He once traded with words and today he is an investment banker. His journey to the apex of investment banking is an adventure full of thrills. Rising from the seedy Eastlands locale of Mbotela Estate in Nairobi and learning the ropes of groceries sales right at Marikiti Market, the largest farm produce market in East Africa.
Meet Gichuki Kabukuru, the newly- appointed acting CEO of Harambee Investments Society Limited,and a subsidiary and special purpose investment vehicle of the giant Harambee Sacco.
“At Harambee Investment, our main business is to enable our members own real estate, while earning a handsome dividend from their bouquet of investment portfolios at the end of the year,” Gichuki notes.
“I grew up in a business oriented family.” Gichuki says. “My father was a grocery supplier to various hotels in upmarket Nairobi and soon after I completed high school he took me into an apprentice.”
According to Gichuki, he negotiated with his father Ezekiel Kabukuru on remuneration.
“I knew the challenges my old man faced and I was practical.” Gichuki recalls. “I said the salary he would pay me would be my college fees and a little upkeep.”
The father agreed and Gichuki got a job as a grocery supply assistant and on the side pursued his journalism studies. By 1995, Gichuki had become a published writer long before his graduation. Away from the market sorting vegetables ordered by top range hotels he was an art connoisseur. His articles began appearing in the mainstream Kenyan dailies. Soon afterwards courtesy of his expertise on art reviews he was commissioned sad a regular art reviewer for the People Weekend and Star newspaper.
It is this regular writing that saw him walk away from the market and into the media as he became a fully-fledged journalist at The People Daily newsroom in 1999. Here he would later change desks from art review desk and into the environment desk. It is at the environment desk of The People Daily where he helped raise awareness of conservation efforts,species survival and community driven environment protection systems that Gichuki excelled and was poached by the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) to boost its public relations department.
At KWS, Gichuki was inducted in the dynamic working ecosystems of dealing with communities, civil servants and paramilitary officers. The herculean task of keeping Kenya’s wildlife safe and translating that knowledge to the public was a day job for Gichuki. After four years at KWS as a public relations officer, Gichuki felt it was time to move up the ladder in the burgeoning image making industry. He left KWS and joined Postal Corporation of Kenya (PCK) as Head of Communication and Public Relations Department.
While at PCK, Gichuki got his toughest challenge when handling the Universal Postal Union General Congress that was hosted in Nairobi. Gichuki flourished with the successful hosting of UPU Global Congress that saw over 2000 delegates drawn from over 100 countries. Soon after this international success, Gichuki was poached by Harambee Sacco to head its newly created marketing and communications department. Finally, the former wordsmith had risen to the top of image making business and management turn around.
His ability to engineer investor and member’s confidence and consent which directly leads to increase in the customer base and consumer uptake have become his biggest assets which have greatly boosted the financial profile of Harambee Sacco not to mention bolster its fortunes.
Given his track record for the last two decades, Gichuki has risen to become a media maverick with a refined managerial streak that boosts stocks and refines institution’s image.
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The former grocery trader turned word peddler has helped spruce the image of Harambee Sacco and it is his success as a marketer and influenced that he was tapped to head Harambee Investments.
