There was a work policy at the food company that you could not get pregnant within the first year of employment, at the pain of being fired
Growing up in Nairobi, Maureen Amakabane had a comfortable life by all means; a good house, access to good healthcare and education, and at least three meals a day – the typical life of a middle income family in Kenya. But despite her comforts, or perhaps because of them, she took life without much seriousness, and she was quite uninspired.
“When picking subjects in high school I did not even know which to take up and which to leave, as I did not have an idea of what profession I wanted to pursue in the future. I knew I did not want to delve into sciences, so being a lawyer was the next best option for me.”
She was still undecided when she joined United States International University (USIU), but here things were different. Instead of being condemned for not knowing what she wanted to do in life, she was understood, and given an option to be an undecided major.
Finding passion in business
“As an undecided major, I did general units which included sciences, humanities, maths and business. One day our marketing professor, Charles Mayaka, invited us to a forum where business executives were in attendance. I still remember the address by Bidco Africa CEO, Vimal Shah. I walked out of that a different person; inspired.”
By this time, Maureen was running her own business buying and selling second-hand (mtumba) bags and socks amongst her friends. She therefore had a natural inclination towards business, and she had found the little shove she needed to make her decision. She graduated from the university with a bachelor’s degree in International Business Administration, with a concentration in marketing, in 2006.
“Shortly after graduation I joined the Serena Group of hotels as an intern and later as a contracted worker. I did not quite fit in however, as I was not doing any sales or marketing work, where my passion truly lied, so I decided to quit.”
Another opportunity came up at Elex products, a company that deals with home and industrial detergents manufacture, and I joined as the head of sales and marketing. I then moved to Excloosive and then later joined a food processing company, all in a similar position.
‘Death’ of her job and ‘birth’ of her passion project
At the height of her career and when she thought she had finally found her place, things took a drastic turn and Maureen was fired unceremoniously, her dismissal letter saying she did not exhibit managerial skills and that she failed to get along with other managers.
“There was a work policy at the food company that you could not get pregnant within the first year of employment, at the pain of being fired. Unfortunately, this happened to a lady within my department. Later, another lady of Asian descent who used to work in accounting found herself in a similar situation, except she was not fired. That did not sit well with me as it had undertones of forthright discrimination.”
Maureen says she started posing ‘hard’ questions to the management, and she strongly believes that was the beginning of her career’s end at the company. One day she was called into her boss’s office and she was handed a letter with only one paragraph, and she was out of her job.
However, she had been running a concurrent project of her own on the side consulting with business owners and helping them out with sales and marketing, mostly during weekends and on her free days.
“I had a very well structured network of small businesses that I was engaging with, so I got into consultancy with both feet now. I had also moved to Nyayo Estate at the time and someone who wanted to introduce a milk brand in the locality approached me. I therefore got back to doing business, hawking milk from door to door within the estate.”
In 2013 Maureen joined a Facebook page; Nyayo mums estate Embakasi. The lady who was managing the page, Christine was moving out of the estate and she posted asking for someone to take up the group. When Maureen reached out, Christine shared with her the vision she had for the group.
“I employed my marketing and business skills, and turned the group into a marketplace. The group became vibrant and I ran markets, from farmer’s markets, to boot and yard sales. It was a place where mothers could trade and engage in community development conversations.”
Digital revolution
When Google introduced their digital literacy programme for Africa, Maureen was recommended by a friend and she got some resources, as well as some from Facebook, to train the women she was engaging with on digital literacy. She notes that the trainings were an eye opener even for her, and some beautiful success stories came out of it.
“One of the ladies who took part in the training went on ahead to open two shops, and is currently in the process of opening the third one,” she notes with pride.
Another story that stands out for her is that of a woman who had quit her job to raise her children. She wanted to run a business from the boot of her car, but her husband refused because of social stigma, stating that they were ‘people of a certain class’. With training however, and having joined the Whatsapp marketplace, she was able to transact and sell right from the comfort of her home.
Up until 2020, the group’s operation was heavily dependent on Maureen to transfer contacts between all the people who wanted to trade, and thus the market was limited. She was therefore challenged to start a marketplace on Whatsapp, where the response was much faster. The idea bloomed and currently, there are 4 clusters of 256 members each.
She adds; “We also started a website, nyayomomssoko.com, which were are working to transition into an e-commerce platform that not only sells products, but services as well. The intention is for the platform to have resources to help with proper bookkeeping for instance, resume templates and other digital resources that make business transactions more efficient for women, as well as develop them professionally.”
Maureen notes that the marketplace has created employment opportunities for the youth they work with in doing deliveries, developing of their e-commerce platform as well as production of their magazines.
“The Agrarian revolution, the Industrial revolution as well as the Educational revolution, left women out. It is upon us to make sure the Digital revolution does not as well, and federate ourselves. We can harness the power of the digital era and utilise it to grow ourselves as women,” she submits.
Apart from running the marketplace, Maureen also does consultancy in business development, marketing and digital literacy. BY DAILY NATION