YVONNE MICHUKI, 38, the lastborn daughter of the late John Michuki, may have been born in affluence, but that has not stopped her from giving back to society. She shares with SHIRLEY GENGA her passion for trade issues and how she is coping with the death of her parents.
When I first meet Yvonne Michuki at her home in the leafy suburbs of Windsor in Nairobi, she is so classy and sophisticated; she looks like a CEO of some high-flying company. But on the contrary, she is a simple civil servant, passionately marketing Kenya as an attractive investment destination.
One wonders why a daughter of a prominent minister would choose some noble job in the public sector. For the last 15 years, Yvonne has made it her business to tirelessly market Kenya as a lucrative trade destination.
“I am passionate about development for my country. This passion was birthed in me when I was a little girl, and I used to accompany my mother during political campaigns in the village. My mother would conduct door-to-door campaigns talking to the village women to find out what their needs were and how they could be empowered. I learnt a lot from those trips,” says Yvonne.
“I remember seeing children reading with candles during the visits and I would always wonder why we had electricity in Nairobi, yet they did not have. I wanted to do something about it.”
Strategy development
Her passion to empower and give back to society inspired her to join the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as a Trade, Investment, and Multilateral Diplomat in 2009. She was posted to London after nine months to spearhead economic diplomacy at the ministry.
“My job included developing strategic networks with major UK retailers, packers, importers, development organisations, international investors, and financial institutions,” she says.
Since her appointment, Yvonne has been involved in a number of projects but what she is most proud of is initiating a unique producer-retailer trade partnership with Marks and Spencer, a major UK retailer and local tea farmers.
“Thanks to the initiative, Kenyan tea is currently being sold in 350 stores in the UK. This will result in value addition and significant skills and knowledge transfers to farmers. The deal also helped set up a packaging plant called Ivia–ini Tea Factory and Packaging plant,” she says.
However, last year after the death of her father, former environment minister John Michuki, she decided to return home. She was later appointed Deputy Permanent Representative to the Permanent Mission of Kenya to United Nations Office in Nairobi and United Nations Environment Programme and UN-Habitat.
Background
Yvonne is the lastborn in a family of six children. Even though she grew up in the leafy suburbs of Ridgeways, she says her mother always kept her and her siblings grounded.
“Every weekend I would accompany mother to shags, an experience that exposed me to the different aspects of life,” she says.
She attended Msongari Primary School before joining Hillcrest School. In 1996, she went to Bryn Mawr College in the US, where she did a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics and Political Science.
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“I always knew that I was interested in courses that focused on development, and that is why I was drawn to Economics and Political Science with a focus on development,” she remembers.
After graduating, she came back home and worked at Corporate Analyst, Barclays Merchant Finance Ltd, Nairobi. She then worked as a research manager, Barclays Trust Investment Services Ltd, Nairobi.
“I realised I needed to do more. I wanted to have an understanding of how the financial global market worked, and so I did an MBA in Finance and Economics at Colombia University in New York. I graduated in 2002 at age 26. Later, I worked as a Summer Associate at Merrill Lynch & Co in New York, where I conducted industry and comparable financial analyses of industrial and media companies for merger and acquisition proposals,” she explains.
The experience and exposure was good. “I would leave the office at three in the morning work like crazy but without fulfilment. At the end of the day, I would ask myself who I was doing it all for. I felt like I had left my original path, which was development. After three months, I quit to try new things,” she says
What followed was self-reflection. “I took time out to reflect on my accomplishment and to figure out how I could use it to bring back development home. I decided to write down a business plan with a friend. I realised that while Kenyan coffee was in the market and doing well, tea wasn’t. I was determined to put this commodity in the New York shelves,” she continues.
Challenges
In 2003, she started the Kenyan Highland Tea Company to achieve her goals of getting the Kenyan tea in the US market. It was not easy.
“My mother has always been a small scale tea farmer, and so I had been exposed to the challenges the farmers faced. I wanted to create a business model that truly gives back,” she says.
“I had to come up with different tea flavours. I went to the shops myself and promoted my product. Getting into distribution networks abroad was not easy. It was difficult, but exciting.”
Undeterred, Yvonne promoted the products personally and within a year managed to put her products in 200 shops across the East Coast, New Jersey, DC and Chicago.
Though her business was thriving, in 2008 she felt it was time to come back home. But to do that, she needed a partner in USA for the continuity of the business.
“I wanted to leave a partner to deal with logistics in the States. I wanted to move to Nairobi to focus on production while my link in the US does the marketing and all. I got a partner in 2008 and returned home. Sadly, the same year my partner died.”
After she lost her partner she decided to chase her childhood passion — development matters. In January 2009, when an opportunity came by at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, she applied and got the job.
“With my long stay in the UK and having done business there, I had in-depth knowledge and experience of agricultural supply chains, coupled with a proven ability to communicate business cases to multiple stakeholders. My goal was to transform agriculture in Kenya by empowering local farmers,” she says.
Other than her current job, Yvonne is also one of the 50 women picked out of 500 applicants, to participate in the annual Women in Public Service Project, which was launched by former US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton in partnership with the US in 2011.
“It is an initiative to advance women to positions of influence in governments and civic organisations worldwide. The programme recognises that the civil service is a male-dominated field, and so its goal is to have 50 per cent representatives of women in the sector by 2015.
It is a summer programme and I am thrilled I was picked to participate,” she says.
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