Public Holiday

It is Eid al-Fitr here today (or Ramazan Bayram in my own language) –  a Muslim religious holiday marking the end of the Ramadan fasting period. It is a public holiday in Kenya which was a somewhat unexpected (though very pleasant) surprise given only ~10-15% of the population is Muslim. So no reason to complain at all and a perfect opportunity to sit back and reflect on the last couple of days.

Before that however, it was time for some more serious shopping. Breakfast and dinner at home was getting very unexciting to say the least, so headed off to Prestige Plaza – a shopping mall recommended to me by one of the cab drivers. Apropos cab drivers: spending 2-3h a day in a taxi in the gigantic traffic jam which is Nairobi in the morning and in the evening (but also during the rest of the day!) gives a lot of talking opportunities and allows to get a decent insight on what is going on around. I can only say how impressed I was – the clarity and logic with which they see the country development and issues, and the moderate views they take on problems which have caused serious unrest elsewhere. We spoke about corruption, “fat cats” (the number of 4x4s on the streets is simply staggering), changes to the constitution, politicians, diversity (7 major ethnic groups and various other smaller ones, 69 languages) … While hardly moving yesterday, the driver showed me where the road goes to Kibera, part of Nairobi and the biggest slum in Africa.  A few minutes later it became clear that he grew up there, before his parents got support from a Microfinance Institution and the family was able to get out and bring the children properly through school.

There was a Masai Market at Prestige Plazza and it is a miracle I didn’t buy anything, given the persistency with which one is radiated on every step of the way through. I had to sign in blood to come back in a couple of days though … The supermarket at the mall turned out to be “Nakumatt”, one of the bigger chains here. This immediately reminded me of the harrowing stories which Veronique Su, the Regional Director of Swisscontact East Africa, told me over a “Welcome lunch” last week of the attack at the Westgate Shopping Centre last year and how the Nakumatt employees managed to bring visitors to safety or go back to the shopping floor where the attackers still were to get first aid materials for the wounded hiding in rooms at the back of the store.

So what happened at work recently: the Board and executive management were at an offsite to discuss Equity’s future strategies and set-up, i.e. only limited possibility for me to explore the couple of preliminary target focus points. Following another review on a JV arrangement that is being put in place, I am now trying to get a project manager to coordinate the set-up activities going forward. Also met a few times the General Manager of Equity’s Consulting Group and discussed how the business is being set-up, the differentiating strategy and how it fits to the existing core Microfinance and the new Investment Banking business lines. It is the perfect story overall with lots of potential and Equity is quickly executing – everyday new people are joining and things are shaping up in a very entrepreneurial way. Taking yesterday as an example: while discussing the Custody business with the new IB CEO and the Head of Wealth Management, we somehow went into the topic of office space planning. Walking around for some time and looking at the offices and trying to figure out which team could sit where and whether it has to be separated for Compliance reasons, it became obvious that this needs to be done in a more structured way also taking into account the expected growth over the next 12 months. It took a while to understand who in the Bank is looking after Facilities management and Compliance, but 2h later we were all sitting together in a room with a floor plan and a white board in front of us, drawing partition walls and door locks, debating how many meeting rooms will be needed, moving printers around and ensuring people have access to the kitchen… The ball is now rolling and I am told in a week time things should be in place to welcome the next IB staff member joining the team.