Category: Business Daily

Safaricom’s overdraft service, Fuliza, saw the number of active users rising 22.2 percent to 9.1 million in the six months to November 2025, up from 7.5 million in a similar period last year.

According to Safaricom’s half-year financial results released on Thursday, Kenyans borrowed a total of Sh629.2 billion through Fuliza, an increase of 39.8 percent from Sh450 billion last year.

The average loan size also grew by 7.8 percent, from Sh236.20 to Sh254.60, amid consumer reliance on short-term digital credit.

Launched in 2019, Fuliza allows Safaricom customers to complete transactions even when they have insufficient funds in their M-Pesa mobile money wallets, provided it is within one’s assigned limit, which is determined by their M-Pesa activity and history.

The optional service is run in partnership with NCBA and KCB Bank, who act as underwriters, and covers the shortfall for services like person-to-person cash transfer, withdrawal at M-Pesa agents, making payments, or purchasing airtime.

Funds received in the account are then automatically used to repay the outstanding Fuliza amount with interest and fees.

Safaricom charges a one-off one-percent access fee and a daily maintenance fee from Sh5 for loans between Sh101 and Sh500, up to Sh30 for amounts between Sh2,501 and Sh70,000.

However, a majority of Safaricom’s customers have still not opted into the service, as the latest figures represent 17.8 percent of the company’s 51.12 million 90-day total active customers.

Safaricom’s mobile savings and lending platform, M-Shwari, recorded strong customer growth but weaker loan performance.

The number of monthly active M-Shwari users rose 17.6 percent to 7.9 million, up from 6.7 million last year.

However, the average loan size declined 9.7 percent from Sh10,170 to Sh9,186, while total disbursements dipped 1.8 percent to Sh48 billion, down from Sh48.9 billion a year earlier.

Overall, revenue from M-Pesa rose 14 percent to Sh88.1 from Sh77.2 billion last year.

An injustice against a Kenyan soul-funk band more than 50 years ago is being remedied through the digital release of the two groundbreaking albums recorded by the group.

The Mighty Cavaliers released two classic albums, Fisherman in 1976 and Mapendo a year later but the musicians were never acknowledged by the record company.

In 2022, African music collector Dennis Krailing, owner of the German label Want Some Records, bought a collection of albums from Kenya that included a copy of Mapendo. ‘Naturally, the cover artwork immediately caught my eye,’ Krailing told BDLife.

‘When I listened to it for the first time, I thought, ‘I have never heard anything quite like this from Kenya before.’ There was no question that I would keep the record instead of selling it – but the thought remained, ‘How can I share this incredible music with others?’

With his friend Samy Ben Redjeb’s encouragement, founder of the Frankfurt-based label Analog Africa, Krailing undertook to release not just Mapendo, but also its predecessor, Fisherman.

Bassist Bonny Wanda, one of three surviving members of the band, says the reissue of the albums is about honouring a group of musicians who were then in their early 20s and were purely motivated by their passion for the music.

‘As most of my fellow musicians were young and gullible, we could easily be fooled by them,’ explains Bonny, who lives in London, UK. ‘We were focused on making new and innovative music, and paid too little attention to the business side of things.’

At the time, musicians in Kenya, were offered the choice of receiving a one-off payment for their studio recording sessions or waiting for royalties, for which they had to be registered with the Music Copyright Society of Kenya.

Krailing discovered that the copyright for both albums was registered under the name of Daudi Kabaka, and therefore, he had to obtain a licence from his son, heir to the legendary Kenyan musician.

Apparently, two years after the original release of Fisherman, it was reissued by a French label with a picture of Kabaka on the sleeve, who was named as the writer of all the songs. Worse was to come for the Mighty Cavaliers on their next project.

The recording of Mapendo was financed by Englishman Siegfried Aron, who owned the Zambezi Motel (the building that later became the PCEA Training School, Kikuyu), where the Mighty Cavaliers played occasionally when they were not at their regular haunt, the iconic Starlight Club. When the album was released, to the horror of the band, their names were missing from the record.

Disillusioned, the Mighty Cavaliers disbanded, with each member pursuing other interests.

Five decades later, Want Some Records has remastered and re-released these two discs, giving due credit to all the rightful musicians.

Besides Bonny, the other members of the Mighty Cavaliers were vocalists Rashid Salim and Juma ‘Bazwaley’ Njuguna, guitarists George ‘Fox’ Otieno, Athmani ‘Guitar Boy’, and Elijah Tallian, and keyboardist Eddie Rimber. The saxophonists were Albert Tsuma and Vuli Yeni, and the drummer Mohamed Mdowe.

The group’s inspiration came from the original Cavaliers, a band that was fronted by musician and actor Joe Omari. Incidentally, Omari was manager of the Starlight Club when the Mighty Cavaliers were engaged as the resident band when it was located where the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission headquarters sits today.

They were among the bands that benefited from the patronage of the late politician J.M. Kariuki, a regular at the Starlight Club, who offered financial support to some musicians of that generation.

Incidentally, Bonny wrote the soulful Fisherman, a cryptic reference to politicians who failed to deliver on their promises, a pretty bold statement to make at a time when any murmuring of dissent was crashed.

The album’s standout track is Dunia Ina Mambo, a funky groove full of catchy horns and irresistible guitar riffs, which is still widely played and was even given an electro-hip-hop makeover by the group Just a Band in 2012.

Also noteworthy is the title track of the album, Mapendo, written by lead singer Rashid, an infectious fusion of soul with elements of rumba, a sparkling guitar arrangement, and, the signature horn section and Mambo Bado, a distinct Fela Kuti-inspired arrangement

The songs are also a reflection of the socio-political era in which they were recorded, such as Bonny’s Barua Ya Soweto, a protest against the apartheid regime in South Africa, inspired by saxophonist Vuli Yeni, a refugee from South Africa who had grown up in Tanzania.

Vuli himself wrote the bluesy Mama Come Home – about longing to see his mother again in a liberated South Africa. (In the 1990s, Vuli spent five years as a member of Lucky Dube’s band (The Slaves). Lead vocalist Rashid penned Africa Tuungane, a call on Kenyan youth to rally with all the forces fighting for the liberation of all African countries.

The two albums by the Mighty Cavaliers will have pride of place during the Mega Record and CD Fair in Hertogenbosch, the Netherlands, from November 14 to 16, 2025, an event celebrating African records, reissued classics, and new releases.

A credit rating firm wants the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) to compel commercial banks to publicly disclose the average risk premiums on their loans under a new credit pricing model.

Augusto and Co, one of four local rating agencies, wants Kenyan banks to publish the average of their risk premium – labelled as ‘K’ – in addition to the base lending rate recently unveiled by the CBK.

Under the new model, the total lending rate will be the interbank rate plus a premium, or K, which will be different for each borrower.

The interbank market rate refers to the rate at which commercial banks borrow and lend money to each other on a short-term basis and is widely relied upon as a gauge of the market’s liquidity.

The premium K will be a factor of a bank’s operating costs related to its lending business, the expected return to shareholders, and the borrower’s risk premium.

While the risk premium is tailored to each customer, Augusto wants banks to calculate and publish their average premiums so customers can compare the cost of lending across banks.

‘If you look at the United Kingdom, one of the things that is required is that banks must publish the weighted average premium for customer comparison,’ said Yinka Adelekan, the managing director Augusto and Co, in a press briefing on Thursday.

‘So customers with lower risk must have a lower interest rate compared to customers with higher risks. In the UK, they have to disclose this.’

The interbank rate has limits in terms of volatility because it operates within limits fixed on the CBK benchmark rate to ensure the benefits of monetary policy are transmitted to the real economy.

The limit current stands at plus or minus 75 basis points of CBR.

This means that the interbank rate cannot rise above 0.75 percentage points of the Central Bank Rate (CBR) of 9.5 percent or a maximum of 10.25 percent, and not less than 8.75 percent.

CBK has renamed the interbank to Overnight Interbank Rate to Kenya Shilling Overnight Interbank Average (Kesonia), which now stands at 9.2476 percent.

CBK officials note that disclosures based on Kesonia will start being published next month as the country transitions into the new lending framework.

Kenya Bankers Association Head of Research Samuel Tiriongo said all banks will be ready to roll out the new pricing regime anchored on Kesonia at the end of this month. The total cost of the credit portal will be revamped to cover more facilities beyond mortgages and personal loans.

‘By November 30, all banks should have their models ready and approved. The beauty is that this time, only the board is approving the framework. Once the board approves, each bank can proceed to implementation,’ Dr Tiriongo said.

‘All banks have to publish the average premiums for all products that they have within their books.’

The financial regulator replaced the CBR with Kesonia after it emerged that commercial banks were not passing on the benefits of lower policy rates to borrowers.

Each commercial bank must design a risk-based credit-pricing model and related policies and procedures within three months of CBK issuing the final revised framework and obtain board approval.

Banks must submit their board-approved model, policies and procedures to CBK within 15 days of board sign-off and no later than 15 days after the three-month deadline.

Although banks have begun publishing average lending rates, analysts fear many may withhold the weighted-average premium (‘K’), hiding the true cost of credit and possibly masking negative premiums.

Ms Adelekan noted that in Sub-Saharan Africa – in Morocco and South Africa – banks publish the weighted risk premium.

‘The (Kenyan) banks have to be transparent. They have to move from collateral-based lending to now look at entities based on their creditworthiness and their capacity to meet obligations,’ she said.

She added that banks should have an internal scoring model to assess counterparties.

Besides Augusto, other rating agencies licensed by the Capital Markets Authority (CMA) include Metropol Corporation Limited, Global Credit Rating Company, A.M. Best Rating Services Limited, and CARE Ratings.

Kenya Reinsurance Corporation (Kenya Re) has reinstated managing director Hillary Wachinga after two months of suspension over allegations that he had unprocedurally dismissed two employees.

The reinsurer’s board said on Thursday in a notice that Dr Wachinga has been restored to his position. The board did not disclose the findings of the ‘preliminary review of internal matters’ that had prompted his suspension.

‘The board has lifted the suspension of Dr Hillary Wachinga and restored him to his position as the managing director of the corporation,’ said the board in a notice.

‘The board of directors remains focused on overseeing the execution of the corporation’s long-term strategy and furthering the interests of all its shareholders and stakeholders.’

Dr Wachinga’s reinstatement comes barely a month after he withdrew the case in which he had sued Kenya Re board for unprocedural suspension and invitation for a disciplinary hearing.

The law suit revealed that Dr Wachinga had been suspended over what the board termed as ‘not complying with instructions’ in the handling of a disciplinary matter involving two of the reinsurer’s staff.

Dr Wachinga was first suspended on September 3 for 21 days before the board extended this for a further 21 days that ran from October 2.

Kenya Re’s share price at the Nairobi Securities Exchange dropped 8.38 percent on the day Dr Wachinga was first suspended, closing as the day’s top loser at Sh3.17.

On Thursday, the stock opened at Sh3.13, which was 8.6 percent below the Sh3.62 level it traded at before the suspension.

Dr Wachinga had moved to court on September 22, 2025, accusing Kenya Re of violating his constitutional rights through a disciplinary process that he said was ‘in bad faith’ and risked violating his rights to ‘fair hearing, fair labour practices and fair administrative action.’

In his court filings, Dr Wachinga argued that he had received two letters -a suspension letter dated September 2, 2025 and a show-cause letter dated September 3, 2025- which he described as contradictory.

He had been invited to a disciplinary hearing on September 23, 2025. However, the session did not proceed after the court issued a temporary freeze following Dr Wachinga’s application.

Court records show that both parties filed submissions -Dr Wachinga on September 24 and the reinsurer on October 6.

The case was scheduled for a ruling on October 23 after a mention hearing on October 7. However, before the court could pronounce itself on whether the disciplinary process should proceed, Dr Wachinga filed a notice to withdraw the entire case.

As governments worldwide race to modernise their tax systems, the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) is emerging as a regional leader in digital transformation.

From manual filing to auto-populated returns, and ultimately, real-time tax compliance and reporting, the future of tax compliance is being shaped by technology and businesses must adapt or risk falling behind.

In developed economies, revenue authorities are pushing the boundaries of digital transformation.

According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, over 80 percent of tax administrations have developed Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) to integrate tax systems with third-party platforms.

Around 60 percent offer full prefilling of personal income tax returns, and nearly 40 percent can prefill Value Added Tax (VAT) returns. Estonia, for example, enables near real-time tax refunds, while the United Kingdom uses digital IDs (Digital Identification) for secure access to tax services.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is being deployed to enhance compliance management, detect fraud in real time and improve taxpayer services.

Exemplifying this is Italy’s revenue authority which has developed an algorithm known as VeRa; a tool tasked with cross-referencing tax filings, property records and bank data to identify discrepancies and flag high-risk taxpayers.

Big data analytics tools are being deployed by tax authorities to forecast revenue, identify trends and personalise taxpayer engagement.

Poland’s STIR (System Teleinformatyczny Izby Rozliczeniowej – Teleinformatic System of the Clearing House in English) analyses daily banking and clearinghouse data to detect potential carousel frauds in near real time, enabling swift enforcement by the National Revenue Administration.

Blockchain is being explored for tamper-proof audit trails. In China, blockchain-based electronic invoicing uses smart contracts and encrypted algorithms to ensure secure issuance, storage and transmission of documents. The system offers complete traceability and tamper resistance, making post-fact data manipulation virtually impossible.

Natural Language Processing is also gaining traction, helping tax authorities and businesses monitor legislative changes and automate compliance workflows.

While Kenya may not currently match these capabilities, it is rapidly narrowing the gap. Prior to migration to the iTax platform back in August 2015, tax compliance in Kenya was a paper-heavy, time-consuming process.

Today, KRA has embraced digital innovation, collecting Sh2.57 trillion in the 2024/25 fiscal year and targets Sh2.75 trillion in ordinary revenue for the 2025/26 fiscal year.

With new tax law changes introduced by the Finance Act, 2025 forecast to yield only about Sh25 billion to Sh30 billion in additional revenue, KRA is expected to rely heavily on technology-driven tax administration efforts to meet its ambitious growth and compliance objectives. This means tightening enforcement through digital means to raise the budgeted revenue without imposing significant new taxes.

The rollout of platforms like GavaConnect-an API-driven solution that integrates tax compliance into everyday business operations, and eTIMS (Electronic Tax Invoice Management System), which has revolutionised VAT reporting, reflects a broader shift toward proactive enforcement. These tools not only improve efficiency but also enhance transparency and taxpayer trust.

Kenya’s digital tax transformation is part of a wider East African trend. Neighbouring countries are implementing similar tech-driven initiatives to modernise tax administration and improve compliance within their jurisdictions.

For example, Tanzania’s excise revenue jumped over 80 percent since introducing the Electronic Tax Stamp System (ETS), while Uganda saw a 30 percent rise in collections following its rollout of e-invoicing and ETS.

Rwanda’s flexible e-invoicing system, tailored to businesses of all sizes, has achieved near-total VAT invoice capture and is considered a regional model.

As KRA intensifies its digital oversight, businesses in Kenya are increasingly recognising the need for a dedicated tax technology function as a strategic capability that blends tax expertise with digital innovation.

In Kenya’s fast-digitising economy, the KRA is setting the pace for revenue authorities across Africa, driven by a bold vision to emulate the best practices of advanced economies. Through the adoption of cutting-edge technologies ranging from real-time data integration and AI-driven risk analytics to tamper-proof systems, KRA is redefining tax administration.

In this new era, tax technology is no longer a back-office function, it is a strategic enabler.

Companies that invest in robust tax tech capabilities are better positioned to navigate regulatory changes, leverage tax optimisation as a growth catalyst, avoid penalties and unlock new operational efficiencies.

Kenya has good economic strength and is strategically located as a gateway to African trade. Nevertheless, to maximise its export potential and increase global edge, Kenya needs to take a holistic approach to the matter that will incorporate fiscal reforms, industrial policy, and international benchmarking.

One of the reasons why it is important to strengthen exports is that they will enhance production, employment rates and long-term economic stability in the domestic market, not only by enhancing the balance of trade and payments but also by boosting production.

The foundation of export growth lies in diversification and industrial upgrading. Kenya’s manufacturing contribution to gross domestic product remains below eight percent, significantly lower than the 15 percent target envisioned in Vision 2030.

Expanding industrial capacity, especially in agro-processing, textiles, automotive assembly, and ICT services, will enable the country to increase its export basket’s complexity and value.

Establishing specialised export processing zones and industrial parks closer to raw material sources can cut logistics costs and enhance production efficiency. Increasing the level of quality, investing in the logistics infrastructure, and local industries to comply with global standards will play one of the key roles in gaining the privileges to high-value markets.

The effect of government policy is definitive in determining competitiveness in exports. President William Ruto’s administration has identified a set of ambitious proposals to make Kenya an export-driven economy with the Bottom-Up Economic Transformation Agenda.

The focus of this plan is on industrial parks, export processing zones, and enhancement of reach to the market via trade agreements like the African Continental Free Trade Area and bilateral agreements with the United States and the European Union.

The Kenya Export Promotion and Branding Agency and the Kenya Investment Authority should be empowered to coordinate aggressively in market intelligence, export promotion, and investment attraction.

This will have to be effected with good implementation, which will involve lean bureaucracy, transparency and policy implementation uniformly to earn investor confidence.

An expanding tax regime can be used as a boost to exports. Kenya needs to diversify and streamline tax concessions to firms involved in export business by making sure that they promote innovation and local value addition instead of just providing relief.

Reduction of export taxes imposed on intermediate goods, tax holidays in the strategic industries, and alignment of county levies will reduce the cost of production and increase competitiveness.

Simultaneously, the Kenya Revenue Authority should streamline compliance procedures and capitalise on the digital solutions to make compliance efficient and not to undercut revenue collection.

Japan offers a compelling model for Kenya’s export transformation.

Post-war Japan’s economic miracle was built on three pillars: government-industry collaboration, technology-driven innovation, and a disciplined export strategy anchored in quality.

By combining the efforts of the government and industry, Japan fostered individual competitiveness sectors through investments in research, technology transfer and developing their skills.

Kenya can replicate this template by establishing special export promotion agencies that would integrate the academia, the government, and the private sector, with the end goal of spurring innovation.

A growing and long-term vision that focuses on productivity, quality control, and exportation of the brand will allow the Kenyan products to compete in the world not on prices alone, but on merit.

An enhanced export base will generate a profound multiplier effect across the economy. More production to supply the world will directly employ people in manufacturing, logistics, and agribusiness and increase demand in local service provision through transport, banking, and information and communications technology.

An increasing export base makes the shilling strong, cuts the current account deficit, and improves Kenya’s credit position in world markets.

Kenya’s journey toward global export competitiveness demands coordinated action, anchored on government facilitation, tax reforms, industrial diversification, and sustainable production.

By adopting strategic lessons from global exemplars like Japan, implementing predictable fiscal incentives, and accelerating infrastructure development, Kenya can transition from an export-dependent to an export-driven economy.

President Ruto’s export-oriented agenda provides a timely blueprint. What remains is steadfast execution; transforming policy intent into measurable outcomes that elevate Kenya as a formidable player in global trade.

Four years ago, Anthony Mwangi visited his now-business partner, Henry Guchu, and a container of honey in his office generated an investment idea that the two now boast of.

‘When I visited Guchu, my brother-in-law, he told me what I was seeing on his table was gold,’ Mr Mwangi says.

Mr Guchu, a lawyer, told him that local honey production only meets a fraction of its total demand. They saw an opportunity, which gave birth to Kijani Honey. They started a business of testing and selling honey.

‘We realised the major problem facing the industry is adulterated honey. Suppliers of quality honey also rarely meet the demand volumes,’ Mr Guchu says.

They first started conducting market research to understand the scope of production and quality.

‘We toured honey-producing regions, Ukambani, Baringo, West Pokot, Tanzania, among others,’ Mr Mwangi says.

During their visits, they never left the refractometer, a honey quality testing equipment, behind.

‘We got so many complaints and concerns about adulterated honey from consumers,’ he says.

They travelled to Tabora in Tanzania, where they drew key lessons on beekeeping, because most keepers there are large-scale and operate in public forests.

Armed with knowledge and skills, their journey in establishing Kijani Honey started.

‘We started with a 30-tonne consignment from Tanzania,’ Mr Guchu says, injecting Sh14 million as seed capital, money that was also used to set up a facility in Nairobi. ‘We got the funds from our savings.’

However, the journey was not easy. Understanding the import duties, taxes, and clearance procedures at the Kenya-Tanzania border, Mr Guchu says, was difficult.

Also, the stock run out after just one and a half years. That taught them a lesson.

Mr Mwangi says testing honey quality and ensuring customers have an all-year-round supply is key. Besides, Kenyan honey being produced in low volumes, with most of it adulterated, he also says it is pricey.

Quit employment

With continuous research and upscaling, they mastered how to maneuver in the honey industry. Now they have a facility at Jamhuri Show Grounds, Nairobi, for testing and processing.

Mr Mwangi resigned from the hospitality industry to give full attention to their business. He says he can now easily tell the best honey in terms of taste and even the corresponding age preferences.

He says honey from West Pokot, since beekeepers have not embraced modern beekeeping and are still harvested by burning using leaves, it is usually over-smoked.

Ukambani honey is a favourite for many people; it is pure and not over-smoked. The beekeepers there have adopted modern ways of beekeeping and harvesting. Ugandan honey, on the other hand, Mr Mwangi says, is nutritious as the region has many and different tree species.

Once the honey is received from Kitui, Kimana in Kajiado County, West Pokot, Kitale, Tanzania, Uganda, and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC, it goes through tests.

It is processed through pasteurisation, which includes heating it to above 50°C and allowing it to settle for a few days before sieving, value addition, and packaging. Mr Mwangi said they are keen on colour and taste.

A refractometer is used to measure the moisture content by detecting how light the honey bends through it. It converts this reading into a percentage of water, helping determine honey quality.

Good-quality honey, Mr Mwangi said, contains 17 to 20 percent moisture, while sugar concentration should be above 80° Brix.

‘If honey measures 80° Brix, that means it has roughly 18 percent water and is considered ripe, high-quality honey,’ he says.

They now test and process over 10,000 kilogrammes of honey per month. A kilo is sold between Sh800 to Sh1,000. They work with over 100 beekeepers, and a farmer is paid between Sh450 and Sh600 per kilo of unprocessed honey.

Having started with three workers, they now have 12 permanent employees and five on a casual basis. How have they managed to build a vibrant business? Mr Mwangi says, ‘We ensure we have enough honey for an all-year-round supply and conduct constant research to improve our products.’

Last week, we left the classroom and entered the battlefield; that chaotic space where African founders learn the real curriculum of leadership. This week, we step deeper into that learning. Because once you’ve recognised how formal education failed you, the next question is how to replace it. What does it take to learn in real time to build while being built, to teach while still learning?

Across coffee tables and co-working spaces, in WhatsApp groups and late-night calls, a quiet curriculum is taking shape. It has no exams, no degrees and no dean, but it forges something formal education never could, wisdom born from lived experience.

Every founder must become a lifelong student, and in Africa that learning must stretch from the first spark of a startup to the stewardship of legacy.

The startup stage is a crash course in humility. You learn by doing, by listening, by being wrong in public and showing up again the next morning. The world becomes your university, the market your examiner and every mistake a tuition fee.

Founders quickly realise they must treat failure as feedback, not verdict.

They seek mentors, swap insights, and build small tribes of trust where they can be honest about fear and fatigue. In these circles, emotional resilience is strengthened and social intelligence deepens.

When success finally arrives and the company begins to scale, the syllabus changes. The founder, who once did everything must now learn to lead others who can do it better. Leadership becomes less about control and more about coordination, turning chaos into coherence without losing the company’s soul.

Strategy shifts from survival to sustainability. This is where strategic clarity and spiritual grounding intersect. Decisions move slower but cut deeper.

At this point, mentorship and community become lifelines. Founders who invest in peer networks avoid the trap of isolation. They find wisdom in other founders’ stories, learning to spot blind spots before they become pitfalls. The humility to remain a student even at the top becomes a defining advantage.

As one founder said, experience doesn’t make you wise; reflection does.

Eventually, the baton must pass. The next generation the heir, the successor, the new steward steps into a legacy they did not build but must now preserve. No MBA can prepare them for that moment. They inherit more than profit; they inherit a story. That story must be reinterpreted for a new era.

Mary Waceke Thongoh-Muia often says unchecked entitlement erodes legacy faster than competition.

A wise founder steps aside not because they’ve run out of strength but because they’ve built others strong enough to continue. Letting go becomes the final module in the hidden curriculum the hardest, but the one that defines true leadership.

And now, as founders chart the next decade, a new teacher has joined the circle artificial intelligence (AI). For the first time, founders can learn from living data as quickly as they learn from lived experience.

AI is not here to replace intuition but to refine it; not to erase the human touch but to sharpen our discernment.

In the hands of a conscious founder, AI becomes an amplifier of wisdom a digital co-mentor that helps us see patterns faster, test ideas smarter, and scale systems ethically.

That is why African Founders Operating System with its emotional, social, strategic, spiritual and mindset dimensions matters more now than ever. It ensures that as technology accelerates us, humanity still anchors us.

Across startups, scale-ups and legacy enterprises, one truth connects them all: founders learn best by doing, failing, reflecting and now by integrating insight with intelligence, both human and artificial.

In truth, the classroom never left us; it simply moved. It now lives in conversations after midnight, in mentorship lunches, in podcasts and panels where honesty replaces theory, and increasingly, in the quiet guidance of digital systems that can mirror our decisions back to us.

Founders are teaching one another what our institutions could not; how to build without losing humanity, how to harness intelligence without surrendering integrity. That is the hidden curriculum in the education that prepares us not only to lead but to last.

This second part completes our reflection on the founder’s true education from the failures of the classroom to the revelations of the battlefield. Yet in many ways, the learning has only begun. What started as a conversation about gaps in our schooling has become a blueprint for a new kind of consciousness one that turns founders into teachers, and companies into classrooms.

The challenge ahead is not to abandon education, but to redesign it in our own image: practical, soulful and grounded in shared wisdom.

Because in the end, the founder’s greatest legacy will not be the company they build, but the minds and movements they inspire to keep learning with heart, with humility and with the help of every new tool, human or digital, that expands what it means to be wise.

Michael Anthony Macharia is a serial entrepreneur, founder of Seven Seas Technologies and Ponea Health

The Nairobi Securities Exchange has recorded back-to-back gains of more than 30 percent in 2024 and again so far in 2025, buoying investor confidence and lifting portfolio values.

But for those who stayed on the sidelines, is it too late to join the rally?

In this episode, NSE Chief Executive Officer Frank Mwiti breaks down the key drivers of the market recovery, where fresh opportunities remain, and what investors should watch as the momentum continues.

Make Money, a podcast series, hosted by Kepha Muiruri, from Business Daily Africa unravels ways to be financially savvy. Get practical tips and advice on how to increase your income, build wealth, and achieve financial freedom in Kenya. Whether you’re just starting out or a seasoned investor, we’ve got something for everyone.

At least one person in your circle knows about Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) and at least three have at least heard about it.

Truth is, the practice and the triple pronged concept is growing in importance, escalating in application and emerging as an irreplaceable criteria when assessing a business, organisation, and even national policy and legislation.

Consider, this, just as you wouldn’t run a warehouse without knowing what’s on your shelves in real time, you can’t run a business without knowing the health of your supply chain.

Supply chain ESG looks at the end-to-end footprint of the value chain, assessing issues like data management, carbon emissions, sourcing, risk management, and waste management- and the world is paying attention.

According to the 2024 Global Trade Report, ESG is now a deciding factor for buyers and consumers, with regulatory pressure pushing companies to collect hard data on their suppliers to prove their own sustainability credentials.

Leading the charge in setting industry benchmarks for supply chain ESG is the European Union, placing green development at the core of policy creation and enforcement, weaving green principles directly into law.

The EU’s Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD) is a directive that needs non-EU and EU companies that have large operations with or in the EU, and/or are considered to operate in ‘high-impact sectors’ to carry out due diligence on human rights and environmental considerations across their supply chains to encourage responsible corporate behaviour.

The aim is to foster responsible corporate behaviour, complementing regulations such as the German Supply Chain Act to create a unified standard for supply chain responsibility across EU member states.

At its core, CSDDD aims to regulate companies by making sure that goods are produced or procured in accordance with emerging environmental, labour, and human rights best practices.

It also pushes organisations toward minimising greenhouse gas emissions in pursuit of net neutrality and a more responsible global economy.

Risk identification is non-negotiable under CSDDD. This is a requirement rooted in the simple truth that you cannot manage what you cannot see. In practice, risk identification looks like breaking your processes down to three tiers and undergoing a three-pronged materiality assessment of the existing risk.

Examples include human rights violations, excessive carbon emissions, supplier integrity issues, and vulnerabilities buried deep within operational layers.

The goal is to develop early warning indicators, such as high-risk geographies or industries, to strengthen corporate accountability and safeguard against disruptions. In the long run, it increases corporate accountability and supports compliance with CSDDD.

This acts as a motivator as companies are to proactively design preventative, mitigatory, and remedial strategies before risks turn into crises.

For the supply chain, the rubber hits the road where CSDDD demands data collection and traceability. A lot of companies are grappling with the leviathan called ‘scope 3 emissions’- hiding in supplier scorecards, freight forwarder reports, and every outsourced process.

It’s daunting because it depends on your suppliers delivering clean, verifiable, and traceable data. But, in supply chains as in logistics, today’s bottleneck often becomes tomorrow’s breakthrough- even if it may be at the supplier’s expense.

Companies with complete certainty will start demanding more from suppliers. The scope of supplier audits will expand to include ESG considerations.

Over time, human rights, labour conditions, waste management, tracking and reporting, risk management, accountability, and emissions reductions will shift from being ‘best practices’ to being non-negotiable requirements.

Non-compliance with CSDDD can face consequences such as civil liabilities, fines, and even exclusion from procurement processes, as companies are now held accountable for ESG compliance and violations throughout the value supply chain.

Incidentally, in Kenya, due diligence is not enshrined in law, which means it is often treated as a voluntary precaution that progressive corporates can choose to adopt. However, there is an encouraging trend: early adopters in the industries such as the financial, energy, and FMCG industry are already embracing ESG-aligned due diligence checks and seeking additional support to integrate these principles into existing policies.

Incidentally, their proactive stance has inadvertently placed them ahead of the curve, preparing them for the vision set by CSDDD- where, by 2029 and beyond, enforcement will strengthen, and ESG reporting and communication will become mandatory.

This is a silent call to action for domestic suppliers to address existing gaps in their operations so that they’re not caught unprepared when due diligence checks reach their doorstep.

In practice, when managing a supply chain, new demands require agility and precision. So, as suppliers, how can we best adjust ourselves in this space?

The first step has to be education. A strong knowledge base enables us to spot operational weaknesses early and allocate resources effectively where they are needed.

Key topic areas outlined by CSDDD include human rights, environmental responsibility, good governance, and effective methods for M and E and data documentation.

After establishing an educational foundation, we then move into specialisation- assigning clear ESG responsibilities to designated individuals across the supply chain.

This means setting up standardised SOPs (standard operating procedures) for data collection and documentation so that audit-ready records are always available. Such structures build ownership, prevent duplication of effort, and improve coordination across functions.

Lastly, ESG needs to be embedded in governing policies, for instance, adding pointed clauses on anti-corruption clauses to contracts or aligning internal policies with both CSDDD requirements and buyer expectations.

CSDDD can be complex, and some may say expensive, but if we don’t accept direction and embrace them, your contracts, reputation, and market access could vanish overnight.

Even though of course this warning only applies to companies that fit the criteria to which CSDDD is applied to, we can’t deny the possibility of its scope of application extending to the smaller players tomorrow.

The bright side is that the same steps that prepare you for CSDDD can also earn you a stronger reputation, future-proof your business, attract collaboration and innovation, and unlock new markets.