I didn't read my way into this. I lived it.

I have been the founder in the arena.

Real estate. Beauty and wellness. A modelling agency. Technology. Consultancy. Selling mandazis by the roadside. And yes, joining an MLM and convincing people they needed to eat 1,000 cloves of garlic daily for clean blood, or apply a diluted version of crop fertilizer on their hair for length and volume.

Some were epic failures that today I can look back at and smile. Some I am still healing through. Others did so well, and I still feel very proud of them.

Across all of this, I have helped mobilise over $100M in capital. I have been the one approving proposals. I have also been the bootstrapped founder raising funds. Sitting on both sides taught me what no textbook could.

I have done the work that matters.

I led four public universities to develop and implement Sexual and Gender-Based Violence policies. One of them set up a daycare centre for student mothers. I was a student mother at the time. That work was both structural and personal.

I spoke to students directly. About sexual harassment. About bodily integrity. About what it costs young women to keep showing up in classrooms that do not protect them. The policies were the structure. The conversations were the heart.

I have built capital where there was none.

I co-founded a table banking group in an informal settlement. We matched every coin the women saved. That group became the capital base for their ventures. It is still running today.

I supported women leaders into elective and appointive seats. I worked grassroots. I worked policy. I worked across the gap that usually keeps these worlds apart.

I have stood at the front of a movement.

In 2014, I was one of thirteen women who organised My Dress My Choice. It became one of the largest and most successful peaceful protests in Kenya’s history. We used social media to mobilise an entire country.

For that work, we were named Facebook’s Women of the Year 2014. The protest led to public stripping being recognised in the Constitution of Kenya as a form of violence against women, punishable by up to twenty years in prison. There is still so much work to do. But I take pride in having helped move the needle for women in Kenya, and the wider movement across the continent.

I have worked across the continent.

I worked across multiple African countries supporting governments to end harmful practices. I supported a global movement of 900+ organisations to fundraise, measure impact, and tell their stories. Over $5M in grants disbursed to organisations doing the hard, unglamorous work on the ground.

Across all of it, I learned that the people are the work. The funds, the models, the policies. They all run through someone. And that someone is the constraint or the catalyst.