about me

When not with my family, running, working in the gym, reading, or playing guitar, I explore, build and think about digital tech, AI, strategy, cloud, and transformation in various industries and sectors.

I am a dynamic technology leader with 20+ years of experience spanning cloud solutions, telecommunications, technical sales, operations, and entrepreneurship. I have a proven ability to lead teams, drive revenue growth, and deliver complex projects. I have a strong technical foundation complemented by strategic business acumen and a passion for innovation. I have an Executive MBA from USIU-Africa and an undergraduate degree in electrical and electronic engineering from JKUAT.

If you are looking to work with someone with my experiences and insights, connect with me on LinkedIn and let's talk.

Below in reverse chronological order is a summary of my professional life (as at May 2024). I also wrote about some of my experiences working in tech in a series of three articles which are linked below:

Cloud Solutions Architect Lead, CSquared Group (May 2022 - Feb 2024)

I joined CSquared Group (was originally Google’s Project Link) as a team lead for a team of solution architects, for what was then a new cloud business across the group. It was an opportunity to do what I defined as an ‘internal startup venture’ within a corporation. My role ended up being more than a solutions architect lead, and became overseeing operations, technical management and project/program delivery. I was responsible for:

Team Leadership: Leading CSquared’s cloud technical teams (Cloud Services included IaaS/PasS, and Cloud Security with Zscaler). I was a mentor and coach for technical team members.
People and Program Management: Ensuring effective delivery of technical projects and programs, including improving the whole life cycle of services, leveraging data, from inception and design, through deployment, operation, and refinement.
Technical Sales and Sales Operations: Guiding team members through complex customer opportunities and activities, presentations to enterprises leader. Support sales management, sales operations, leading and supporting problem discovery and solutioning, for enterprise customers prospects.
Commercial Operations: Support the creation and delivery of budgets at different points in the fiscal year.

Key Achievements

I supported growing our unit’s monthly recurring revenue by over 100% in FY2023

Experiences and Reflections

I got to leverage my technical expertise and experience, as well as relationships in the professional world, as I grew in my appreciation of and ability to sell technical solutions.
Having experienced startups inside and outside of a medium/large corporation, I appreciate the nimbleness of the 2 founder company with 5 team members vs a larger corporation with defined processes and governance. On the other hand, I have seen the value of good operations, structure and governance. Balance is key.

Technology Advisor (Contract) (Feb - Mar 2022)

As an independent technology advisor, I conducted a technical system audit for a leading regional media company as part of their digital transformation journey.

Experiences and Reflections

I used design thinking methods effectively during the sessions with the team to tease out key infra areas and pain points.
The media industry globally is undergoing lots of disruption and needs to adapt or die amidst changing consumer behaviour, technology and industry trends. Many local and regional media houses have embarked on this long journey.
In the world of X and TikTok. radio remains a powerful medium. There is however lots of room to innovate around delivery of news for instance delivery of hyper local relevant news.

Technology Lead (Contract), UNDP ABC (Sept - Dec 2021)

As technology lead, I advised internal teams and innovation partners on digital platforms proposed, technical guidance in development of digital platforms, and technology knowledge management. I was responsible for:

Supporting the 2021 innovation challenge at UNDP's Africa Borderland Centre across four border country pairs/trios on the continent focused on financial services for cross border informal traders
Providing technology and product advice, guidance and support on digital platforms proposed and developed in the course of the challenge
Supporting UNDP Accelerator Lab (AccLab) teams in managing digital platforms and operations

Experiences and Reflections

Innovations are shaped by the people building them in response to their environment. There were solutions of varying complexities that addressed some of the myriad challenges faced. This was a unique and exciting challenge by UNDP due to the partnership between startups on the ground, UNDP staffers within accelerator labs and various communities.
Africa is often considered homogeneous from a global investment point of view, yet it is hugely diverse with a myriad of challenges. Bordering countries sharing a common language often have differing culture and laws, making it complex when building solutions.
There have been solutions to problems in use in various communities for decades, such as the Sanduk, and technology can be leveraged to turn these into scalable products. (Here is a recent UNDP report)

Ecosystem Partner (Part Time), CRE (Mar 2019 - Sep 2021)

Thanks to my past work in the East Africa startup ecosystem, I served in a fractional capacity as ecosystem partner with CRE Venture Capital, a respected VC that has invested in the likes of Andela and Flutterwave over the years. CRE.vc partners with visionary entrepreneurs building category-defining tech companies in Africa and beyond. I was responsible for:

Origination of investment opportunities through personal and professional networks in East Africa
Due Diligence on opportunities, regular updates on context that may inform CRE’s investment decisions
Portfolio company monitoring

Key Achievements

I was able to present 15+ vetted opportunities to the team

Experiences and Reflections

It was hugely enjoyable engaging with startup founders. I learnt lots of ways people are solving problems around them, and admired their grit and perseverance along the way.

Co-Founder and COO, QHALA (Jan 2020 - Aug 2021)

Qhala is an innovation consulting cum venture lab helping organisations across Africa solve pressing problems & building digital platforms. This was my second foray into entrepreneurship as a co-founder, leveraging my strengths in operations and strategy. I was responsible for:

defining and documenting the overall strategy for the organisation.
commercial operations and general management, including sales operations.
I had project and program delivery oversight across the organisation, with the goal of ensuring satisfactory and timeliness of delivery within budget.
I drove product management and development under Qhala Venture lab setting up the initial model for this part of the business.
Leveraging my technology expertise and experience, I served as interim CTO for the first 4 months of operations managing our Google Cloud infrastructure and workloads.
I acted as team mentor and coach for delivery across the business units.

Key Achievements

Spearheaded delivery of Qhala strategy and operating model (2 in 1 innovation consulting & venture lab) allowing company to focus on short and medium term goals while strategically tackling big problems
Successfully instituted business operations (finance office, legal, org structure, governance)
Structured Qhala’s venture lab with 5 products under development as at Aug 2021 when I left the company. Qhala built https://cema.africa as a response to COVID-19 in 2020.

Experiences and Reflections

How a business responds to external circumstances can shape its future. The COVID pandemic played a critical role in shaping the model and direction of the business, presenting innovation and product development opportunities.
Team is everything. Particularly the founding team.

Co-Founder, alba.one (Nov 2017 - Dec 2019)

This was my first experience as an ‘all in’ entrepreneur. We were a software R&D and product company collaboratively creating, with partners, platforms that build trust. We spent time exploring blockchain and AI technologies and their possible use in solving problems around financial services, and logistics among others. I was responsible for:

Business Development, Strategy and Partnerships: identifying, engaging with and closing collaborative partnerships with domain experts.
Business Operations covering aspects such as finance
Product management: idea development, business modelling, conducting design sprints, product development, working with our small software team
Technical Management: Managing Cloud Infrastructure (Google Cloud) and DevOps (GitLab), as well as plugging into software development (our stack included Golang, Python, PostgreSQL)
People Processes: managing our recruitment process and onboarding of team members

Key Achievements

Successfully on-boarded 3 collaborative product partners, and prototyped two products, a SME financing platform and a logistics platform
Setup Back office operations (legal, finance, compliance). Managed P&L, contracting, governance and compliance
Established a culture of learning and continuous improvement. All full time hires (2) went on to attain Cloud certifications, from no knowledge of Cloud and DevOps.

Experiences and Reflections

Entrepreneurship is extremely difficult, is not for everyone, and can be costly in many ways.
A key lesson learnt is that it is often easier to work with technology than people! Working in a collaborative partnership requires patience and trust building. This takes time and doesn’t always work as planned.

Director and COO, iHub (Mar 2010 - Oct 2017)

After spending close to a decade in tech facing roles, I had the opportunity to be at the helm of an organisation at the heart of tech in East Africa. I had been on the board from inception in March 2010 but took on a full time role from Sept 2013 as Executive Director. I later transitioned to COO from 2016. I was responsible for:

Leadership & People Management: I had overall leadership of team (about 40 at commencement) and represented the organisation in public
Partnerships: I had a key role in nurturing and maintaining relationships with various stakeholders such as startups, corporations, academic institutions, government representatives, development organisations (local and international), as well as other
Strategy Development and Oversight: I played a leading role in shaping, promoting and marketing of new strategy and offerings, as well as alignment between old model of operations and transition to new strategy (2016/2017)
Business Operations: I had overall P/L responsibility, and coordination of strategy implementation processes across the board.
Startup Support: A core reason for iHub’s existence was supporting startups, so I was involved in mentoring and coaching startup teams taking part in various incubation and acceleration programs with partners such as World Bank and the BBC.
Product and Program Management: I supported the iHub’s consulting and user experience teams consisting of software engineers, and user experience researchers and designers working on various customer engagements.

Key Achievements

Strategic Partnerships: Led in growing strategic relationships with multinational partners such as Google, IBM, Intel, and others. I restored two at risk relationships, grew scope for another, resulting greater startup impact and reach.
Led sessions with VIP delegations, including two serving presidents and a UN Secretary General (see UN report here).; these were instrumental in cementing iHub’s position in the technology space in Africa.
Team Mentorship and Coaching: 5+ members of staff went on to start their own businesses. I remain a trusted advisor for many of those that were part of my team.
Strategy and Change Management through a transformation journey during an acquisition process from 2016.

Experiences and Reflections

I was able to adapt quickly and learn under pressure and expectations internally and externally. I was able to build trust with the team amidst a challenging period.
I grew significantly in my knowledge and experience of managing a team, and running a young organisation. Key lessons included the importance of good processes, a great team culture, strong corporate governance, and a solid operating model.

OSS Lead Engineer, Nokia Networks (Dec 2005 - Aug 2013)

As a customer facing OSS (operations support systems) Engineer I supported Nokia’s OSS platforms for Telecom infrastructure management from a pre-sales and post-sales perspective. I also managed IBM Tivoli Netcool products used for ingesting, analysing and visualising data from various telco management systems. I was responsible for:

Pre Sales support providing technical input and direction to stakeholders and business leaders
Customer engineering and solutioning focusing on pain points and solutions for telco infrastructure, computing, observability and data. (Included RHEL, Oracle, MySQL based systems and clusters)
Internal stakeholder engagement (across single and dotted reporting lines) for smooth customer operations for key customer accounts
Team Leadership and mentorship for new/junior engineers with the team

Achievements

Retained excellent customer relationships with telcos, while coordinating with internal teams for customer satisfaction and project success
Planned and deployed 20+ system upgrades/new installations for 5+ regional operators resulting in improved network monitoring performance management, configuration, and optimization.
Was recognized as key staff, as one of only 30 inaugural Africa Leader Journey (2012) participants
Mentored 7+ new engineers / graduate trainees.
Further developed soft skills in multicultural working across different time zones and countries

Experiences and Reflections

I successfully undertook a major system upgrade for a key client, upgrading from an unsupported platform to a supported platform with no defined process or procedure to follow at a global level, under pressure from various stakeholders including client engineers and their management. This involved extensive research, creation of a customised process, and successful cutover of hardware and software elements with limited downtime.
I spent 10 weeks working out of Belgium and participating in projects

Fixed Network Engineer, Huawei (Aug 2004 - Nov 2005)

I supported Huawei’s Broadband (xDSL), Data Communication (Router, Switch, WLAN and Firewall) and NGN (Soft Switch, Media Gateways) products in the Carrier and Enterprise Markets for the Eastern African Region. I was responsible for:

pre-sales technical negotiations
post-sales project management, implementation, support and maintenance.

Achievements

Learnt under pressure, and on the job and was productive in 1 month, able to represent the company
Developed soft skills in multicultural working across different time zones and countries
Leveraged foundational knowledge in networking and telecom to learn new technologies and apply them to new and ongoing projects.

Experiences and Reflections

Telkom Kenya - My first major project began one month after joining the company. I supported presales work, project design, including a country wide tour with customer representatives to inspect sites, and the final submission of the project proposal. I then coordinated implementation of the project
TTCL (Tanzania) - I successfully conducted a system upgrade for internet service, and successfully installed broadband (xDSL) equipment

Pre-University and In-University Break Work Experience

Freelance IT Work and Internships

These were a series of freelance IT and project management jobs as well as internships as I transitioned to telecommunications, that I took on during my University holidays.

Jan - Mar 2004: Network operations internship at Kenya Data Networks providing customer support and performing network management and equipment configurations
Jan - Mar 2003: Telecoms internship at COMTEC, performing network setup and equipment configurations
Jan - Mar 2002: Project Manager: As part of the research and development team, I was responsible for research into the development of a secure system for handling transactions between banks and online shopping malls, which would result in easier and safer online payments at that time. I also acted as Project Manager overseeing various ongoing projects.
Jan - Mar 2001: Web Developer, Open Source Co-convener: I was a web developer using Perl and PostgreSQL on Linux (SuSE and RedHat). Also coordinated the weekly Thursday open source community meetups that were hosted by the company.
Jan - Feb 2000: Systems Engineer: I successfully deployed a Email and Web Proxy Server running on RedHat Linux

Achievements

Demonstrated ability to continuously adapt and learn; from next to no knowledge of Linux, mail servers and web servers successful in email and web proxy server deployment for a client.
Developed customer support skills, working with customers to troubleshoot and resolve technical issues.
Demonstrated ability to convene the early open source tech community on a volunteer basis. This was my introduction to open source software and I have been an advocate and user since.
Developed foundational skills in telecommunications and networking that were instrumental in subsequent jobs.

Software Developer, Milestone Software Limited (April 1998 - April 1999)

This was my first proper job after high school and was in no small part as a result of the introduction to programming at Starehe Boys Centre.

Leveraging strong programming fundamentals (C++, BASIC), I quickly mastered MicroFocus COBOL, contributing to the company's Y2K compliance efforts for its software products (Payroll and Accounting) as well as successful migration of existing systems (Accounting, Payroll, Provident Fund) from Unix to Windows.
Within the set timeframe, I meticulously reviewed tens of thousands of lines of code making software patches, and ensured the smooth transition to the new millennium for our clients.
I delivered impactful technical training to corporate clients, significantly enhancing their software utilisation.

Achievements

Demonstrated early proficiency in software development, troubleshooting, and technical training.
Developed presentation skills through corporate training sessions, utilising tools like Microsoft PowerPoint.
Developed team working skills through working in a team environment

Experiences and Reflections

I left the company in April 1999 and joined university (Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology as an electrical and electronic engineering major with over a year of work experience. My pre-university work experience shaped how I approached formal study as well as learning in general, and helped develop my growth mindset.