The rise and rise of Kenya’s queen of silver screen at CNN
Zain Verjee at Le Rustique, Westlands, Nairobi. Photo/ ELVIS OGINA
Zain Verjee rarely dresses to impress, but she manages to impress anyway. Not even her simple light blue T-shirt, navy blue jeans and black sports shoes worn without socks dim the glamour she exudes on the small screen.
Standing 5ft9 and with a slender frame, she turned heads as she strode through the lobby of Le Rustique, a restaurant in Nairobi’s Westlands last Thursday. In person, Zain is much slimmer than the image beamed into living rooms across the world from CNN’s London bureau where she is currently based.
She hits the gym three days a week, which she says helps her stay mentally alert and healthy. Which is what her job demands. “A girl also has to look good too, doesn’t she?” she says with a wide smile. The infectious smile and pleasant personality that comes off the silver screen are just natural.
Most respected
It is now 10 years since she left the KTN and joined CNN, one of the world’s most respected media houses. She was 26 years old then, and even though anchoring was not new to her, having presented the prime-time news on KTN for sometime, she could not fight the apprehension that assailed her when she sat on the hot seat thousands of miles away from home for the first time.
It was not lost on her that this time round she would be addressing a much wider audience. “It was a really scary experience which took sometime to get used to. I cannot count the number of times I called home crying because I felt lost and did not know what I was doing,” she recalls.
But each time she hung up, she would do so with raised spirits, thanks to her parents’ encouragement. Today, she cuts a very different persona from the apprehensive woman that would reach for the phone and dial home each time something went wrong at work. She is confident, self-assured and, as she passionately talks about her job, it is clear that she is very much in control.
“My managers at CNN placed me where I was bound to succeed and they supported me every step of the way until I was confident and knowledgeable enough to get the job done,” she says. She is getting the job done. Her current assignment is at CNN’s London bureau where she anchors World News.
She also has her own programme -World Report- that runs every weekday on CNN International from 8.00 a.m – 11.30 a.m.
Situation Room
A typical working day for her begins at 3 a.m. and by 11 a.m. “when you’re having your morning tea” she is wrapping up. Prior to this assignment, she was based in Washington DC, where she presented the news for The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer. She also covered the US State Department for CNN for two years and travelled with former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to more than a dozen countries, including Israel, Turkey, Libya, Russia and South Korea. This assignment, she says, gave her a chance to see how diplomacy works.
“Then she was Secretary Rice, now she’s Condi,” she says of her relationship with the former US Secretary of State. This aside, Zain has interviewed international world leaders such as Pakistan’s former prime minister Benazir Bhutto on her return from exile. She also travelled back to Pakistan in December 2007 to cover the ramifications of Bhutto’s assassination.
The previous year, she reported from the Demilitarised Zone in Korea, and in September of the same year had an exclusive interview with former Iranian president Mohammed Khatami. Her coverage of the post-election violence that rocked Kenya in 2008 remains one of her most memorable assignments. “This wasn’t just any other story for me – this was my country and I couldn’t believe what was happening around me,” she says with a tinge of sadness.
Seasoned journalist
Being hit by a tear gas canister at Uhuru Park, of all places, given the significance of the name, also shook her up, but like the seasoned journalist she is, she recovered and took up from where she had left. When working, comfort comes first, so you’re likely to find her wearing jeans and sports shoes. For a night out, though, out comes the dress and stilettos.
During her spare time, she enjoys writing, something that she is passionate about, and out of which she published a children’s book, Live and On Air, a couple of years ago. In future, she plans to write more. Despite the enviable position in the media, Zain is modest about her achievement. “I don’t let success define who I am – what I want to be remembered by is what I give back to society, the positive transformation that my work has on others.”
She values her time, but gladly shares it when asked to get involved in projects that aim to uplift the lives of others, especially in Africa. Women also hold a very special place in her heart. “You don’t necessarily have to help financially to make a positive impact, there are so many other ways of helping.”
Zain, the first born of two children, readily admits that she is daddy’s girl. He would pick her up from work when she joined Capital FM and later KTN. There was a rumour that when she joined KTN, her father insisted on giving her pocket money because what she was earning was “too little” to sustain her. “That’s not true,” she says laughing. “Don’t believe everything you hear or read,” she says.
But she admits she and her father have always shared a close bond. “I am very close to both my parents, but I have a special bond with my dad. I know that he watches all my broadcasts with the same excitement he did when I anchored my first bulletin at CNN.” Her father Johnny Verjee is a hotelier while her mother Yasmin is a DNA sequencing and forensic expert.
“My brother and I had a privileged up-bringing, but humility, compassion and respect were core values that we were expected to carry with us always,” she says. It is no wonder then that her immense success has not gone into her head in spite of her charmed life. For someone who earned less than Sh20,000 at Capital FM where she cut her teeth in broadcasting, Zain is certainly enjoying a good life, admitting that her job pays well.
“CNN treats its employees really well. I am lucky because I can afford a good life, but my feet are still firmly grounded on earth,” she says. Though she says she feels most at peace while in Kenya, she lists Rome as one of her favourite holiday destinations as well as Napa Valley in California and Watamu in the Kenyan coast. She has lost count of the countries she has visited in the course of her job. For a woman that is widely travelled and can easily afford to go on shopping sprees on a whim, it comes as a surprise that she isn’t big on shopping.
No shopaholic
“Like most women, I like to look good, but I am no shopaholic,” she says. She has a wide fan base that discusses everything about her from her hair to her legs. She admits that she occasionally reads what people write about her as a way of keeping up with what viewers think about her work, but doesn’t do it obsessively, explaining that sometimes it can have a negative impact.
She has also been stalked a few times. “I guess it comes with the territory – one just has to be careful,” she says with a shrug. She is not married and she does not rule out settling down in future. So, is there someone special in her life? “That’s personal. A few years ago, my parents wouldn’t be happy when I took a man home, now they’re very happy when I do take a man home,” she says. “I’m working on it,” she says.
