As a young Kenyan coming out of the shell of childhood and finally experiencing the rigours of adulthood, I have a bunch of frustrations that I carry around. Amongst them is the lack of role models in Kenyan business. I wouldn't go as far as saying that there are none around, but you have to comb through the business community to get honest men who have made it from the bottom up. Too often in conversations at home, at school or even at restaurants, the focus of our admiration is the amount of wealth created. For me, thats not enough, what fundamental principles have they stuck by throughout their lives? what personal traits have lead them to their wealth?. All these are the questions we should be asking ourselves. In terms of fundamental principles, I allude to Warren Buffett and value investing, George Soros with financial risk-taking and people like Ingvar Kamprad with his pursuit of simplicity and frugality. For the future of Kenyan capitalism, we need role models who our young kids and those of us moving into adulthood can look at in admiration, and who can set templates for the rest of us to follow. We are only as good as our experiences, and if our experiences lead us to following careers in politics so as to accumulate ill-obtained wealth, then we shall remain a quasi-socialist state whose citizens are cynical about the benefits of Capitalism
Our role models
Posted by Samora
in Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Share with me your thoughts on this as well as give me your opinions on whoever your business role models are. We should however, celebrate the works of people like Manu Chandaria, the Equity team, the team at Transcentury for setting examples of what hard work and a focus on fundamentals can achieve.
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Let me be the first to defile your blog. Kenyan capitalism has always been and is still being hampered by political interference via nepotism, tribalism, favoritism, populism, nyayoism and other 'isms' that continue to strangle attempts to create an efficient marketplace that serves, rewards and benefits entrepreneurs and other Kenyans alike.
Kisila2k2, the idea behind this blog is not to lavish praise upon the Kenyan economy and its mode of capitalism, the idea behind the blog is to seek ways to improve it. And if your aim is simply to defile the blog rather than contribute effectively, then we do not welcome your comments.
Alright, i will contribute more positively this time. I think that there are plenty of home grown role-models that are doing there thing. For example you have that dude who's name i cannot remember that started Tusky's supermarket from scratch. He initially focused on the lower income areas around Ngong and Ongata Rongai that depended on typical kiosks while the then heavyweights Uchumi and Nakumatt were catering to the 'middle class' that shops downtown or in various malls. Now Tusky's i believe is the second largest supermarket chain after Nakumatt. Anyway this guy thought outside the box and has impacted the industry he operates in. That's Kenyan capitalism at its finest. Another fine example of local enterpreneurs are the founders of Africa Online which as you probably know is owned now by Telkom South Africa.
Kisila2k2, thanks for the participation. Yeah there are a good number of role models in Kenya. However as the post says with most of our discussions, the focus is on money and wealth regardless of how the people accumulated the wealth. The guy at tusky's is great example. There is also a family that run's Kamongo Waste Paper who are a very good model. These should be the heroes and maybe then Kenyans wouldn't be so cynical towards business men. Thanks again for your participation
James Mwangi is a role model surely. The guy is just 43 and he has transformed Kenyan if not African banking...