Why Nairobi was a natural choice for us at GE

I was recently invited to give a few remarks at the Kenya International Investment Conference held here in Nairobi. It was a good occasion to explain GE’s committed to develop sustainable solutions that cut across the healthcare, transport, aviation, oil and gas and energy sectors.

While we have been in Africa for close to 100 years, we have significantly expanded over the last decade. Not surprisingly, growth has been driven by our activities in oil and gas services, power generation, and transportation, with a large presence in Angola, Nigeria and South Africa.

In 2011, we decided to expand our presence in the region because of the significant market opportunity and the view that any company that wants to be in Africa for the long term needed to be on the ground now. We chose Nairobi to become the headquarters for GE Africa in October 2011. Since then, GE Africa has grown to become a $3.5 billion order business employing over 2,200 employees in 25 countries.

From here we have set up new offices in Senegal, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Mozambique and Cote D’Ivoire. This in addition to new facility projects in Kenya, Nigeria, Angola, South Africa and Ghana. We are also helping entrepreneurs in Nigeria, Angola and South Africa. Kenya was a natural choice for us because we needed to create a bigger presence in East Africa.

As an American multinational, we felt we needed to establish our credibility in supporting the region alongside other American companies such as IBM, Coca Cola and Microsoft.

Kenya is also home to some of Africa’s best talent. We were impressed by the level of talent that we found here in Kenya-their education status, their global exposure and their work ethic. We have employed over 120 in the last 3 years, most of them with regional responsibilities and we are looking to grow this number further.

We are doing our bit to support talent development through partnerships with key institutions including Strathmore University, Jomo Kenyatta University and Nairobi University. We are working with Kenyatta University to develop a training centre to provide technical and clinical applications for healthcare.

We also chose Kenya because of the convenient travel connectivity to many parts of the Africa and the world which are critical considerations for a multinational like GE with operations in over 125 countries across the world. Kenya Airways, the national carrier has one of the most robust networks in the continent allowing us to connect quite easily with many cities in Africa and Europe. Kenya Airways is one of our strongest business partners with 90% of their aircraft engines being powered by advanced GE/CFM engines and GE capital being a lead leasing partner for the airline.

We are very supportive of the government’s plan to widen access to affordable healthcare for all Kenyans and welcome the opportunity to deploy our experience as a global technology and innovation leader in this space.

We have partnered with USAID and Kenya Commercial Bank in a $10 million healthcare financing programme that will give SME medical institutions more access to cutting edge medical equipment. We recently had the pleasure of meeting the First Lady Margaret Kenyatta to discuss partnership avenues for the Beyond Zero campaign since we too share in her vision to beat maternal and infant mortality. We also launched the Hewa Tele Oxygen Plant which will increase access to Oxygen to help provide better care to women and children in Siaya and neighbouring counties.

We recognise that energy is a key driver for economic development and are looking for avenues to collaborate with the government to support the addition of power to meet Kenya’s development targets. We have been working with the Ministry of Energy in a number of projects that use renewable energy solutions such as the Kinangop Wind Farm and the Kipeto Wind Farm. We are providing the technology for the 220 KV Nairobi Ring Project that will create more resilience for the power grid in Nairobi especially during blackouts.

We have also increased our local presence by partnering with companies such as Safaricom to supply Durathon batteries to power network during outages.

GE believes that a peaceful and stable environment brings out the best in a country’s businesses, and this is a difficult moment in Kenya. We know that today’s world is fraught with risks, uncertainty and challenges. When people ask us why we operate in difficult environments, we respond by saying we follow our customers, focus on the opportunities for growth, and believe that the technology, service, and business practices that we bring will help sustain and increase access to energy, build competitive logistics infrastructure, and provide better, more affordable healthcare to people.

And so far at least, that has been the right course.