Work trip to Norway led to my dream

Monica Musungu still remembers the days when she served tea, coffee and food at a hotel in Nairobi’s South C area. She was a waitress but deep inside, she wanted something better. Her dream was to run her own business and employ rather than be employed.

However, all that remained obscure until the day luck struck and she was promoted to become a receptionist.

“But my prayer had not been answered even with the promotion, so I opted to resign and seek better things,” she says.

Musungu found a job with World Kenya Camping and Safaris, a tours and travel company. Determination drove her performance and it wasn't long before she was sent to Norway to do sales and marketing for the company.

“I worked in Norway for a year. As I went about meeting clients and selling what my company had sent me to sell, I met and interacted with a man named Erlnd Voldengelt who made me believe I could start and run my own venture,” she says.

So Musungu tendered her resignation while she was still in Norway, returned home and began designing her business plan. She did not have enough money at the time and so she took a loan of Sh70,000, which helped her set up Scenery Adventures Ltd in 2008.

“I believed that I could do it. There were teething problems — in fact, so many that I began to question my decision. But I had very little time to worry about troubles and had to focus on solutions.”

Today, her company has contracts even with Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni to provide transport logistics for his security and entourage.

In her own words, “I can’t say I am successful yet, but I am heading there.”