Zedd Mukoya could have become an actuary, urban planner or lawyer. Instead, the law graduate found himself drawn into the creative world, where business, strategy, people and experiences meet.
Today, Mukoya is the founder and director of Wave 360 Africa, an integrated creative and experiential marketing agency with operations in Kenya and Uganda.
“I trained in law, but somewhere along that journey I discovered that my mind was equally drawn to business, people, experiences and creativity,” he says.
Mukoya joined university to study law in 2016 and completed his studies in 2019. He says the discipline gave him a way of thinking that continues to shape how he approaches business.
“Law teaches you more than statutes and cases. It teaches you how to think, interrogate information, identify risk, negotiate, structure agreements and understand obligations,” he says.
For Mukoya, the connection is straightforward. “Creativity develops the idea. Marketing gives the idea an audience and commercial purpose. Law gives the idea structure and protection.”
His interest in marketing began while he was at the university, around 2018, when he became involved in events and experiential activities.
Then came another turning point: becoming a father. “That changed the stakes for me. Suddenly, ambition wasn’t only about myself. I had a responsibility to be present, to provide and to build something sustainable,” he says.
By 2022, those experiences had evolved into Wave 360 Africa.
Mukoya’s background adds another layer to his story. He says he comes from a family with a history of enterprise in the Bunyore community, particularly around Luanda and Emuhaya.
According to family accounts, his great-grandfather and grandfather were involved in property, trade and transport during the early development of Luanda town. His father also went into business, including clearing and forwarding.
“I inherited a name, history and examples of entrepreneurship. What I didn’t inherit was Wave 360 Africa or the career I have today,” Mukoya says.
His family expected him to follow the legal path and eventually practise law. He chose another route.
Curiosity, he says, became the force pulling him deeper into marketing.
University of California
“Marketing gives you a problem every day that didn’t necessarily exist yesterday. Audiences change, technology changes, culture changes, brands change and consumer behaviour changes,” he says. “Therefore, yesterday’s answer cannot always solve today’s problem.”
The business has since taken on projects involving organisations and brands such as DKT International, Amsons Group and Bamburi Cement. Mukoya also points to work associated with the University of California, San Francisco, as an early experience that challenged the young agency to raise its standards.
Still, he measures progress less by famous names than by the distance travelled.
“For me, however, the memorable part isn’t simply the names. It is looking at where we started and recognising that ideas developed by a young African agency can progressively find themselves in increasingly significant rooms,” he says.
One milestone he considers particularly meaningful is seeing the agency’s work presented on platforms attended by the President of Kenya on three occasions.
Building the agency has also brought SME pressures, particularly capital and cash flow. Mukoya says a profitable business on paper can still face long payment cycles while suppliers demand quicker settlement. “Entrepreneurship requires creativity beyond the product itself. Sometimes you have to be equally creative about survival,” he says.
His other milestone has been expanding into Uganda, a move that tested whether the agency’s approach could travel beyond Kenya.
“Uganda became important because it proved something to us internally: the Wave idea could travel,” he says.
Mukoya says Kenya and Uganda cannot be treated as one audience.
“The strategy may travel, but the execution must understand the local consumer,” he says.
He sees significant room for creative collaboration across the region, across music, entertainment, fashion and brand experiences. His bigger ambition is for African agencies to develop ideas that travel globally rather than simply adapting concepts created elsewhere.
Mukoya believes technology has accelerated that possibility, but also raised the bar. Social media has democratised attention, allowing creators to build audiences across borders.
“But simply creating content isn’t enough,” he says. “The new currency is relevance. Technology gives you reach. Creativity gives people a reason to care.”
For young people considering careers in law, marketing or the creative industry, Mukoya’s advice is to remain open to changing direction.
“Don’t be imprisoned by the title on your degree,” he says. “Education gives you tools; life will sometimes show you where those tools are most useful.”
His own story, he says, is still being written. Ultimately, he wants to build an African creative institution that can survive him, employ local talent and take African ideas to the world.
“I inherited a legacy. My responsibility now is to add something worthy to it,” he says.