Under 30 and in charge

Wanjiku Kariuki Kandie, 30, founder of Waridi Events

Wanjiku lives by a saying that her father drummed into her and her three siblings during their childhood years in Buruburu, Nairobi. She grew up believing that anything can be done, an attitude that has seen her build a successful corporate events planning agency.

“At first, I imagined that being young would be a hurdle in my quest to build a business but it has been a great asset. Because I was young, I could afford to take the risk of starting a business. It also helped that many organisations believed that our young team could bring freshness to their events,” she says.

The idea of Waridi Events was sown in a University of Nairobi hostel room eight years ago. While final year students were planning for job searches, Wanjiku, who studied actuarial science, was dreaming of owning a business and drawing up business plans.

“I had seen a need for a platform for brides and grooms to access wedding planning information in Kenya. Upon graduation, I set up a website that was a directory and an information hub,” she recalls.

Her mother and her sister invested in her business, but it was a hard idea to sell. Slowly, the website transitioned to providing wedding planning services and then eventually, corporate event planning services. With no knowledge on running a business it wasn’t easy but she found a great support sustem in friends and in her husband Chris.

“Our biggest achievement so far has been developing a comprehensive event management cloud based software,” she says.

She has managed to carve a niche for herself in planning a variety of corporate events including summits, conferences, workshops, trainings, product launches, award ceremonies and company parties. She has trained her team well and is able to fully delegate the technical aspects of event management so that she can focus on business development and strategy.

“My dream for Waridi is to be the small giant of the events industry. By being masters of our craft, being authentic in our delivery and always relying on God, we aim to have a significant impact in the events industry. We want to focus on being the best and not necessarily the biggest,” she says.

She has started making steps towards her dream and is set to launch a subsidiary to her company, The Event Warehouse, an event decor and furniture rental company next month.

Mary Njoki, 26, MD, Glass House PR

Three years ago, Mary Njoki got fired from her marketing job via text message. Many women would have been shattered by this job loss but she instead felt relieved.

“I am personable and I was good at marketing but there was no challenge,” she explains. Today she runs a successful public relations firm with big names on its client list.  “The thing that I love most about entrepreneurship is the challenge,” she says.

A year before this sad morning, Mary had attended a Business Networking International (BNI) meeting by chance. Here, she had interacted with CEOs who instantly changed her perception on entrepreneurship. Now jobless and armed with only Sh6, 000 and a laptop, she believed in the possibility of founding a company that would give her millions.

“I was curious about public relations but I didn’t have a clear picture of what it entailed. I started doing my online research. The more I found out about it, the deeper in love I fell with it.”

In her parents’ house in Ngarariga, Limuru, she put together the concept of Glass House PR. She created a website, Facebook and Twitter pages and then started sending her company profile to the network she had built at her marketing job.

“When marketing a business, all prospective clients will want to know who you worked with. My first year saw me doing a lot of pro bono work or work at a minimal fee just so I could prove myself and to build my brand,” she says.

She admits that there were times that she got tempted to get back into the job market but the conviction that she was building something bigger than her kept her going.

In 2014, doors started opening and she began working with artistes and public figures. Now she dreams of her brand birthing other brands, especially a media outlet of the future. Meanwhile, she stays loyal to clients who don’t always bring the big bucks.

“I can’t forget where I came from,” she says.

“I still work with small businesses and while I can give them value, it is sometimes a challenge for them to be able to pay me,” she says.

This year, her company launched an entrepreneurship programme, Passpreneurs, where one aspiring entrepreneur is trained for 16 hours on how to run a business in Africa and then commissioned to train 16 others and get paid for it.

“There are times that potential clients frown at my age but a show of professionalism always earns me respect,” she says.

 Janet Mwaluda, 27, founder Ink House Pals, a print advertising company, and Ink Productions, a film production company

At just 27, Janet Mwaluda is at the helm of two successful companies. She looks glamorous, is bubbly and laughs easily. She makes it all look so easy but make no mistake; she works hard and long. When she is not busy organising shoots for a television show, then she is chasing tenders for her printing company. She studied actuarial science at JKUAT but she has always loved the arts. She was the girl who fought to write her own poems to present at drama festivals in high school.

Working on a TV show called Upishi Extra two years ago, Janet realised that production was too expensive for her to start off with; she needed income from elsewhere. Motivated by her production dream, she started a print advertising company, Ink House Pals, which she aggressively marketed. Her aggressive nature can best be demonstrated in how she got her first job aged only 22. She walked up to a company director at an event and told him how his company was missing out because of not having her on their team. She got the job on the spot.

After a year of running Ink House Pals, she had made enough money to produce her first show, Fitness Chasers, a work out show which aired on Zuku. Preferring the creative side of the business rather than the finance one, she partnered with her sister who is in charge of the money. Then she focused on putting together a team of writers, editors and a director.

All what she knows about production, she says, she has learnt on the job. “It is a competitive business. Shooting a pilot is the first part. Getting it on television is the other part,” she says.

She also gets to travel a lot on the job and experience different cultures. She loves to incorporate concepts she sees abroad in her productions.

The company is working on the finishing touches of a television series they have been shooting for the past year. On running a production business at her age, she says, “It’s not easy but you can make it if you keep your eyes on the bigger picture.”

ui Munderu, 28, MD, Travel Shore Africa

When Kui wants something, she goes out and gets it. Four years ago, she quit a well paying job with a prestigious airline to take up a job at a small travel agency.

“I had been employed as a reservations agent by an international airline for two years at this point. The money was good but I was tired of spending all day at work taking instructions.

Travel has been a passion since childhood. I wanted to start a travel agency but I didn’t understand how they made money. I took up this smaller job to understand this,” she explains.

At the start of 2012, after eight months earning just Sh16, 000, she felt that she had acquired enough knowledge to run her own business. She had Sh100, 000 saved for this venture. She used it to acquire a one-room office, a desk, a computer and to install a ticketing system into the computer.

“I had just three clients who were my mother’s friends regularly travelling for business. I was running the business singlehanded,” she recalls.

As a young woman in business, her biggest task was finding a bank that would accommodate her. The capital she started with wasn’t nearly as much as she needed. When she went for funding, her bank asked for land as collateral. “How much land can a 24-year-old starting a business have?” she asks.

She has had many people doubting her ability to handle big jobs but she interacts with people well and easily works her way round such situations.

Her company has grown to include a long list of corporate clients. Apart from ticketing, she has expanded into travel and safaris. In the past year, she has acquired several vans so she doesn’t have to hire some when organising safaris.

“I had doubts about going it alone when I quit my job and even considered going back into employment several times but now I have no regrets,” she says.