Why most companies run by expatriates perform poorly

Major foreign capital investments in Kenyan market are always flooded with expatriates running the show. The investor lands into the Kenyan market and assumes everything will work as per diaspora market. This majorly leaves out Kenyan expertise to only handle manual jobs as opposed to seating in the management.

Most of this company either start ‘letting go’ of workers or do not report profits after a long time. The main challenge here is usually the notion that Kenyans cannot manage a multinational. A company will bring a CEO from foreign market to handle a non-familiar territory simply because he is an expatriate.

There are several examples that we can give of companies that are well managed by Kenyan and a few expatriates. Kenya Airways is managed by a Kenyan but has board members who are foreign just to provide advice on international markets dynamics. Equity Bank Group is also well managed by a Kenyan but has several foreign board members.

Among many we have experienced "death" of company and "birth" of foreign owned company, Kenyans are left wondering is it a poor feasibility study on Kenyan market and realize the need to have local managers at the top and retaining just one or two foreigners at the top? Safaricom has done that over time and the profits are skyrocketing. What happened to Kencell, Celtel, Yu and now Orange where expatriates are flooded and do not seem to know what to do next.