Category: Business Daily

The future of HIV response depends on more than funding medicines and technologies. As governments take greater ownership of HIV programmes, they must also sustain a community centred approaches that have underpinned progress over the last four decades.

As the global HIV community gathers in Rio de Janeiro for the 2026 International AIDS Conference under the theme Rethink. Rebuild. Rise, we find ourselves at a defining moment.

Like never before, science has produced innovative HIV prevention tools with the potential to cut new HIV infections. Emergence of long-acting HIV prevention technologies, including long-acting injectable PrEP, marks another major milestone in the fight against the virus.

Yet new technologies only achieve public health impact when people trust them, can access them and choose to use them.

Kenya’s rollout of oral PrEP in 2017 offers an important example. Awareness and curiosity were initially high, but sustaining uptake proved more challenging. It became clear that making prevention technology available was not enough as people also needed to trust and understand it before feeling more confident using it.

As a technical partner supporting the Ministry of Health and NASCOP in introducing and scaling up oral PrEP, Lvcthealth helped generate evidence that shaped Kenya’s national rollout. During the IPCP oral PrEP demonstration project among adolescent girls and young women and female sex workers, continuation on oral PrEP declined from nearly 100 percent at initiation to about 30 percent within three months.

Working with communities to understand why people were discontinuing oral PrEP, we found that the barriers had little to do with the medicine itself.

We also found that stigma, misconceptions, concerns about confidentiality and low perception of HIV risk often shaped people’s decisions more than the scientific evidence behind the intervention. These findings informed provider training, demand generation and community engagement strategies, ensuring the national rollout better responded to people’s realities.

Working alongside communities, we developed trusted information materials, engaged community gatekeepers, and created spaces for honest dialogue about HIV prevention.

These conversations went beyond encouraging people to use oral PrEP and helped us understand how HIV prevention fit within people’s aspirations, relationships and everyday lives, while building confidence in oral PrEP and informing approaches that continue to shape HIV prevention programmes today.

We have continued applying these lessons through studies supporting introduction of new PrEP technologies under the MOSAIC consortium. Demand-generation tools co-created with young people are now supporting Kenya’s rollout of long-acting injectable PrEP, helping ensure these innovations reach the adolescents and young people who stand to benefit most.

These experiences have also contributed to global evidence on HIV prevention. A recent study published in The Lancet HIV and co-authored by Lvcthealth researchers reinforces what communities have long demonstrated that meaningful community engagement is essential to ensuring HIV prevention programmes are trusted, responsive and effective.

These lessons matter because the next phase of the HIV response will look very different from the last. As countries take greater ownership, there is a real risk that the conversation focuses primarily on sustaining medicines, diagnostics and new prevention technologies. Those investments are essential, but they are only part of what has driven progress.

We must also rebuild trust by ensuring communities are not passive recipients of innovation, but active partners in shaping how new technologies are introduced, delivered and sustained.

Community voices should inform not only what interventions are offered, but how they are implemented, so they respond to people’s realities, priorities, and aspirations.

Putting communities at the centre means much more than consulting them. It means listening before programmes are designed, co-designing solutions alongside communities and continuously adapting services based on their evolving needs and feedback. It is through these partnerships that policies become more responsive, and health systems become more resilient.

When Bosire Bonyi, an advocate of the High Court of Kenya, graduated from law school in 2018, he knew he did not want to be employed. After being admitted to the bar in 2022, he registered his law firm, officially beginning his legal practice.

“It wasn’t easy and because at the time I hadn’t built a name, business wasn’t coming through as fast. Business teaches you that you can get a lump sum payment now and never be paid the rest of the year, at all,” Bosire said.

Unlike salaried employees who can plan around a predictable monthly income, Bosire said he had to adopt strict financial discipline to manage an irregular cash flow.

The value of all stocks at the NSE stood at Sh4.013 trillion at the close of trading on Monday, having gained Sh20.9 billion on the day.

The bourse hit the new valuation milestone just nine months after it crossed the Sh3 trillion mark for the first time on November 6, 2025, offering investors a return of 33 percent or a Sh1 trillion gain over the period.

This reaffirmed the Nairobi bourse as the shortest route to wealth in an economy that has oscillated between strong and soft growth as investors increasingly turn to passive investments instead of pouring money into startups.

The NSE has been on a bullish run since 2024 after snapping a prolonged bear run that had drained investor confidence in the market.

Since the beginning of 2024, the bourse has added Sh2.54 trillion in valuation, equivalent to a gain of 179 percent.

In the period, it has outperformed other investment assets, including government securities, property, cash deposits and unit trusts, leading to higher demand for shares from investors who are seeking to maximise returns on their capital.

This demand, mainly coming from local investors, has driven up share prices of large stocks that dominate the market, such as Safaricom, Equity Group, KCB Group and Cooperative Bank of Kenya, by between 29 and 44 percent since the beginning of this year.

Higher dividends have also prompted demand in the stock market, particularly from local institutional investors, helping it shrug off foreign investor sales caused by global jitters that followed the Iran war.

The two new listings of KPC in March and Family Bank in May, which have added a combined Sh222.6 billion in new wealth to the market, have boosted the market valuation.

“Some of the drivers are broadly strong performance in key sectors such as banking, whose index has jumped by 33 percent this year, the revival of listings on the exchange and announcements of key transactions involving Absa Bank Kenya, Safaricom and NCBA Group, which were priced at a premium,” said Melodie Ndanu, a research analyst at Standard Investment Bank.

“We have also seen reallocation of capital to equities by institutional investors as government yields come down, as well as increased retail investor participation via digital platforms.”

By virtue of their large valuations, the top blue chips have been the biggest drivers of the NSE’s valuation gain.

Safaricom, the largest listed firm at the NSE, has added Sh330.5 billion in its market cap — the measure of investor wealth — in the year-to-date, giving the company a valuation of Sh1.47 trillion. The company’s share price has gained 29.1 percent to Sh36.60 since December 31, 2025.

Safaricom has accounted for nearly a third of the NSE’s Sh1.07 trillion gain in market capitalisation in 2026.

Equity and KCB have added Sh74.5 billion and Sh65 billion, respectively, in valuation this year, closing at Sh326.4 billion and Sh276.4 billion on Monday. Co-operative Bank has gained 44.3 percent or Sh62.2 billion this year, giving the lender a valuation of Sh202.7 billion.

The four firms, together with EABL, account for 62 percent of the NSE’s investor wealth.

They all reported higher dividends for the 2025 financial year, boosting their attractiveness to investors.

Safaricom’s payout rose to Sh2 per share for the year ended March 2026, from Sh1.20 in the previous year, while Equity increased its distribution to Sh5.75 per share from Sh4.25 in 2024.

KCB raised its total dividend to Sh7 per share (inclusive of a Sh2 per share special dividend) from Sh3 in 2024, while Co-operative Bank raised its full-year dividend to Sh2.50 per share from Sh1.50 previously.

Absa Kenya and I and M Group have added 37 percent or Sh49.4 billion and 61 percent or Sh45.3 billion this year, giving them valuations of Sh183.6 billion and Sh119.2 billion as at the close of trading on Monday.

Stanbic has added Sh37.6 billion to Sh115.7 billion, following a 48 percent increase in share price to Sh292.75.

Among the non-banking firms, Britam Holdings has added Sh22.9 billion and Kenya Power Sh15.8 billion to hit valuations of Sh46 billion and Sh42.3 billion, respectively.

These gains have left the equities market unchallenged as the top-performing asset class this year.

Treasury bonds issued in the last seven months offered investors annual interest payments of between 12 percent and 14.2 percent, before withholding taxes of 10 to 15 percent on the interest.

Investors in Treasury bills have earned between 7.4 percent and 9.2 percent in annualised interest as rates remained low despite the rise in inflation in the second quarter of the year due to higher energy prices on account of the war in Iran.

Those opting to keep cash in fixed deposit accounts in banks saw their rate fall to 6.84 percent in June 2026 from 7.03 percent in December 2025, as the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) lowered the base rate to 8.75 percent from 9.0 percent in December.

In the property sector, rental and sales prices in Nairobi and its satellite towns were in the single digits of up to 5.1 percent in the first quarter of the year as demand for new units remained muted due to challenging economic conditions.

On a 12-month basis, the rental and sale prices grew by 4.5 percent and 1.1 percent respectively as at March, as per data compiled by real estate firm HassConsult.

Returns from investments made through collective investment schemes have also trailed equities, owing to the falling returns in their underlying assets such as Treasury bills, bonds and cash deposits.

Shilling-denominated money market funds are now paying annual rates of between 5.2 percent and 11.2 percent, depending on the fund manager.

Collective investment schemes have risen in popularity as investors open up to professional investment services, reaching Sh851.7 billion in assets under management from Sh164.3 billion three years earlier.

Money market funds account for the largest share of unit trust assets at 51.9 percent, ahead of special funds at 23.9 percent and fixed income funds at 23.4 percent.

From pioneering mobile money to becoming one of the world’s leading digital payments markets, Kenya has emerged as a global benchmark for financial innovation. Banks are now building on that success by integrating artificial intelligence (AI), embracing embedded finance, and expanding digital banking services to deliver faster, more seamless, and increasingly personalised customer experiences.

But every new layer of convenience also creates new opportunities for fraudsters, money launderers, and cybercriminals. According to Standard Chartered Chief Compliance Officer (Kenya) and Sub-Cluster Head of East and Southern Africa, David Mwindi, the challenge is in ensuring that “innovation strengthens rather than erodes the trust that underpins the financial system”.

During an interview with Business Daily, Mwindi said digital finance had made banking faster and more accessible, but sustaining customer confidence requires innovation to be matched with equally strong safeguards against financial crime. “Customers will continue embracing digital financial services only if they are confident that their money, personal data, and transactions are protected,” he said.

As Kenya’s financial sector adopts new technologies, compliance is evolving alongside innovation. Rather than slowing technological progress, strong governance has become a key enabler, Mwindi said.

“There is often a perception that compliance slows innovation. In reality, compliance enables innovation because it creates confidence among customers, regulators, and the market,” he said.

Banks are increasingly engaging regulators before launching new digital products to ensure innovation is introduced within clear regulatory guardrails. That collaborative approach allows institutions to develop new services while maintaining the protections needed to preserve customer confidence.

The same philosophy guides AI adoption across banking operations. Financial institutions are increasingly deploying AI to strengthen fraud detection, monitor transactions, improve customer experience, and automate compliance processes.

However, Mwindi cautioned that responsible AI requires more than simply deploying algorithms. “We don’t just deploy AI and let it run without human oversight,” he said, adding that AI systems must be continuously tested to minimise bias, ensure transparency, and deliver fair outcomes.

He cited recruitment and transaction monitoring as areas where AI models require ongoing validation to remain accurate, explainable, and aligned with ethical standards. That emphasis on responsible innovation extends to customer data, now one of the financial sector’s most valuable, and sensitive, assets.

As consumers increasingly share financial information across banking apps, digital wallets, and integrated financial platforms, Kenya’s Data Protection Act has fundamentally changed how banks approach customer trust. “It is no longer just about complying with the law. Customers are more aware now and expect to know why their data is being collected, how it will be used, and who has access to it,” Mwindi said.

Banks have strengthened governance around data collection, customer consent, storage, and access, ensuring information is used only for clearly defined purposes. Those safeguards have become even more important as financial crime grows increasingly sophisticated.

Online fraud often thrives on human weakness. That vulnerability includes customers unknowingly clicking phishing links, or being manipulated into sharing confidential information, among other instances. To counter these threats, Standard Chartered has invested heavily in educating clients about phishing scams, fake websites, and fraudulent messages impersonating the bank.

Fraudsters, Mwindi noted, are also increasingly exploiting ongoing events to deceive victims. He cited the recent rollout of Kenya’s traffic enforcement system, where criminals quickly created fake websites claiming motorists had outstanding traffic fines and directing payments to fraudulent accounts.

Alongside customer education, banks have strengthened validation measures, including device binding, multi-factor authentication, and enhanced identity verification, to reduce unauthorised access to customer accounts.

Even so, according to Mwindi, technology alone cannot defeat financial crime. Strong regulation is necessary, and Kenya has made significant progress in strengthening its regulatory framework, including introducing legislation governing virtual asset service providers. The challenge now is to improve enforcement and coordination among institutions, Mwindi said.

Towards this, he called for closer collaboration among banks, regulators, law enforcement agencies, lawyers, accountants, and other stakeholders to better connect financial intelligence, investigate suspicious activity, and provide feedback to reporting institutions.

“Trust is a big currency for us as a financial institution,” Mwindi said. “As we create more convenience, the risk also increases. We can only win this war if we all collaborate and remain alert.”

Being part of a global banking group gives Standard Chartered an advantage in anticipating emerging risks. The bank draws lessons from markets that have adopted new technologies earlier, and applies those insights locally when designing digital products and security controls.

The bank is keen on sustaining this leadership as financial technologies continue to evolve.

Kenya has signed a five-year agreement with the Beginnings Fund, a global philanthropic initiative, unlocking $80 million (Sh10.4 billion) in catalytic financing to strengthen maternal and newborn health services in 21 counties.

The funding will support approximately 200 high-volume health facilities and is expected to benefit 5.9 million women and newborns. The Beginnings Fund says the programme could avert 46,494 maternal and newborn deaths by 2031.

The funding will be used to strengthen the workforce, expand access to essential medicines and technology, improve referral networks and upgrade the health information system.

“Frameworks or agreements do not save lives. Implementation does. I urge the Beginnings Fund, partners and responsible institutions to move with urgency from signing to execution,” Health CS Aden Duale said.

“Every delayed procurement, every postponed activity and every missed milestone represent mothers and newborns whose lives remain at unnecessary risk.”

Beginnings Fund CEO, Alice Kang’ethe, said lasting progress is achieved when governments lead and partners work alongside them.

“Kenya has demonstrated that commitment by placing mothers and newborns at the centre of its health agenda and bringing together the government, counties, health workers, implementing partners and philanthropy around a shared vision,” she said.

The funding comes as Kenya faces a high burden of maternal and newborn deaths. The country records around 355 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births, while neonatal mortality stands at 21 per 1,000 live births and stillbirths at 19 per 1,000.

Most of these deaths are preventable through timely access to quality care during pregnancy, childbirth and the first weeks of life.

The investment is expected to complement funding from national and devolved governments and to align with existing programmes, including the Every Woman Every Newborn Everywhere (EWENE) Acceleration Plan, the Maternal and Newborn Health Rapid Results Initiative, Universal Health Coverage reforms, and Taifa Care.

Kenya joins Malawi, Zimbabwe, Rwanda, Zanzibar, Tanzania, Uganda, Ghana, Lesotho and Nigeria among the first countries to formally launch a partnership under the Beginnings Fund.

The Fund is supported by a group of founding donors, including the Mohamed bin Zayed Foundation for Humanity, the Gates Foundation, the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation (CIFF), Delta Philanthropies and the ELMA Foundation.

As of July, the Beginnings Fund had raised $495.4 million (Sh64.1 billion) towards its $525 million (Sh67.9 billion) target for the first funding phase, which runs from 2026 to 2031 in10 African countries including Kenya, Ethiopia, Ghana, Lesotho, Malawi, Nigeria, Rwanda, Tanzania, Zanzibar, Uganda and Zimbabwe.

The Fund aims to prevent more than 300,000 maternal and newborn deaths across these countries and improve access to quality care for 34 million women and newborns.

Kenya’s insurtech startups have attracted an estimated Sh8.54 billion ($66 million) in venture funding over the past five years, cementing the country’s position as one of Africa’s leading innovation hubs in insurance technology.

The inflows place Kenya second on the continent behind South Africa, which leads with about $142 million (Sh18.38 billion). Nigeria follows closely with about $54 million (Sh6.99 billion), according to data compiled in the latest African insurtech landscape report by AfricInvest.

An insurtech company (short for insurance technology) is a business that uses modern software, artificial intelligence, and digital tools to make the insurance process faster, simpler, and more efficient.

The growing investor appetite for insurtechs points to the rising confidence in startups seeking to disrupt how insurance products are designed, distributed and consumed, particularly in markets such as Kenya where penetration is under three percent.

“South Africa and Kenya are the continent’s most active insurtech markets. Both benefit from vibrant innovation ecosystems, higher insurance adoption and enabling regulatory frameworks and sandboxes that support productive partnerships,” said the report.

Kenya’s position has been reinforced by the BimaLab accelerator and its regulatory sandbox30, which have helped establish Nairobi as the continent’s insurtech innovation hub alongside Johannesburg and Lagos.

The rise in funding comes as insurtech firms play an increasingly central role in narrowing Africa’s vast insurance protection gap.

The AfricInvest report said at least six in 10 Africans now have access to banking or mobile money services, but fewer than two in 10 hold any form of insurance cover.

The high protection gap has created an opportunity for technology-driven insurers to expand access using digital platforms, embedded insurance and microinsurance products tailored to low-income populations.

“African insurtech startups are frontrunners in insurance bundled with financial services (through MFI and bank partnerships), in health insurance combined with wellness services, and in cross-border expansion,” said the report.

Some of the insurtechs listed in the report as having a presence in Kenya are CarePay, PULA, Lami, Turaco, mTek (which was acquired by Singapore-based bolttech in December 2025), Bluewave, Kakbima, Vooli Insurtech Limited, ACRE Africa, Incourage and PesaKit.

The insurtechs in Kenya are riding on mobile-first models and partnerships with telecoms, banks and agribusiness platforms to reach millions of previously uninsured customers. These models significantly reduce distribution costs, which is one of the biggest barriers to insurance uptake.

Kenya is seeing an increase in microinsurance products as insurers go big on the informal sector. The low-cost policies, which are often bundled with everyday services such as mobile airtime or agricultural inputs, are making insurance affordable and relevant to informal sector workers.

The country’s strong performance in attracting insurtech capital has been driven by a supportive regulatory environment and a mature fintech ecosystem. For instance, initiatives such as regulatory sandboxes and incubation programmes have enabled startups to test products and scale faster.

The presence of mobile money infrastructure has also given Kenyan firms an advantage in distribution compared to many other African markets.

Local startups are increasingly adopting embedded insurance models, where coverage is integrated into existing products or services.

This approach mirrors trends seen in Asia, where insurtech ecosystems have scaled rapidly.

The AfricInvest report showed that across Africa, investors have deployed more than $300 million (Sh38.83 billion) into insurtech ventures over the past five years, with funding peaking in 2025.

Beyond Kenya, Egypt and Morocco are also emerging as notable markets, while regional expansion strategies are becoming more prominent among startups seeking scale.

Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Ethiopia and Rwanda are among Africa’s fastest-growing cybercrime hotspots, driven by mobile money fraud and advances in artificial intelligence (AI).

A new report by Interpol notes incidents of scammers tricking mobile network providers into moving phone numbers to new SIM cards they control, technically called SIM swap fraud, rose by 327 percent in Kenya in 2025.

The international police agency says more than 123,000 fraudulent SIM cards were issued, enabling criminals to hijack victims’ phone numbers and steal cash from mobile money wallets.

The report says the region’s fast adoption of mobile money has made it a prime target for fraudsters, while AI is enabling criminals to launch faster and more complex attacks.

“The region’s rapid digital adoption has outpaced its ability to secure it,” the report says, noting that while Kenya and Tanzania have made progress in strengthening cybercrime laws, criminal networks continue to exploit weak regional coordination and jurisdictional boundaries.

Kenya recorded more than 46,786 distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks targeting telecommunication operators in the first half of 2025.

DDoS attacks involve flooding websites, servers or networks with an overwhelming amount of internet traffic from multiple compromised devices to make the service slow or unavailable to real users.

Interpol also flags Kenya’s high cases of cybercriminals impersonating trusted organisations or individuals to trick people into revealing sensitive information like passwords, bank card numbers or login credentials, which is known as phishing.

“Kenya was included in SOCRadar’s top phishing detections in September 2025,” the report says, referencing the US-based cyber threat monitoring platform.

Advances in AI have allowed criminals to automate cyber-attacks. The technology has made it more difficult for victims to detect phishing campaigns, malicious requests for information or money and malware deployment.

In Africa alone, AI is enabling 55 percent of reported cybercrime.

At the same time, Kenya’s mobile money market is expanding rapidly, giving criminals a larger playing field. Data from the Communications Authority (CA) shows mobile money subscriptions reached 53.4 million by March this year, representing a penetration rate of 100.1 percent.

Safaricom’s M-Pesa, which controls 89.1 percent of the market, processed Sh41.68 trillion in transactions in the year ended March 2026, according to the telco’s financials. This is equivalent to about 2.4 times Kenya’s gross domestic product.

Interpol says 97 percent of African countries surveyed identified mobile money fraud as their most common cyber scam. The report attributes the trend to inconsistent know-your-customer (KYC) procedures, particularly where telecom operators lack the technical capacity to verify customer identities in real time.

The agency also warns that the rise of “money mulling” is making cybercrime harder to combat. Criminals recruit individuals through fake online job advertisements posing as opportunities for “financial agents” or “remote transaction officers” to receive and transfer illicit funds, often without understanding they are laundering proceeds from business email compromise, ransomware or cryptocurrency scams.

Interpol further said fragmented cooperation between banks, telecommunications companies and law enforcement agencies has created major blind spots.

“While financial institutions could detect suspicious transactions, they lacked the legal authority or technical channels to block SIM swaps or freeze accounts without court orders, a process that often took weeks to months,” the report says.

The police body also warns that Africa’s lack of an interoperable digital identity framework is allowing criminals to steal identities in one country, open financial accounts in another and move illicit funds through a third.

The assessment is based on a survey of 49 African member countries, drawing on information from law enforcement agencies, national cybersecurity units and judicial authorities, alongside cybersecurity telemetry from private-sector partners.

At the recent premier Prosperity Summit hosted by Edith Siddondo and Profit Acumen at Serena Hotel, one reflection stood out strongly for me: prosperity is far deeper than income.

In today’s BANI (Brittle, Anxious, Non-Linear and Incomprehensible) world, many highly educated and highly paid professionals are still worried, financially strained, emotionally exhausted and living without clarity or long-term direction. At the same time, others with similar opportunities are building lives marked by clarity, stability, influence, stewardship, resilience and meaningful impact.

Because prosperity is not merely financial. It is neurological, behavioral, emotional and deeply connected to self-leadership. During my session, I explored three powerful dimensions that shape prosperity today: the brain we use, the numbers we track and the people we allow to hold us accountable.

Which brain do you use?

Modern neuroscience shows us that human beings often operate from three dominant systems of thinking.

The Survival Brain is driven by fear, scarcity, urgency and protection. It reacts quickly and focuses only on immediate needs. In uncertain economic times, many people unknowingly live permanently in this mode – making reactive decisions around money, work, and life.

The Emotional Brain seeks validation, approval, comfort and belonging. This is often where emotional spending, lifestyle inflation, poor boundaries and comparison-driven decisions emerge.

Then there is the Executive Brain – associated with vision, planning, discipline, emotional regulation, delayed gratification and long-term thinking. This is the brain that builds prosperity intentionally. It pauses before reacting. It invests, plans, reflects and creates systems for sustainability. This is the brain function that we at BLT focus on to enable leaders become more effective and transformational.

The challenge today is that many people are trying to build prosperous lives while mentally exhausted, emotionally overwhelmed, and trapped between survival and performance pressure.

Which numbers do you know?

I am always surprised at how many professionals know their company strategy and targets better than their own personal strategy and financial reality. I invite you to check, calculate and audit the following key numbers:

Do you know your hourly income? Do you know your actual monthly spend? Do you know your total debt exposure?

Do you know your outstanding loans and why you took them?

Do you have a repayment strategy?

Do you know your return on investments made? Are you intentionally growing passive income streams?

If your salary stopped today, how long is your financial runway? These are uncomfortable but necessary questions.

Far too many people are earning income but not building wealth. Others are increasing lifestyle costs faster than assets. Some are financing appearances while quietly drowning in financial pressure.

In a rapidly shifting world marked by economic uncertainty, artificial intelligence, changing work models and rising costs of living, financial literacy and disciplined stewardship are no longer optional life skills.

Prosperity requires awareness. It requires intentionality. It requires disciplined stewardship.

Who are you accountable to? This final dimension is about humble accountability. No serious organisation operates without governance, oversight, or wise counsel – yet many individuals are trying to build meaningful lives completely alone. Leadership is not a solo journey.

In my first book, Rise, I speak about the importance of having a Personal Board of Directors – people who challenge your thinking, sharpen your judgment, stretch your vision, and hold you accountable for the life you say you want to build.

Your Personal Board of Directors may include mentors, coaches, spiritual leaders, financial advisors, wise friends, therapists, accountability partners or peers courageous enough to tell you the truth.

Isolation is expensive. I have seen too many leaders fail as they are surrounded by sychophants rather than truth-tellers.

The future will not belong simply to those who earn more. It will belong to those who can think clearly, regulate wisely, steward intentionally, remain accountable, and build sustainable lives anchored on purpose, discipline, and self-leadership.

Prosperity, ultimately, is not just about what comes into your hands. It is about what shapes your mind, your habits, your decisions, and your life. And this is Self Leadership for impact and prosperity.

“There is a difference between a family owned and a family run business,” points out Florence Wanja, Head of Business and Commercial Banking at Stanbic Bank, as she responds to my question on the common challenges faced by family enterprises.

“Most of the large multinational corporations that we see and brands that we know, your Colgate and the like, started as family businesses, initially starting off as family run. With time, as a business grows, it becomes family owned, where the owners are family members, but the business is probably run by professionals while certain decision making lies with the family members,” she explained.

The transition from being family run to bringing professionals on board to manage the business while the founder takes a back seat but retains ownership has proven to be a hard nut to crack, resulting in succession challenges.

A survey by PwC found that 45 percent of Kenyan family businesses have no succession plan. Data from the Family Firm Institute shows that less than a third of family businesses, or 30 percent, survive into the second generation. Only 12 percent remain viable in the third generation, while just three percent continue operating into the fourth generation or beyond.

Recently, Isuzu East Africa terminated its 62-year-old dealership agreement with Associated Motors Limited after the dealer failed to establish a succession plan, leaving the business struggling.

Associated Motors Limited (AML) was appointed as a dealer of the Japanese car manufacturer in 1964, with the business later passed down through generations of the family.

However, siblings of the current management have relocated outside the country and have no interest in the business, forcing the current patriarch to wind it down after efforts to sell it proved futile.

Jane Gichuki, Group Head of Finance and Administration at Symbion Consulting Group, says there are critical transitional steps every family business must take to position itself for longevity.

The first is to assess the current governance structure and ensure there is a clear boundary between family roles and business responsibilities. This calls for regular scheduled management meetings where decisions are documented and action points followed up, allowing family members to develop other aspects of their relationships. She warns that a business can easily consume family life, making it the only topic discussed at home.

“Scheduled meetings also help deal with the founder’s dependency syndrome where everything runs through one person. When they are away, decisions stall,” said Ms Gichuki.

Creating clear boundaries also helps to identify gaps within the business where professional expertise may be required.

A well-defined business structure also ensures family members are placed in roles that match their abilities and can be held accountable for their performance.

For the heirs, she advocates gaining experience outside the family business before joining the enterprise.

Ms Gichuki also stresses the need to involve the next generation in developing the business’s medium-term strategic plans, giving them insight into where the company is headed.

She recommends establishing a board that can provide independent advice and help resolve issues objectively, unlike family members who may be emotionally invested.

“It is also important to clarify what the retiring generation will do next, otherwise they will hang around the business,” said Ms Gichuki.

Ibrahim Nthitu, a second generation hotel owner in Makueni, believes it is necessary to introduce the next generation to the business at an early stage.

Mr Nthitu is the General Manager of Kambua Resort Kibwezi, an establishment founded by his father in Makueni County.

For him, the transition was not smooth. He had to leave his pursuits outside the country and honour his father’s call to return and run the family business. Although he had no prior experience in the hospitality industry, he accepted the challenge. He says he does not regret the decision, having immersed himself in the sector, where he now serves as Secretary General of the Makueni Hospitality Association.

He notes that succession challenges are evident across the hospitality industry, with many owners tied to their premises to ensure smooth operations. As a result, training seminars organised by the association, including a recent one on business continuity planning, often record low attendance because most owners are involved in the day-to-day running of their establishments and need to be physically present.

“Businesses should be managed by competent individuals. If family members are to be involved in the family business(es), then they must acquire the necessary skills. If not, they should remain as shareholders or board members and wait to receive dividends,” said Mr Nthitu.

“In my opinion beneficiaries who are directly involved in the running of a going concern should be allocated shares when the principal is still alive. These shares are then not part of the estate and any funds invested by a beneficiary in a going concern should be clearly indicated,” he added.

Under this approach, those who contribute more to the business receive greater rewards because they have sacrificed their careers and other sources of income to grow the family enterprise.

Rank and authority within the business should also be clearly defined while the founders are still alive, as leadership does not have to follow birth order or gender.

The older generation should also be willing to embrace ideas brought forward by the next generation, who may have a better understanding of changing market trends and new funding opportunities.

Such ideas include the adoption of technology and responding to evolving customer preferences. There is, however, a tendency among founders to cling to practices that worked in the past while patronising the very beneficiaries they have invited to join the business.

Ms Wanja notes that banks have a vested interest in ensuring the continuity of family owned businesses because many of the credit facilities extended to these enterprises are long-term and their performance is closely tied to how successfully the firms navigate different business cycles.

Stanbic Bank recently established a family business division to help family owned enterprises address the unique challenges they face in an ever evolving business environment. The division offers financial solutions as well as advisory services aimed at helping family businesses survive beyond the fourth generation.

The National Treasury targets clean-up of data on debt tapped from the domestic market amid mounting pressure for transparency in the government’s financial transactions.

National Treasury Principal Secretary Chris Kiptoo said that recruitment is underway for a Registrar of national government securities to help improve transparency in the management of the country’s haul of domestic debt, which hit Sh7.4 trillion as at July 24, 2026, accounting for 82.3 percent of the total borrowing.

“The National Treasury is in the process of operationalising the position of Registrar of national government securities. The position of the Registrar of national government securities has been created, and the Public Service Commission has conducted interviews for the position,” he told members of the Public Petitions Committee of the National Assembly.

National government securities constitute Treasury Bills, which refer to short-term instruments, and Treasury Bonds, which constitute long-term instruments through which the Exchequer borrows from the public to finance gaps in the annual budget.

As at the close of July 2026, Treasury Bills and Treasury Bonds constituted Sh1.14 trillion and Sh6.09 trillion, respectively.

Dr Kiptoo’s submission was necessitated by a petition filed by Beatrice Waiyaki and others, representing Kiambu County Empowerment Network and the Bunge Mashinani Initiative regarding the governance of public debt in the country.

The petitioners also poked holes in the government’s aggregation of national debt data, terming it complex and inaccessible to ordinary Kenyans seeking to understand how the Exchequer is structuring debt, whose financing is met using taxpayer funds.

The Treasury PS told the National Assembly that plans are underway to overhaul the country’s debt reporting framework by adopting a more centralised platform for all debt data in the country.

A team dubbed the Public Debt Warehouse Implementation Committee is spearheading this overhaul.

“A comprehensive and mandatory public debt register already exists. However, the National Treasury is implementing a Debt Data Warehouse to consolidate debt information from multiple systems and sources into a secure and centralized platform. This will reduce manual processes, eliminate duplication, minimise errors and enhance the speed, accuracy and reliability of debt reporting”, Kiptoo said.

The latest changes in the country’s debt management and reporting frameworks come as pressure rises for the government to adhere to the prescribed debt ceiling of 55 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) as the October 2023 amendment of the Public Finance Management Act.

Currently, Kenya’s debt-to-GDP ratio is at 69.4 percent of GDP, which places it significantly above the legally prescribed ceiling, with the government having been given five years within the adoption of the amendment to align the country’s debt with the 55 percent of GDP ceiling.

“The National Treasury is actively implementing a multi-year fiscal consolidation programme to reduce the fiscal deficit in the medium-term and shift domestic borrowing toward longer tenor to reduce refinancing risk”, Kiptoo said.

The government’s debt stock surged to Sh12.82trillion in June 2026 on a new wave of borrowing amid depressed revenue collection, new disclosures by the National Treasury said.

The government document laid in the National Assembly on July 29, 2026, shows that a cumulative Sh416.2 billion was procured from multilateral and commercial creditors during the period January 1, 2026 and April 30, 2026 to finance various projects in the country.

In the current financial year, the government plans to borrow Sh987.4 billion from the domestic market to finance the Sh4.82 trillion budget. This marks an increase from the Sh961.7 billion borrowed from the domestic market in the financial year that ended June 30, 2026.