Ex-Nation chair Awori dies at 80

Mr Hannington Awori, one of the icons of Kenya’s corporate sector, died on Monday in Nairobi at the age of 80.

Mr Awori retired three years ago as chairman of the board of the Nation Media Group and a year earlier from the leadership of Standard Chartered Bank, among various companies he served as a director.

He had been undergoing treatment at the Aga Khan Hospital. Mr Awori, who shot to prominence as an executive director of Unilever, was one of the first Kenyans to undergo university training as an engineer.

After completing his first degree at Witwatersrand University in South Africa in 1952, at the height of apartheid, he moved to London University to study civil engineering.

Mr Awori returned to Kenya in 1965 and joined Unilever, for many years a consumer goods market leader, where he rose to the post of technical director and retired in 1990.

The seventh child in the family of the late Canon Jeremiah Awori and Mariamu Awori, he attended the African Government School, Kakamega and Maseno School.

But it was in the corporate world where he made the greatest contribution and came to be revered by shareholders for his wit and exceptional ability to explain complex issues in simple terms.

Besides NMG and Standard Bank, he also served as a director of Mabati Rolling Mills, Sygenta, Block Hotels, Phoenix Assurance and several others.

Mr Awori was also the first chair of the Centre for Corporate Governance, a non-profit organisation which promotes modern and transparent corporate leadership.
In 2000, when the country was facing with a severe electricity crisis, the government asked him to chair a committee to spearhead a World Bank-backed emergency operation to restore the country’s energy supply.

He was the brother of former vice-President Moody Awori, Ugandan Cabinet Minister Aggrey Awori and the founder and Director of Makini School, Dr Mary Okelo, Joshua Awori.

He is survived by a widow, Pamela, whom he married in 1969. They had three children, Jeremy, Timothy and Mary-Anne.