She left Kenya for South Africa a small girl armed with a plane ticket, her bag and a lofty dream of touching down again a lawyer, but as WANJIRU GITHIOMI shares with SYLVIA WAKHISI, she struck her gold far from the courtrooms.
When Wanjiru Githiomi hung her legal regalia back in 2003, she did not expect her instincts to catapult her into the exciting commercial world of sport and branded entertainment.
Through sheer determination, unapologetic audacity and blind faith, Wanjiru boldly walked into a highly specialised industry, armed with little information and clad in the wrong skin colour.
While the recipe for success in the cartel-controlled industry of sports marketing is a closely guarded secret in South Africa, she has taken giant strides and successfully curved herself a niche in the industry.
Ten years down the line and wielding an impressive client portfolio, the South-African based entrepreneur can proudly take her rightful place in the hall of fame as a successful sports marketing and corporate social responsibility consultant.
Born and bred in Nairobi’s Buruburu Estate, her obsession with the law hatched at the age of six, when she began watching Crown Court, a legal court room drama, which aired in the early 80s.
Strong sense of justice
“I was mesmerised and intrigued by the melodrama of the mysterious old men clad in white wigs and black robes,” says a bright-eyed Wanjiru. “Although my mother indulged my request to watch this late night show, she thought I was a bit of a social misfit since children my age were wrestling for time to watch various cartoon programmes of the time.”
Growing up, she also inherited a strong sense of justice and moral responsibility from her mother, a woman to whom she says she is forever indebted.
“I was convinced that a legal career would give me the platform to fulfill the two great passions of my youth; mesmerise the courtrooms with my theatrical antiques while influencing legal policy to bring about social and political change,” she says.
After attending St Theresa’s Girl’s Primary School and Kianda High School, Wanjiru left for South Africa 16 years ago, armed with a suitcase, a one-way ticket and a dream.
She registered at Rose Bank Progress College for Matriculation, a one-year pre-university course that Kenyans are required to take before joining a South African University. She was recently appointed as the brand ambassador for the college and marketing strategic consultant.
For someone who considers herself a mediocre academic, Wanjiru bagged an impressive five out of six distinctions, amassing more than enough points for admission to the Law faculty of the prestigious University of Cape Town.
This was quite an achievement for a little black girl in a freshly baked democracy that was still struggling to shake off the baggage of its sordid history under white minority rule.
She registered for a three-year Bachelor of Jurisprudence degree and thereafter, a three-year Law Honours programme.
The young, idealistic Wanjiru also immersed herself into politics of the almost ‘whites only’ faculty and was elected into various leadership positions in student government and thereafter, president of Amnesty International, Cape Town chapter.
Major transition
“Although I enjoyed every moment as a student of Law, practice turned out to be quite a disappointment since legal procedure and the democratic institutes do little for the advancement of social justice and human rights,” she says.
She finally called it a day at the courtroom and hang her robes in 2003 after the premature birth of her twin daughters Maisha and Rehema. Being the new centre of her universe, her priorities changed and she chose motherhood over the long hours in the libraries and late nights at the office.
Besides, she had been growing a side business trading African craft which had grown to such an extent that she had become the sole supplier of various retail outlets in Cape Town.
“I did not miss the paycheck of a candidate attorney as much as I missed the idealism of my youth, the black robes and making trouble in the name of social justice. It was a bitter-sweet departure from what may have been a long and fulfilling career as an attorney,” she says.
Years later, the former attorney is now a successful sports marketing and corporate social responsibility consultant. She is the director of Leverage Inc, a company she founded seven years ago and the only 100 per cent black woman-owned agency of its kind in Cape Town.
“After several years of trial and error, feast and famine, the roller coaster ride finally delivered our organisation at the door step of our opportunity. We have curved ourselves a special niche in the exciting world of sports marketing and branded entertainment,” she says.
When it comes to corporate social responsibility, Wanjiru has a special interest in sports and leadership development with youth in focus. She works with the private sector and the Ministry of Sports and Recreation to establish sustainable projects that utilise sports to develop cognitive skills among the youth in less privileged communities in Cape Town.
She is particularly concerned about the youth in Kenya.
“We are sitting on a time bomb because we have manufactured an entire generation of young people including graduates who cannot think, let alone speak grammatically sound English. Our education system places children in an academic pressure cooker where they sit for hours on end cramming irrelevant concepts for regurgitation,” says Wanjiru.
“Basic developmental psychology tells us that competitive team sports are not just entertainment mediums; they develop cognitive skills such as strategic thinking, quick decision making, leadership, creativity, confidence, attitude, team work, which set up one for success.”
Tapping talent
Wanjiru has a special interest in commercialising sports in Africa. In as much as she lives in South Africa, she says Kenya is still her home and she is always on the lookout for ways and means of making a mark on the country’s development agenda.
“There is so much talent in this country. My heart breaks when I see young people falling between the cracks due to their limited academic abilities.
If sporting talent is identified in early childhood and structures are put in place to make it a well-paying career of choice, the results of such an intervention has the potential to turn the tide of poverty in entire communities,” says Wanjiru.
