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


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.