected to ensure the smooth inte-gration of the two companies systems and poli-cies, an experience she says enabled her have a full understanding of the different departments, and in January this year was appointed Managing Director. She is also currently finishing her MBA at Jomo Kenyatta University before heading to UK for a Masters in Public Policy, and in her spare time is passing on her passion for research by supporting research clubs in secondary schools. A recent topic of their research: why students sleep in class.

RISPER GENGA OHAGA, 36

DIRECTOR OF INTERNAL AUDIT AT BARCLAYS BANK

Currently regional director for internal audit re-sponsible for East and West Africa at Barclays, Risper Ohaga’s role includes being the chief in-ternal auditor for Barclays Bank of Kenya, in a brief that since 2008 has seen her head a team of eighteen auditors across four countries - Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and Ghana – who deliver the audit plans for each country. It’s a responsibility that sees her sit in the Coun-try Management Committee for Barclays Kenya, comprising eleven functional heads. She must ensure the bank’s are appropriately equipped and supported in delivering challenging audit plans in a cost effective manner, and with rec-ommendations that drive improvements in the organisations they work in. With BComm degree from the University of Nairobi specialising in ac-counting and is a Certified Public Accountant of Kenya, Ms Ohaga set up the Barclays audit team in Tanzania from scratch.

She spends most of her time with her audit teams, board members and members of the man-agement driving the control agenda and ensuring that the importance of risk and control is recog-nised and given priority in achieving the organi-sation’s targets. Jointly with two colleagues from America and Asia, she was recognised in January 2011 as the best performing internal auditor in Barclays for the year 2010. Before joining Barclays, she worked as a financial services auditor and consultant with KPMG Kenya based in Nairobi for nine years, and rose through the ranks from audit assistant to senior manager. She is married and is a mother to three daughters.

NJERI NDEHI, 36

Head of Corporate Banking, CfC Stanbic

Managing a team that is charged with the re-sponsibility of growing CFC Stanbic Banks’s corporate lending book puts Njeri Ndehi in one

of the toughest and most competitive jobs in the market. Ndehi, the mother of one, boasts broad experience in relationship banking and an in-ternational track record working with some of the best names in corporate finance, including Barclays Bank, Citi Bank and CFC Stanbic Bank. As the head of corporate banking, Njeri Ndehi she serves a key source of growing revenue for CFC Stanbic Bank, competing with big names such as Standard Chartered. Ndehi credits her fast rise to a wide range of exposure, a host of mentors and her strong academic foundation. Armed with a Masters in Banking and Finance Law from the London School of Economics and Political Science, she was ready to start a career in operations in CitiBank 11 years ago, before getting into relationship management, public sector and corporate finance at the Bank. She credits key names in the banking sector such as the former CEO Citi Bank Ade Ayeyemi, and John Ngumi director of Investment Banking Africa for providing her the necessary direction and guid-ance up the corporate ladder. This helped to steer her through a number of challenges in the bank-ing world including responsibilities in project finance, advisory, structured finance, structured trade finance, corporate lending, primary markets and property finance.

She is a humble and approachable personal-ity willing to learn. She believes career mentor-ship is crucial to the growth of young talent and now supports new entrants in her department to be successful.

MONICA MATIRI, 36

ENTERPRENEUR

The first thing you will notice on Monica Matiri’s table is a calculator. She is keen on detail, and

believes this is the only secret to a successful busi-ness. The owner of a two- year-old long-distance transport business, she is now pushing back the boundaries of being the women boss, with two trucks and rising, and a long road behind her since her days as a hawker.

Her life journey has been far from smooth, but she appreciates each lesson she learnt along the way. She began her working life as a cateress, while waiting to join university, but then turned to selling charcoal and hawking popcorn to su-permarkets and theatres to make a living, after dropping out of employment in order to take care of her sick mother. Interrupted sessions at Univer-sity followed, through of lack of school fees, seeing her finally complete a degree course in education at Daystar University, through private study, some 8 years after she began the course at Moi Univer-sity. She had, in the meantime, worked formally as a journalist at Baraka Fm, Family Radio and Hope Fm, but harboured a dream of going into business. She finally quit her job as a journalist

to start a Kids Fun Centre, a business that failed due to cash flow problems.

“Cash flow management was my main prob-lem. That is why in my current business I make sure that I embrace as many courses as possible to enable me manage the business effectively,” she said. Now she holds a Masters degree in leader-ship, with a concentration in business and en-trepreneurship.

She has also completed a course in finance for non finance managers to add to her skills in managing her budgets, cash flow and business strategy.

In her view, most young entrepreneurs get into business barely equipped with the right skills, a reason most establishments fail soon after takeoff. Specifically, she says the long transport business is an expensive undertaking, which demands care-ful planning in dealing with every requirement from toll charges and weight regulations to fuels costs and administrative charges. She has also now diversified the business to include a division for media and strategic marketing consultancy, which she runs based on her experience in the media industry. With sheer determination, and an indomitable will, she has the mark of a Top 40 ‘women to watch’.

ANGELA AMBITHO, 39

MANAGING DIRECTOR, INFOTRAK HARRIS

When you think of opinion polls, Infotrak Harris is sure to come to mind. Meet Angela. Ambitho, the founder and CEO of one of the most acclaimed and authoritative pollsters in Kenya. Ms Ambitho knows few boundaries to success, believes in her dreams and thanks her parents for the lessons they instilled in her to never waiver in her focus. A graduate of University of Nairobi’s school of humanities and social sciences, her expertise spans marketing, business administration and strategic management. Prior to starting Infotrak, she spent 10 years with another leading research company. By the time she was just 24 years, she held a senior management post. At 28, she was the managing director.At which points, with an MBA under her belt, she turned to full-scale en-trepreneurship. “With education, skills and ex-perience, I was ready,” she said.

Six years on, Infotrak provides research in Kenya and across East and West Africa, with a second office in Nigeria. Angela’s mission in life is to empower, motivate and inspire people into having happier and productive lives through edu-cation and honesty. She has many statements that define her personal mission, but most importantly she believes in God, who guides her through her daily pursuits.

As with all businesses, she acknowledges the challenges in having sufficient working capital,

NJERI NDEHI

MONICA MATIRI

ANGELA AMBITHO



and cites low overheads as her way through this. She also believes that having a clearly enshrined corporate strategy is the best approach to main-taining business focus and controlling cash flows. To women who find it hard balancing between work and family, she says “Shoot for the moon, if you miss it, you will land among the stars. Make time for yourself and family. That way you will never burn out.”

Angela is on the council of the Marketing Soci-ety of Kenya and a founding member of the Media Research Association. She is also a member of the European Social and Market Research Associa-tion, the World Association of Polling and Opinion Research, the Association of International Market Research Institutes, the American Chamber of Commerce-Kenya chapter and the Public Rela-tions Society of Kenya.

In her free time, Angela is on the sports fields, in the national parks and at the beach. She is also a lover of books, arts and classical music.

SYLVIA MULINGE, 34

GENERAL MANAGER OF ENTERPRISE BUSINESS, SAFARICOM

Making tough career choices right from uni-versity can be the first step to success, if Sylvia Mulinge is anything to go by. For when Ms Mul-inge turned down an offer to take a Bachelor of Medicine course at Nairobi University and in-stead opted for a Bachelor of Food Science and Technology she began on a road to her job today, as the General Manager of Enterprise Business at Safaricom.

The 34-year old, an alumni of Mary Mount

secondary school, Molo, and mother of two, says when she received her University admission let-ter for the medicine course she just knew this was not what she wanted to be. “I didn’t have the heart to do medicine, I am not that kind of a person and wanted a change so when I was given an option, I took Food Science and Technology which I graduated with first class honours,” said Ms Mulinge. She went on to begin her career as a management trainee at Unilever. “Life is about talking calculated risks, not recklessness, and of-ten pulling out of the comfort zone.”

Some of the challenges she has undergone in her career included taking on strong washing powder brands like OMO during her tenure as the Brand Manager for Sunlight washing powder, which she did successfully by creating the Sunlight National Dress campaign, which earned her an award from the Marketing Society of Kenya for Best Activation.

This saw her promoted to the South Africa re-gional office as the laundry manager, a position that she says sharpened her skills in the man-agement of people from different cultures and in introducing new products targeting several markets across the region.

She was then head hunted by Safaricom, who took her as Prepay Product Manager in February 2006, with no experience in the telecoms sector. This initially terrified her, however her strong be-lieve in understanding what the customer wants, while at the same time driving shareholders’ value, saw her climb to become Head of Retail. While at this position she came up with one of company’s the most memorable campaigns: ‘Kwachua Mil-lion na Safaricom’.

In 2009, when she was six months pregnant, and having successfully transformed

Safaricom’s retails outlets from nine shops across the country to 22, growing the business turnover from Sh300m to Sh1.7 bn, she landed another promotion to Head of Safaricom Busi-ness, a post she says was three times more de-manding than the previous ones. “This was not an easy move.” The promotion meant she had to deal with corporate organizations, which she says are more demanding than retail customers. It also meant dealing with competition from players like AccessKenya and Kenya Data Network who had entered the market earlier.

But her family and strong religious background

have kept her strong “I am a mentor, a mother, a wife, and a leader, so I have to balance between my personal life and professional life. I have seen people dedicating so much of their time to their profession at the expense of their personal life until their world falls apart, which is not the right thing to do” said Ms Mulinge.

ALISON NGIBUINI, 35

FILM PRODUCER, FOUNDER AL IS ON PRODUCTIONS

Alison Ngibuini is a born story teller who has spent the last ten years working as a film ,and television producer creating films to inspire posi-tive change in Kenya. Her mantra is ‘conception and projection’, by turning concepts into reality, and imagination and vision into documentaries and films.

Inspired as a child by films like The Ten Com-mandments and Macbeth, in 2003 she founded and became Managing Director of Al Is On Pro-duction Ltd, which has ,since become one of Ken-ya’s leading production houses, specialises in what she calls ‘behavioural change’ communication. At 35-years-old, the defining moment in her career to date was launching SIRI – an educational drama series now in it 4th cycle and funded by US-AID to target both urban

and rural audiences. Kenya’s top educational series, the show uses drama to highlight issues of reproductive health to spur behavioural change. Alison also produced SHUGA targeting 16-24 year olds with the aim of increasing their personal risk perception of contracting HIV, as part of the ‘HIV-free generation’ campaign.

“I have experienced moments where people SYLVIA MULINGE



walk up to me and tell me after watching an episode of SIRI they want to take an HIV test, or someone saying an episode they watched of SHUGA has made them reconsider their lifestyle. “Stories that I tell through film help people to view the world through a universal approach and I hope that many people are able to change their lifestyles positively. This has a domino effect as it helps to steer change not only through oneself but spreads through society”, said Alison, who has managed to package reproductive health issues

into a palatable but thorough and thought-

provoking way. Her work has also inclued ZAIN Africa Challenge, a popular intellectual game show attracting students from eights countries across Africa, and just this year she spearhead-ed a nation-wide campaign on social media that mobilised Kenya to come together and sing the national anthem in the name of unity.

She has worked tirelessly in lobbying the government and the treasury to include film incentives in the 2009 budget, and in 2004 was appointed to the Ministry of Information and Communication task force to formulate a policy framework for the film industry to ensure Kenyan productions move on to world screens through the formation of the Kenya Film Commission.

JULIE GICHURU, 37

TELEVISION ANCHOR

Julie Gichuru is well-known as a media person-ality. Less well known is the background in law and business that saw her enter the media with a fresh perspective and a determination to con-tribute to the development of the industry. Julie earned her Law degree and an MBA from the University of Wales in Cardiff - specializing in World Trade Law and International Business - after studying at Loreto onvent Msongari and Imani School, Thika. But on returning to Kenya, she shied way from the local judicial system, which she felt riddled with corruption and inefficiency. Passionate about justice and the stories of the Kenyan people she decided instead, in 1999, to go into the media. With her legal and business background, she was quickly taken on by KTN,

and soon after was head-hunted by Capital FM. She later worked at NTV and now hosts Sunday Live with Julie Gichuru on Citizen TV. Her mis-sion across all her positions has been simple; to be the voice of the voiceless. “Those of us blessed with an education have a greater responsibility to contribute to the development of a good so-ciety,” she said. In 2008, her focus on peace saw Julie become the first African woman to receive the Martin Luther King Salute to Greatness. In the same year, she was nominated as

a Fellow of the African Leadership Initiative, a part of the Aspen Global Leadership Network. The following year, she was declared a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum. And last year she received the Order of the Golden Warrior from President Mwai Kibaki for her contributions to the media in Kenya. The pursuit of her dream has not always been a smooth journey, with her biggest blow the loss of her third-born child in 2005. She says faith in God carried her and her family through, and works hard to bridge the challenges of balancing family and career. Her most memorable experience in the media was the revolutionary reconciliation TV show Fist to Five for Change. “This is one of the most pro-found things I have done so far. The opportunity to bring the country closer together by addressing our challenges head on was a blessing. I hope to do more shows of this kind,” she said. Julie is also now building the Footprints Africa Foundation, an initiative she and her husband have concep-tualized to give young people a chance to express and explore their ideas on social, economic and developmental issues.

SAKINA HASSANALI, 27

MARKETING MANAGER, HASSCONSULT

Perhaps one the youngest marketing managers in corporate Kenya, Sakina Hassanali is the women who launched the country’s first property index, the HassConsult Property Index, which is now the most widely cited real estate tracker in the Kenyan market. After graduating from Cardiff University in the UK, where she studied Economics and

Management, she joined Redsky Advertising as an account manager. In 2007, she then moved into the family-owned business, at a time when she says investments in some segments of the property market were clearly founded on mis-information.

Even before she launched the property index, she had revamped the HassConsult website as a centre of real estate industry information, add-ing detailed profiles on every Nairobi suburb, of-fering average land prices, building regulations and listings of local features. She also created a real estate news platform, drawing together the best of the information available everywhere on the local real estate market. It was only then that she went public with the agency’s very first resi-dential property price index, after cataloguing 17 years of its own internal data and drawing in IT experts and market analysts.

“The index changed market decision-making by readers of the information, and this prevented over-investment in certain segments, which had earlier caused gluts in the market,” she said.

According to Sakina, the core of marketing is communication with the consumer, with her position as marketing manager enabling her to inform both buyers and investors in the property market on the best deals. Though she joined the firm when it was already a visible player in the local property market, it has been her innovation in the property index and marketing that last year saw HassConsult voted as the Best Real Estate

Agency in Africa in the world’s most prominent global real estate awards. Sakina cites consistent innovation, learning new tricks of the trade and keeping in the know on related global advance-ments as her pillars to success.

JOAN NJOROGE, 39

MANAGING DIRECTOR ENGEN AFRICA

At 39, Ms Njoroge is among the few female ex-ecutives to have penetrated the male domain of the oil industry. Across the 22 affiliates of Engen Africa, she is the only female MD, now leading one of the five largest Engen affiliates.

Her recent appointment as the head of En-gen in Mauritius, which is a new addition to the group’s portfolio, sees her charged with fully in-tegrating and transforming the Mauritian opera-tion to increase shareholder value.

This challenge follows from four years as Gen-eral Manager of Engen Petroleum in Burundi, where, with a background in marketing, she helped take the company to market leadership with a 60 per cent market share.

Last year, she was a top three finalist for the prestigious leadership award at Engen’s Interna-tional Business annual gala event.

A graduate in Education from Kenyatta Univer-sity, Ms Njoroge, who also holds an MBA from the UK’s Leicester University, decided to quit teach-ing after just three years.

However, she joined the oil industry purely by chance, after attending a career fair in London. She went hoping for an interview with Citibank, which was recruiting students based in the UK. “Instead, I interviewed for two different compa-nies, amongst them Engen,” she says.

She started at the Engen head office in South Africa, where she held different posts for six years,

ALISON NGIBUINI

JULIE GICHURU

SAKINA HASSANALI

JOAN NJOROGE



before joining the Burundi op-eration.

DOROTHY GHETTUBA,

32

CEO/PARTNER SPIELWORKS MEDIA

Having switched career from an early start in finance, Dorothy Ghettuba is now one of Kenya’s rising film producers – already picked out in Canada as one of its top 20 emerging film makers – and, at just 32, the CEO and co-founder of film production com-pany Spielworks Media, respon-sible for many of Kenya’s more prominent shows.

Dorothy got off to a flying start academically, attending Al-liance Girls High School before reading Communications and Political Science at St Andrews University in the UK. She then went to work at venture capital company Jefferson Partners in Toronto, before moving to the Alberta Cancer Board in Ed-monton.

But three years ago, she moved into the creative arts, and has since produced several documentaries, four television shows and has a row of films in development.

“ As the Executive Producer, I oversee all the company’s pro-ductions. I have produced sev-eral projects on TV, including Block D, a 13-part, 30-minute drama series on KBC, as well as Higher Learning, a drama series on NTV and SAINTS, the medical drama currently airing on NTV and Zuku.

I was also the Executive Pro-ducer behind the “Know Your Constitution” Drama Series that was broadcast across all the ma-

jor networks,” she said.“My job is to ensure that my

team has everything they need to get the show from paper to screen. I am involved in all as-pects of the production, from conception, creation and de-velopment to the subsequent pitching of shows to the net-works. Once the show is picked up by the broadcast network, my focus shifts to business matters, such as budgets, financing, tal-ent acquisition and contracts. Al-though I have a team, I make overall decisions regarding the day-to-day running of the pro-duction, like script approvals, set design and casting.”

“I didn’t learn creative arts in school, nor as a hobby. It was just something I was passion-ate about so I sought out to learn about it on the job.”

Dorothy is also an alumni of the prestigious Bucerius School on Global Governance in Hamburg, Germany.

“My goals in effecting change in Kenya are twofold; I want to continue telling the Kenyan story to Kenyans and to the world. Mine is simple, to bring a fresh take on local television programming.

Then, I want to continue creating creative employ-ment. On a given production, I have a team of 50+ people working.

SAINTS the medical dra-ma saw over 140 actors walk through our doors and onto the television screen. We live in a society where the creative arts are frowned upon and par-ents have only recently started encouraging their children to pursue the arts.

Mine is to ensure that Art and Commerce meet and make sense.”

DOROTHY GHETTUBA

SONA PARMA

SONA PARMAR MUKHERJEE,

31

CLINICAL NUTRITIONIST

At 18 years old, renowned nutritionist Sona Parmar seemed destined to be a life-long economist. She enrolled to study at one of the best institutions in the world, the London School of Economics, and after completing her studies she moved to Kenya for the first time, with her then boyfriend, now husband.

In Kenya. she worked for Software Technologies Ltd, emerging as a guru in Oracle Financial Software and working with institutions like KCB and National Bank. But “I had a different calling”, said Sona, regardless of the financial windfall the career guaranteed.

She began to gat increasingly inter-ested in nutrition and how food could be used to heal, and one day, after conduct-ing training with the Finance Ministry she simply called it a day and decided “it was time to take the plunge”. She went back to school to study nutrition for 4



years. Her passion for nutrition studies was not dampened by the rigours of having to fly back and forth to the UK to do coursework and complete clinical hours.

On completing the course, she founded ‘Nutri-tion by Sona’, a health clinic that advises clients on quality wholesome diet and its effect on pre-venting illnesses and allergies. Her daily routine sees her giving personalized treatments and re-ports for clients.

Professionally, she cites British Nutritionist Patrick Holford as her influence, and her father as her biggest role model due to the integrity and honesty he instilled in her.

She also writes for the Nation, Cosmopolitan, Eve and has made appearances on TV stations including KTN, M-Net and NTV. She is registered with British Association of Nutritional Therapists and Nutritional Therapy Council, both UK bod-ies. And, there is now no chance of her ever going back to being an economist.

EVA KIPLAGAT, 39

CUSTOMER SERVICE CONSULTING COMPANY

Eva Kiplagat, now 39 years old, sits at the helm of her own organization, the Customer Service Consulting Company, intent on revolutionizing the agenda of Kenyan businesses to become cus-tomer-centric instead of money-centric. “When a customer is satisfied by the service, the money will flow in,” she says.

Her personal and corporate vision is ‘Trans-forming Africa through Service Excellence’.

“I get goose bumps when I say this out loud because I am aware of how bold it is”, she says.

Eva’s interest in consultancy started when she was an undergraduate at Daystar University and working part-time as an Associate Assistant for various consultancy companies, including Deloitte

(then Deloitte &Touche). “I enjoyed the work im-mensely and remember thinking that this is what I wanted to do”

A former student of Alliance Girls, she was born in Nairobi, but grew up in Meru.

She graduated from Daystar with a degree in Bachelor of Commerce, majoring in marketing. She then worked at Promotion Dynamics as an executive assistant, where she managed market-ing promotions and public relations.

Her hard work and competence brought re-wards and in 1996 she landed a job at Scan Group as a Marketing Account Manager, a job she held up to 2000. She then worked with AMREF as donor co-ordinator for two eyars. “Here, I got exposed to the world of NGOs and the private sector”, says soft-speaking Eva.

By that time, Eva had also earned a Masters degree from Leeds University in the UK, and later joined Uchumi supermarket as Marketing Services Manager, where she was charged with champion-ing customer-centric initiatives.

It was a newly created role and provided an excellent opportunity for her to lead.

Eva then worked at Consumer Insight as asso-ciate research director for a year, responsible for sales and the marketing of syndicated research studies, managing research projects and day-to-day client management.

In May 2007, she finally registered her own company. It wasn’t easy: she had limited resources and had to multitask across many roles, such as sales and marketing, operations, finance and ac-counting.

Customer Consultancy was also entering a unique field that was not so popular in the Ken-yan market at that time, presenting Eva with an uphill task in changing perceptions.

“But I am happy today when I hear executives of our leading companies talk of customer satis-faction”, she says smiling.

It’s a dream come true.

KANINI MUTOONI,35

FOUNDER MYAZIMIA MICRO FINANCE SOFTWARE COMPANY

When she first appeared in the Business Daily’s annual ranking of Kenyan women who are run-ning on the fast lane in their careers, Kanini was the Audit Director at private bank Kleiwort Ben-son in London.

But rather than keep enjoying the perks and comfort of being at the top of a big corporation, Kanini left the job in December 2010 for the world of entrepreneurship. Her first act in the field was the launch of myAzimia.org, a software company aimed at microfinance institutions and peer to peer lending sites that require a technology plat-form for their lending operations. In February 2011 Kanini launched Inuka.org a micro-finance platform dedicated to facilitating lending to fe-male owned businesses in sub-saharan Africa. Kanini says this second venture is her way to ‘giv-ing something back’ and playing a part in building the African continent.

The 35 year old steadily scaled the financial corporate ladder in the past 10 years during which she delivered audit services to corporate clients in Nairobi and a number of European cities.

The hallmark of Kanini has been one of setting new records everywhere she goes. She was pro-moted to director at Kleinwort Benson within 10 months of joining the company -- a feat that takes most people 10 years or more.

And it isn’t only at Kleinwort that she has been shinning. While working in London for Merill Lynch, Kanini was promoted to vice president just nine months after joining the global finan-cial giant.

HITAL MURAJ, 38

HEAD OF NETWORKING ACADEMY, CISCO EAST AFRICA

In her role at Cisco East Africa, Hital Muraj has earned widespread recognition as an expert in driving public-private partnerships and in work-ing with the youth in under-served areas, for she is the manager responsible for implementing Cis-co’s education initiatives and strategy across East and North Africa.

Working with non-profit organizations such as Inveneo and the Aga Khan Foundation, her mis-sion has been to find ways of using the power of ICT to address basic human needs, such as health care and education. Her programmes have been so successful that they have attracted senior Gov-ernment attention across the region, focused on replicating her models.

Among many other initiatives, Ms Muraj is credited with the launch of the world’s first Cisco Networking Academy for the deaf, which has ena-bled a traditionally forgotten group of people to get access to ICT Education to empower them for the future. Ms Muraj is not only committed to working with girls, women and the youth in un-

KANINI MUTOONI

HITAL MURAJ

EVA KIPLAGAT



der-served communities to address the digital divide, she also creates opportunities to develop them as equal partners in the development and use of computing.

Responsible for the programmes in 10 coun-tries in East Africa and 4 in North Africa, with 4 junior staff reporting to her, Ms Muraj is a per-fectionist, who delegates work to her juniors, but keeps a keen eye on what they are doing to see it measures up to her standards.

Working for a multinational and a technol-ogy company means she has to be dynamic, ac-cessible and available at any time of the day, she says. Online meetings and conference calls at very odd hours of the day, due to time differences, are a must, and can sometimes eat into her personal family time.

“I have learnt to prioritize my work and not do everything at a go. I focus on the most important things, and then do the rest later,” she says. “I also make sure we take a family holiday once a year, where I have no access to my emails or phones as a chance to catch up with my son and husband and spend some good, quality time as a family”.

SUZANNE KILOLO-KADENGE, 33

INVESTOR RELATIONS MANAGER, SAFARICOM

In a year when turbulence has been the most en-during characteristic of the economy, Suzanne Kilolo has certainly not lacked issues to iron out with investors. It was in this period also that Sa-faricom’s long serving chief executive Michael Joseph bowed out handing over the mantle to the hands of Bob Collymore and the tariff wars in the key voice market went a crescendo wrack-ing investor nerves.

But Suzanne has remained focused on finding new and better ways to communicate with share-holders easing the mammoth task of handling the more than 700,000 shareholders.

Under her leadership, Safaricom has contin-ued to strike many firsts in investor relations. It all began two years ago when the company held its first AGM. With eyes on costs, Safaricom pio-neered the payment of dividends to sharehold-ers through the popular mobile money transfer platform M-Pesa and for the first time sent out electronic versions of the annual report.

The innovation effort climbed a notch higher this year with last month’s live streaming on the web of the announcement of annual results – a move that like the payment of dividends through

mobile money is expected to be replicated by many Kenyan corporations.

Ms Kilolo, a mother of one, is pursuing an MBA degree at the Edinburgh Business School,UK.

Before joining Safaricom, Ms Kilolo had worked for Africa Alliance Kenya Investment Bank and earlier at Stanbic Investment Man-agement Services

MS PATRICIA KIWANUKA, 34

BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT VP– PINEBRIDGE INVESTMENTS EAST AFRICA

Patricia Kiwanuka, 34, knows about risk, and gain. As one of Kenya’s first generation of actuarial stu-dents, she later moved on to some of the region’s largest funds, most recently growing PineBridge Investments to over $1bn (Sh91.8bn) in assets under management.

As the head of Africa business development and the Vice-President for PineBridge Invest-ments in East Africa, which she joined in 2007, she co-ordinated the launch of the firm’s opera-tions in Uganda the same year, and is responsible for the client service and business development for the multi-national firm across the entire Sub-Saharan Africa region.

Last year, the fund passed the $1bn mark on the back of the successful transition and rebrand-ing from its previous profile as AIG.

“I love my job, because every day is an inter-esting experience. My role in business develop-ment has developed to include marketing, client service and general office administration. I also look at developing new products and possible en-try into new markets as part of the firm’s growth strategy,” she said.

The main challenge, she says, is the increased competition in fund management with only a limited number in the region of the medium to large size institutions that are the target clients for fund management. There are now 17 regis-tered fund managers in the Kenyan market, but most of the growth in the private sector has been in the SME segment.

“Like in most other industries, we are currently facing the challenge of price undercutting. It is our hope that as clients become more aware of the technical aspects of investment and fund manage-ment, this will form a key part of the evaluation criteria, making pricing ‘less significant’ in terms of evaluation,” she said.

Ms Kiwanuka, who attributes her success to hard work, God’s grace, support from family and lots of luck, began her career in 1999 with Alex-ander Forbes Financial Services (EA) Ltd as an actuarial student, advancing to become an Actu-arial Consultant. Her duties included actuarial valuations for insurance companies and retire-ment funds, the facilitating of training workshops and providing support in the development of new business lines.

Patricia holds an MBA (Finance) and a BSc in maths and statistics from the University of Nairobi. She sat her actuarial exams with the Institute of Actuaries, UK and is currently en-rolled as a Level III candidate under the pres-tigious global CFA® programme for chartered financial analysts

ADEMA SANGALE, 34

MANAGING DIRECTOR, PROCTOR AND GAMBLE

Adema Sangale’s promotion last year to become

the managing director of Proctor & Gamble East Africa is just one of the many confirmations that she deserved to be on the Business Daily’s list of women to watch three years ago. This lat-est appointment has made her a lady of many firsts. Apart from being the first female MD of her company, she is also the youngest MD in its history, and the first to take on her current role within such a short span of time working for just one employer.

Ms Sangale was first recruited to join the P&G office in Kenya as a graduate recruit something over a decade ago, and has since worked her way up the company to become the regional Managing Director for the Sh240 billon company, respon-sible for growing its influence among consumer brands in the region. She now leads the multi-national’s operations in four East African coun-tries, handling 54 distributors and over-seeing 30 direct reports.

A graduate of USIU and later Oxford Univer-sity, she joined Procter and Gamble on its Univer-sity Recruitment Program, and describes herself as the ‘ultimate P&G citizen’. P&G is the world’s number one FMCG company, with an estimated turnover of $3bn a day. Its range of products in-cludes sanitary pads, diapers, detergents, hair and beauty care products.

Ms Sangale worked for P&G in South Africa, Nigeria and Poland, managing its brands, before taking up her current assignment based in Nai-

robi, which is considered a key hub for the com-pany in developing the regional market.

Her task is to ensure the portfolio of prod-ucts her company produces make their way into a growing number of consumer shopping baskets in the region. It’s a role that has become even more critical in the past two years as the global economic recession has whittled away a large segment of consumer purchasing power, leaving producers of fast moving consumer goods run-ning much faster to stay ahead.

ANNE MURAYA, 39

AUDIT PARTNER, DELOITTE CONSULTING

In the aftermath of the global economic meltdown that was mainly attributed to heavy creative ac-counting and financial engineering on America’s Wallstreet, a debate has been raging as to whether

PATRICIA KIWANUKA

ADEMA SANGALE

ANNE MURAYA

SUZANNE KILOLO-KEDENGE



having women in charge or getting more of them in high financial positions could save the world from such catastrophies.

This, in fact, is what makes women with ex-pertise in the financial services sector like Anne Muraya tick. A partner in the audit department of Deloitte Consulting, with over 14 years experience in auditing, Anne’s passion is in helping Kenyan firms adopt International Standards on Auditing and International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) – where so much has been happening since the 2008 global financial crisis.

The international standards are allowed or even required in over 100 countries, making it possible for businesses to present internation-ally comparable financial statements in a single accounting language company-wide.

Anne mostly executes this part of her job through seminars organised by the Institute of Certified Public Accountants of Kenya (ICPAK), where she is a member. She has served as a panelist for Kenya’s Financial Reporting (FiRe) awards held annually to recognise excellence in financial reporting. Anne holds a Bachelor of Education (Science) degree from Kenyatta University, and joined Deloitte in 1994, where as senior manager and partner she has been involved in the audit of over nine companies in the mining, financial, and tea sectors.

FAITH BASIYE-OMOLO

AUDIT PARTNER, DELOITTE

As one of Kenya’s leading fraud busters, Faith Basiye-Omolo, 38, chairs the Fraud and Security Committee of the Kenya Bankers’ Association and leads a forensic department at KCB lauded as one of the best in the industry.

Born in Nairobi, the eldest of 3 girls and 3 boys, Faith’s leadership skills and sense of responsibil-ity were instilled during her primary school days at the Catholic Parochial School in Nairobi and Victoria Primary School in Kisumu, she says, and entrenched at Loreto High School, where she was a prefect for most of her four years.

Having graduated in law from the University of Nairobi, she was admitted to the bar in 1998, an event she describes as the highlight of her life. For the next two years, she practiced commercial law at Archer and Wilcock, before joining the Kenya Anti-Corruption Authority as an investigator, where she was trained by leading international investigative agencies, and involved in the inves-tigations of major corruption cases.

It was a significant move, marking a special-ism that she has made her own. She has since emerged as a leading advocate for the anti-fraud profession, and was among the first Kenyans to be certified as a Fraud Examiner by the Associa-tion of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE) (USA), and now sits on the local board as a Training Di-rector. She is also an active member of the Law Society of Kenya.

Her career posts, likewise, have been concen-trated in the fight on fraud. She spent two years at KPMG as an Assistant Manager in Forensic Services, and in 2006, joined Safaricom as a Fraud Manager where she says, with pride, that she put the department on the path of best practice.

In 2007, her restless feet led her to KCB Bank, where she set up the forensic services department to manage fraud risks and investigations across the group’s subsidiaries in Kenya, Uganda, Tan-zania, Rwanda and Southern Sudan.

She is married to a Nairobi Advocate and Man-agement Consultant, Amos Omolo and they have a daughter Amy Imani Omolo. “I always try to create time for my family and do my best to share

quality time with them. I spend most Sunday’s with my daughter and husband and whenever I’m travelling I get the latest flights so I can spend more time with the family before I leave. I also try to attend all my daughter’s school functions. Hav-ing supportive siblings also helps a lot.”

DR NELLY YATICH, 33

RESEARCHER, KEMRI

Dr Nelly Yatich had earned a PhD in Epidemiol-ogy from the University of Alabama in the US by the time she was 29. Now the country director for the University of Washington, attached to the Coptic Hope Center for Infectious Diseases, she is driving programmes designed to curb the rise of HIV/AIDS and other epidemics.

It’s a mission she says is driven by the prevent-ability of so many diseases, from HIV/AIDS to Malaria. She now works ceaselessly to influence policy making and contribute to the improvement of government programmes aimed at dealing with preventable diseases.

Dr Yatich spent 8 years conducting epidemiol-ogy research for her Doctorate in Public Health, before returning to Kenya at the beginning of last year. She has worked in many of the countries worst hit by HIV/Aids epidemic such as Botswana, Zambia, Burkina Faso, and Benin.

Her work has been recognized by the Phi Beta Delta, an international honor society dedicated to recognizing scholarly achievement in interna-tional education by giving them scholarships, and Delta Omega, which honors excellence in public

health. Since returning to Nairobi, Dr Yatich has worked for the African Population & Health Re-search Center in Nairobi and on the US-led pro-gramme PEPFAR, training health care workers in HIV/AIDS prevention, treatment and care.

Yatich, whose BSc was in environmental health, says her success has been achieved through deter-mination and hard work, going back to her pri-mary school days in Baringo county, and thanks to the support of her parents. Together these saw her concentrate on one thing long enough to achieve it, she says.

Among her proudest achievements was being able to financially support an HIV-positive Zam-bian girl orphaned by HIV at the time she was working in Zambia. She challenges everyone to do something in their circumstances and with the little they have in order to make a difference.

MS. NELLY PALMERIS, 35

SENIOR WARDEN – HELLSGATE; KENYA WILDLIFE SOCIETY

Being a park warden was never in Nelly Palm-eris’ career plan after she cleared high school. Given that she was good in maths, economics was the ideal vocation for her. But when Egerton University selected her to do a degree in Natural Resource Management, she decided to give it a try. The first week hooked her to the course, so she made up her mind to dedicate herself to giv-ing back to nature.

After graduating in 1993, she worked with East Africa Wildlife as a project officer. Her ca-reer with Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) began in 2001 as a paramilitary trainee. She was promoted to management trainee in December the same year. Following a post as a warden with Tsavo West National Park and then as a tourism officer war-den in Nairobi, she was promoted to Senior War-den in charge of Hellsgate National park, Mount Long’onot, Elementaita and Naivasha.

As the Senior Warden, “my main aim is to se-cure wildlife and the community” she says.

This involves resolving human and wild life conflict in the area, working with the commu-nity to accept the animals and see the benefits of having the wild life, ensuring that people whoa

re keeping wildlife have the right permits and are complying with wild life policy, and preventing poaching. The 35-year-old worries that people from outside Kenya appreciate parks more than the local people.

Her major challenge in the job is the transfer of parks every few years, which is common to wardens. Being a mother, this move affects the whole family, with the children having to trans-fer to new schools and adapt to a whole new en-vironment. She envies her male counterparts in this, because they are able to leave their family somewhere stable and live on their own. Palmeris is currently doing Masters in Business Adminis-tration (MBA) at Egerton, and previously earned a Diploma in Marketing from NSK. These stud-ies enable her to market and manage the parks better, she says.

ROSA NDUATI-MUTERO , 31

PARTNER AT A&K

For the 31-year-old commercial lawyer Rosa Nduati-Mutero, the decision to make clients the central focus of her every legal assignment has paid off big time. She is today ranked as a leading corporate lawyer by Chambers Global 2011 and IFLR1000, the two international legal publications that rank lawyers according to clients’ review.

Rosa joined Anjarwalla & Khanna (A&K) Ad-vocates – one of the largest law firms in Kenya, with 45 lawyers - as a trainee pupil, and quickly rose through the ranks to become one of the firm’s 12 partners, aged just 29.

Among her responsibilities in the Corporate and Commercial department, Rosa handles merg-ers and acquisitions and was at the centre of one of the largest M&As ever seen in the local banking industry, when in 2007 her department success-fully finalized the process of acquiring 24.99 per cent stake of Equity Bank by British Private Eq-uity firm Helios Investment Partners for $178.7m (Sh14 bn). “It was the most challenging assign-ment of my career. Its record size meant we had to work extra hard to convince regulators (CBK and CMA) to let it proceed, with due diligence taking up to two months to conclude,” recalls Ms Nduati-Mutero. But even before undertaking this task, Anne was already an achiever in her own right. By 2005, she had qualified both as a Certified Public Accountant and a Certified Public Secretary – just two years after graduating with a law degree from the University of Nairobi. She was seconded to the UK-based law firm of Stephenson and Har-wood in 2008 to work directly under the head of the Corporate Department and thereafter took assignments in Burundi, DRC Congo, Zimbabwe, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Ethiopia.

Behind her easy smiles, Rosa is a workaholic, a committed Christian and a mother. The third born in a family of three girls, she attributes her rapid career progression to the strength of her relationship with her husband and to the strict childhood discipline instilled by her mother, who

FAITH BASIYE-OMOLO

NELLY YATICH ROSA NDUATI - MUTERO



rose from a P1 teacher to head teacher, and civil servant father, who rose from District Officer to UnderSecretary.

Outside the legal profession, her main hobby is watching and playing football.

ANGELA WAKI, 30

CORPORATE LAWYER & PARTNER, COULSON HARNEY

Corporate deals have been fewer and far between in the past 12 months, but that has not prevented Angela Waki from holding firm to her fame as an enduring deal maker.

A partner at law firm Coulson Harney, Angela continues to play a pivotal role in big corporate investigations and match-making for big ticket mergers and acquisitions.

In the past four years, Angela has been part of the deal makers who have helped midwife big ticket acquisitions such as Essar’s 50 per cent pur-chase of the Kenya Petroleum Refineries Limited from the Kenya government.

Last year, Angela was among the advisors in the PricewaterhouseCoopers consortium that worked on the proposed privatisation of Kenya Pipeline Company.

She was admitted as an Advocate of the High Court in 2005, trained and worked in the litigation department at Kaplan & Stratton before joining Coulson Harney two years ago.

Since then, Angela’s assignments have been some of the largest merger and acquisition deals in the country, placing her among the avant garde of young lawyers within Kenya’s law fraternity

MARY WACEKE MUIA, 34

MECHANICAL ENGINEER, KENGEN

Mary Waceke Muia is a mechanical engineer who manages change, currently at KenGen, and has clocked up a formidable record of transforma-tions, both in mergers and turnarounds, across the region’s industrial landscape. Aged just 34, Mary has managed projects across all facets of business, from operations, information technol-ogy, customer service and product launch, to sys-tem change, human resources, quality, environ-ment, and health and safety - in both the private and public sectors.

She led the HR team in the Total- Mobil merger in Zimbabwe, successfully rolled out a new per-formance system within Total Kenya Ltd, and was Head of Change and Transformation in a commercial bank.

She is currently the Performance and Change Manager at KenGen, implementing a performance management system that is designed to deliver a ANGELA WAKI

MARY WACEKE MUIA



cultural transformation within the nation’s power generation company, using the Balanced Score Card framework.

Her aim is to translate a great strategy into great performance, she says, and it’s a mission she is applying herself to with focused discipline and maniacal execution.

She designs most of the change initiatives she implements and strongly believes that the suc-cess of change depends on individual’s personal decisions to commit to it. She creates programs to win hearts and minds as well as hands-on ap-plication, she says.

Mary also has wide experience in quality man-agement systems, having led ISO 9001 certifica-tion and rolled out of environment, health and safety programmes in the oil industry, across 105 service stations, seven depots and at the head office.

A graduate in production engineering with an MA in environmental advocacy, she is a reg-istered lead auditor in Quality and Environment and a certified leadership facilitator and executive coach from the Pacific Institute in the US, and an adjunct in the faculty of executive education at Strathmore Business School.

Mary is a much sought after speaker in change, leadership, performance and strategy and a re-spected life coach. She teaches the art of self dis-cipline & mastery, which she says is the beginning of any true leadership and the foundation of all lasting personal growth and success.

JANET KABIRU, 39

HEAD OF TAX AND TREASURY, BAT

Appearing on the list of Kenya’s women to watch for the third time in a row, Janet has proved to be a seasoned climber of the corporate ladder. Last year, when she featured in the list of Top 40 Under 40 Janet was the head of Tax and Treasury for Sub-Saharan Africa at the cigarette maker BAT. Now 39 years Ms Kabiru role has expanded to include heading the Indirect Tax department of BAT for Eastern Europe, Middle East and Af-rica-EEMEA.

This role puts on her shoulders the responsi-bility of developing and implementing BAT’s in-direct tax strategy for the region. The mother of two says key duties in that role includes helping BAT maximize the benefits of import and export incentives and that indirect tax risks across the EEMEA are effectively managed. EEMEA com-prises of 86 markets with an annual turnover of GBP3.6 billion and is home to 8 of the group’s strategic factory hubs.

As head of Tax and Treasury, Janet also oversees

strategy, governance and management of tax and treasury of all BAT operating companies in the Sub-Saharan Africa with a combined turnover is 596 million dollars. Ms Kabiru is an advocate of the High Court of Kenya and a barrister and solicitor of the Supreme Court of Ghana.

CAROLE KARIUKI, 36

CHIEF EXECUTIVE, KEPSA

Carole Kariuki, the 36-year-old CEO of the Kenya Private Sector Alliance (KEPSA), always wanted to have an impact. Even as a child she wanted to change lives for the better. Today, as one of the country’s leading lobbyists and programme for-mulators, she represents the interests of one of Kenya’s largest constituencies.

After graduating in Economics and Sociology, from Nairobi University, Carole joined Barclays Bank of Kenya, where she came to the manage-ment’s attention as one of three staff who helped navigate the backlog of customer transactions brought on by the bankers’ strike in 1998. The bank offered her the chance to join its manage-ment trainee programme, but it was an offer she turned down, feeling her service to the bank was fulfilled. She instead pursued her interest in leadership by joining the leadership train-ing programme at her church, Nairobi Chapel. The programme gave her valuable knowledge in leadership, fund raising, managing projects and people, and saw her devote the next two years to fundraising events, project cycle, team work and development work. She was then awarded a full scholarship for both her masters and PHD at Bowling Green State University in Ohio, USA where she graduated with a Masters in Public Administration and International Affairs, but decided to postpone her PHD and return to the country to be part of the change taking place in the first half of the last decade.

She returned to Kenya with the Sagamore In-stitute for Public Policy and Research on a pro-gramme in Eldoret. The programme took her to South Africa and later Rwanda and in 2005 led to a partnership with the Kenya Private Sector Alli-ance. She later joined the small team at KEPSA in the programs department, primarily to develop partnerships between the private sector and gov-ernment to influence Kenya’s public policy and economic agenda.

In 2008, Carole consulted for Africa Develop-ment Assistance to assist constituencies in devel-oping strategic priorities for development and in January 2010 was confirmed as KEPSA’s CEO. “My greatest challenge is dealing with the perception of being a younger CEO than most and that I look younger than my age,” she says.

BANCY GAKURU, 35,

CHIEF TALENT OFFICER, SEVEN SEAS TECHNOLOGIES

Managing talent in the fast-paced ICT world is never an easy task, but it is challenge that Bancy Gakuru has learned to perfect in her job at ICT start-up Seven Seas Technologies.

As Seven Seas prepares to go public, the task of securing the right talent to meet that goal has fallen on Ms Gakuru’s shoulders.

The multi-faceted experience in managing people has seen Ms Gakuru work in some of the most demanding human resource environments in the country, including the education and manu-facturing fields.

Ms Gakuru career began at Brookhouse School

where she headed the Marketing function and did HR duties within the Admin department as an Administrator, before joining Mabati Roll-ing Mills as the Human Resources Manager and then to Seven Seas Technologies as the Chief Tal-ent Officer.

While at Brookhouse, Ms Gakuru was nomi-nated to be part of the Council of International Schools accreditation team for Africa -- a team that visited schools around Africa to evaluate the schools for accreditation and re-accreditation. This role saw her participate in the evaluation

of the International School Lusaka Zambia and International Community School Abuja, Nigeria. Ms Gakuru also takes pride in the fact that it was during her tenure at Mabati Rolling Mills, that the company won the coveted Company Of the Year Award.

Away from official duties, Ms Gakuru is keen to extend her mentorship skills and is a member of Soaring Eagles, a group of like-minded individu-als who support mentorship initiatives and sup-port each other to build leadership through book sharing and management experiences.

HARPREET UBHI, 30

PARTNER AT FIGIS & DALY ADVOCATES

Rising to become a partner at Daly & Figgis, one of Kenya’s oldest law firms, at the age of 30 makes Harpreet one of the most outstanding candidates in Kenya’s list of women to watch.

An ardent reader of books on a broad range of subjects, Harpreet joined the more than a cen-tury-old firm in October 2003 as trainee pupil but has quickly climbed the ladder since she was con-firmed as a regular employee five years ago.

“In the legal field, you really have to work smart before you can get your way up,” she said. “Eevery new client comes with different demands and the property lawyer says she has managed to tackle each on their own merit. Apart from her work at Daly & Figgis, Harpreet sits in the Conveyancing Committee of the Law Society of Kenya.

Born and brought up in Kenya, Ms Ubhi pre-fers to weigh her professional growth against her peers of Asian origin most of who are still struggling to free themselves from the shackles of patriarchy that has limited their participation in modern economy.

“Women are strong creatures and in future, I would like to work closely with those involved in helping them realise their potential,” says the graduate of UK’s Cardiff University

Ms Ubhi believes her leadership prowess evolved out of childhood assignments. She served as a prefect in school, participated in presidential award schemes and was named a model UN ambassador during her days at Brook-house School.

BANCY GAKURU

HARPEET UBHIJANET KABIRU



PRISCILLA NYOKABI KANYUA, 33

DIRECTOR, KITUO CHA SHERIA

A seasoned civil society activist, Priscilla who is appearing on the list of the women to watch for a second time in a row says her biggest moments came last year when prisoners took to the ballot to vote for the country’s new constitution. Since independence this lot of citizens had been barred from participating in any electoral process to the chagrin of many human rights activists. “It was thrilling to see our relentless campaign come to fruition and the prisoners allowed to vote. It will forever form part of my biggest achievements,” says Priscilla whose organisation Kituo Cha Sheria made that happen through court action. The 33 year old has fought and won many battles especially in the area of human rights but sees last year’s enactment of the new Constitution as a major victory especially for women. 2010 may be billed as a year of harvest for KTS because it also emerged as the Civil Society Organisation of the Year at the prestigious Company of the Year (COYA) awards. Prior to becoming executive director at KTS, she was from 2005 the Programmes Officer at the International Commission for Jurists Ken-yan chapter, an organisation also committed to human rights protection. She was admitted to the Bar and became a High Court advocate in July 2004.

THRITY ENGINEER, 37 REGIONAL MARKETING DIRECTOR, GSK PHARMA EAST AFRICA

Thrity Engineer joined GlaxoSmithKline as a medical representative selling various pharma-ceutical brands to health care professionals.

But it was not long until her scientific academic background gave way to her career interest in marketing, a field where she has been practicing for the last eight years.

Ms Engineer’s job titles at GSK have shifted over the last few years, with her responsibilities

growing to cover brands and portfolios across seven countries in Eastern Africa.

Her appointment last year to the newly created role of Marketing Director for GSK East Africa has placed the onus of building the company’s vision to enhance the marketing of its pharmaceutical products on a regional level.

In her role as Marketing Director, Ms Engineer is also responsible for managing the firm’s demand and logistics, placing her in charge of focused team of staff who are direct reports.

Ms Engineer is also heavily involved in man-aging the firm’s Sub Saharan Integration project, working with colleagues from Ghana, South Af-rica, Mauritius and Nigeria to integrate the newly acquired dermatology company Stiefel into GSK commercial and supply chain operations.

MARYANNE MWANIKI - GATERI, 35

HEAD OF STAKEHOLDER ENGAGEMENT & REPUTATIONAL RISK, STANCHART, UK

Maryanne kept a firm grip on her position as the Head of Employee Engagement and Perform-ance Management at StanChart’s London head office despite the banking sector turbulence across Europe. She continues to spearhead the bank’s sustain-ability agenda that have won the bank recognition in the 71 markets where it has a presence across

the globe. Maryanne also remains a key player in the UN Global Compact, a policy initiative for businesses committed to aligning operations with principles of human rights, labour, environment and anticorruption.

Her stewardship of the company’s sustain-ability agenda has seen StanChart win the Best Corporate Social Responsibility in Africa award at the annual African business awards in London, ahead of other nominees Goldman Sachs, Ned-bank, Bamburi Cement, and Rio Tinto.

“The winner has developed a wide range of programmes which have had significant social and economic benefits on local communities and employees. The programmes are having a lasting impact and have high level of replicability,” the judges’ citation read.Maryanne is also championing cultural diversity and the gender agenda within the bank. “We need to ensure that women are participating fully be-cause of the multiplier effect it has on society.” She holds an MSc from the London School of Economics.

EMMA MILOYO, 30

PARTNER AT DESIGN SOURCE

Introducing new concepts in real estate projects is a passion for Emma Miloyo, a partner at De-sign Source, the firm she established in 2005, and the deputy president of the Architectural Society of Kenya.

For the 31-year-old mother of one, her lifelong ambition is to inspire other young girls and help them break the glass ceiling that has limited their success, especially in male-dominated fields like architecture. Emma graduated from Jomo Keny-atta University of Agriculture and Technology (JKUAT) with first-class honours in Architec-ture - itself no mean feat, before landing a job at SK Archplans, one of the country’s most visible architectural firms, as she worked to acquire a professional practicing licence.

“I made my break after I got my registration as an architect and therefore the chance to practice independent employment. I grabbed the opportu-nity and there was no looking back,” said Emma, of her decision to abandon employment three years ago, in favour of private practice.

As an employee, she created a wide network of professional links and ties with potential clients, which proved to be an anchor to the success of her architectural and internal design firm today.

“There is a strong demand for housing, both residential and commercial space, and this has opened up huge opportunities for professionals in the built environment, like myself,” she said.

She was one of the consultants who put togeth-er plans for the K-Rep headquarters and Timau Plaza, both in Nairobi’s Kilimani Area.

The firm also has contracts in six other coun-tries, including Somaliland, either alone or in partnerships, and she says Design Source is not about to slow down in entering new markets.

HARPEET UBHITHIRITY ENGINEER

MARYANNE MWANIKI

PRISCILLA NYOKABI

EMMA MILOYO

top 40 under 40

Documents

women leaders

women technology

growing number of women

ambitious women

high performing women

annual ranking of women

women larisa brown nds

corporate world