High-flying banker cuts niche in wine business

One morning six years ago while working in his former employer’s regional office in South Africa, Mr Stephen Sila got a letter from his boss informing him that he was being promoted to the position of finance director.

And in order to work in his new position, he was scheduled to relocate to United Arab Emirates, Dubai, in the bank’s regional office.

Unlike many people who would have greeted the offer happily, Mr Sila was not get excited.

More than once he had been contemplating quitting his job as an accountant, and return to Kenya to find something else to do.

“I think over 15 years in the banking industry was enough and although I knew getting promoted means pocketing a bigger salary, that did not change my decision. I wanted to venture into entrepreneurship,” he told Money.

His banking job enabled him to travel a lot especially in African countries thereby gaining a lot of experience while interacting with people from the continent’s diverse cultures.

“Banking industry is fascinating. I really loved my job, because it taught me a lot about life. I travelled and I really gathered a lot of information from different countries which changed my perception about life. I enjoyed it,” said the father of three.

On coming back to Kenya in 2010, he took his time studying the market and with a lot of consultations with friends and other business people, the untapped wine market caught his eye.

“The Kenyan wine market is saturated with wines mostly from the south and I decided to import from other countries to test waters and see how it will do in the market.”

To his surprise, the idea was well received giving rise to Cantina Di Frascati Limited, located along Nairobi’s Karen road, a company that imports wine and distributes to major outlets in Kenya as well as in the East African region.

On approaching local financial institutions with the idea, the response he got is no different from the experience that many start-ups receive. He was turned down.

Mr Sila, however, decided to risk all his Sh20 million savings to launch the business. Part of this money was the benefits he got from his former employer.

Cutting a niche in the market was an up-hill task as well, “after a while, I realised that patience pays... a number of supermarkets and shopping malls approached me and now I supply dozens of wine bottles to them,” he said.

His wines are priced between Sh500 and Sh3,000 depending on the brand and the bottles’ shelf life. Mr Sila said that the reason why the Kenyan wine industry has not grown bigger like in other Western countries is because Africans lack enough knowledge on the drinks.