The World is Your Oyster – Take the opportunities that life has to offer

How Lapid launched and shaped my career journey.

I worked as a banker at the prime age of 17 years old. I used to wear a proper suit, go to the bank and sit at a teller’s desk to count money. Although I was the cheque teller because there was no risk there, I mean it was just cheques. I only did the branch for the period where I was waiting to join the university. After that, I would pick different departments I was interested in for each internship.

During my time at the branch, KCSE results came out and I decided I don’t want to go and pursue something difficult. I figured all I needed was a degree because I was not going to become a doctor or an engineer. I also read the book “What color is your parachute” which is very interactive and teaches you about what skills you pick up from a very finite list. I chose to pursue financial engineering.

So I went to JKUAT and on day one, I changed my course to Bachelor of Commerce. I realized that financial engineering was an in-between of finance and actuarial science with no clear career path. The courses were also jumbled up and I would have a very difficult time figuring out which path to take. Finance was a bit clearer and whenever I’d go to the bank during the holiday, I’d do different skills in different departments. 

During that period, Co-op wanted to hire me but I was not very keen on being a banker. So I declined that offer which I understand is a very privileged decision because my parents were supportive of the things I wanted to do. I made that decision because I knew it would trap me in a certain way and I would not be able to explore. If you have the room, take some time off and explore. 

One week into Lapid, I got an internship at a construction company. Being at Lapid, I had already committed to community service on a Tuesday afternoon. So there I was telling my new boss that I couldn’t work on a Tuesday afternoon. I offered to compensate for the two hours of community service by showing up an hour early for five days a week. I was only there for two months. 

My time at Lapid was also a self-awareness process. While at Lapid we are learning about values, on the other hand, I am at city hall paying a bribe so that they would allow my company to continue building. I was earning twenty-thousand Kenyan shillings, still living in my mother’s house and the commute to work was as low as thirty Kenyan shillings. I had a very hard conversation with myself and decided to quit that internship since it was not aligning with the person I was becoming. For the next six months, I was serving at Lapid. During that period I did my interviews at KPMG.

I remember on project challenge day (PCD) was the day I was doing my aptitude test at KPMG. I went to Navigators at 7 AM because I was a team leader and I was very committed to my team. We sat with my team up to 9 AM working out how we would handle the project then left Ngong for Westlands where I would be doing my aptitude test. I set my aptitude test and then went back to Navigators. That was the only aptitude test I sat then proceeded to the group stage and that is where the ‘Lost at Sea’ group activity came up. I remember reading the case study while in Lapid and being so excited because I knew the answers. I however knew that being a group setting, they were looking to test critical thinking and ability to work in a team; are you the kind of person who is overbearing just because you know the answers?

After the group stage, I sat for my manager interview and then my partner interview and I remember the day I got my Lapid offer, I was headed for a Lapid workshop. I used to head the Learning Labs and what that meant is I had to ensure that everything is running; people go for community service during the week, assignments are done, ensure there is food for Saturday classes, confirm that the mentors are available for each and every session and that the day’s program including icebreakers are planned. It was a full-time job. Having started a new job, I would arrive 45 minutes early at work so that I can take that time to plan myself. At lunchtime, I would be making calls. 

I remember there were times I would be times I would call Esther and tell her I don’t have mentors. While she would sympathize with me, she would go ahead to ask me to figure it out. One of the hardest things she had asked me to do is vet mentors. I had to go have coffee with these people and assess whether they were right for Lapid. All of which was a very big responsibility. At this time I am still juggling being in a new space. It felt like juggling two jobs. On top of that, it meant a lot of sacrifice in terms of time. I was at work Monday to Friday but had to be at Lapid on Saturdays.

We used to do an Africa experience and I was in the Cohort that went to Ethiopia. Esther had constantly talked about entitlement but that experience is what really highlighted that. We had to fundraise collectively and so we sold sandwiches at Mavuno Church, knocked on people’s doors, and at some point you’d hear people say “I’ve made my cut of the money, let the other person now do their part.” Some people did fall short and on top of that, Esther wanted to bring on board people who wouldn’t be paying anything. It was upon us to ensure that we had enough money for them and it felt unfair. Sadly everyone is entitled in one way or another and you’ll only realize how entitled you are until you are pushed to the wall. It was during that time that I had to dig deep into where my entitlement was and work on it because you cannot walk around life entitled.

The World is your oyster

From the start of my career, I knew that I either wanted to study abroad, work abroad, or both. In 2019 I had already worked at KPMG for 3 heading to 4 years and it was at that time that I began to ask what the long term looked like for me. I also began to have conversations with people who had worked and studied abroad and what that looked like. I started to look at schools but also the secondment opportunity at work. At that time people were leaving the firm and hence they were not really keen to send good talent out of the country. I went ahead to send my CV to the team leading global mobility and told them I was looking for secondment opportunities. They didn’t get back to me.

In 2021, I started to actively think about it and intentionally apply for roles even outside KPMG. At some point during the year, the global mobility team came back to me. They spoke to me of an opportunity in Birmingham where they were looking to set up a new team and due to my experience, I fit the role. During my time I used to work with a lot of manufacturing companies as far as Ethiopia. That Ethiopia experience with Lapid really opened doors for me. 

As I was looking for schools abroad, I was set for the proper finance schools such as Harvard, Stanford, Brown, and the like. For work, I knew I wanted to work for the UK market. My end goal was and still is social impact so I wanted to learn and apply that at the same time.

Birmingham was not quite what I had in mind since it’s quite interior and not what London is. Then again it was a step forward or rather one foot in then I would figure out London while there. One thing was for sure, I wanted to work in the financial district of London. When my offer letter came it stated London and not Birmingham. HR told me that they decided that London was a better fit for me because of my experience. I went through the due diligence and as I was telling Esther of that move, I had already signed my contract.

In Kenya, I worked in a bit of a wider team but here it is more specialized and a smaller team. Smaller in the sense that it’s more focused but on a larger scale. It is quite exciting because I get to work with tools that have not yet been rolled out in the Kenya office. Here, things work faster. What we would have done in three months, here it could take a month or 3 weeks. It also opens up your mind to how fast people scale careers and look at it, not as just the work you are doing, but the relationships you are building with people. It is how people here have the audacity to ask their boss, “Want to walk down for a coffee?” and it is in that 5 to 10-minute coffee walk that someone has secured their promotion. Basically, the audacity to speak up. I had a conversation with my performance manager about fast-tracking my promotion process and from the fact that I spoke about it, they became very intentional about that. I started being the one who takes those coffee walks and asking people if they have 5 minutes for a chat.

I am learning about networking and the investment that goes into building such relationships. Not just focusing on networking with bosses and managers but also people at your level because those are the people you scale up with. In addition to that is building relationships in a variety of spaces and industries. 

I have also thought about how long I want this move to last because it is not necessarily an exodus. But then again it was everything I had hoped for and more.

Get out of Entitlement 

When you are entitled you think things are your right and that you deserve them. The world does not owe you everything and you have to work for everything you want or get. We have seen people get entitled to the smallest things and continue to push limits where we shouldn’t be pushing limits. You earn the right, for example, to speak; to speak at work, among your friends, and so on. The only right you have is the right to life. Most people don’t realize the entitlement they hold in the relationships they have. Entitlement keeps growing in different facets. It is your responsibility to work on that.

Approach life with the awareness that no one owes you anything, you have to work for everything you have then you start to view the world differently. You will need to constantly unlearn.

If you are unaware of the areas you need to work on, it becomes so glaring, especially in the workplace. It is first awareness of the entitlement but also nipping it before it is nipped for you.