Financially Incorrect

Christopher Khaemba’s journey is shaped by decisions that tested his ambition, integrity and approach to money. He once hoped to attend Alliance High School but was rejected. Years later, he returned as its principal, leading the school for 10 years. Before that, he had taken charge of Friends School Kamusinga, where teachers had gone six months without pay and parents were struggling with school...

Before Tubayo had a working app, Brian Namanya was selling travel experiences through WhatsApp and DMs. He eventually built a travel and commerce business in Uganda, including a marketplace that generated up to $20,000 in monthly revenue at its peak. So why did he walk away? In this episode of Financially Incorrect Uganda Edition , Brian Namanya, founder and CEO of Tubayo, shares the realities of...

In December 1982, Bharat Thakrar started Scanad with KES 11,000 after selling his Honda for KES 14,000. What began as a one man advertising agency grew into a listed Pan African business valued at KES 9 billion at its height. Along the way, he built multiple agencies to navigate client exclusivity, took over McCann's Kenyan business in 24 hours, secured an approximately US$18 million annual Ai...

What does it take to rebuild financially, professionally and personally after a business you have invested everything in collapses? Kevin Mutiso's relationship with money and business started quite early. While still in Form Two, he was buying shares in Kenya Airways. By 19, he was managing investment portfolios for some of Kenya's top CEOs. He went on to build Alternative Circle, a fintec...

Jemima Kakizi was already earning from her art before she graduated from university. But when the momentum slowed after graduation, she had to rethink what building a career in the creative industry actually required. In 2017, she took an entry level internship despite feeling that she should have been further along. The experience exposed her to grant applications, open calls, partnerships and pr...

A hit song can make you famous. But does it make you wealthy? For Kenyan music legend Nameless, the answer depends on what happens after the song takes off. A major hit can transform an artist’s earning power, open up new markets and bring opportunities that once seemed out of reach. But a good song does not guarantee commercial success, and even a successful career can leave an artist vulnerable...

Doreen Natukunda Opio spent nearly eight years trying to rebuild her livelihood after losing her first business. From selling T-shirts and household items to experimenting with handcrafted art, she struggled to find her footing until COVID-19 opened an unexpected opportunity. Using leftover wood offcuts and the power of social media, Dorin built Art Kadowaz into a creative studio serving clients a...

How do you build an agribusiness managing nearly 5,000 acres across Africa without owning the land? When Kevin Kamau returned to Kenya in 2015 after a decade in the US, he struggled to find employment and turned to farming with no personal capital. What began with one acre of family land grew into Tukalime Ventures, an agribusiness operating across Kenya, Rwanda, Mozambique and Nigeria. But growth...

Fakii Liwali spent decades helping shape Kenya's entertainment industry, working with some of the country's biggest artists and corporate brands. From Homeboyz and Capital FM to Coca-Cola and managing artists like Nyashinski, he built a successful career behind the scenes. But despite earning millions and building a reputation that opened doors, his journey with money was far from straight...

What would make a senior banking executive walk away from career security to return to university while supporting a family? For Kevin Rudahinduka, the decision meant rethinking how he financed his future, adjusting his household expenses and finding alternative income, including renting out his car. In this Rwanda Edition of Financially Incorrect, Kevin reflects on the early experiences that shap...

From playing keyboard at church for KES 5,000 a month to becoming Sauti Sol's musical director and building his own music ventures, Mutoriah's career has been shaped by a willingness to keep creating beyond the opportunities already available to him. In this episode of Financially Incorrect, the Kenyan musician and producer opens up about the decisions behind his journey, from working with...

Manuela P Mulondo had the kind of public success most people would assume came with financial security. She was speaking at major events, meeting presidents and receiving international recognition, while her business was generating more than UGX 40 million a month. But behind the visibility, personal and business finances were intertwined, debt was mounting, and the business was funding a lifestyl...

In 2014, Brian Bogonko set out to solve a simple problem: how do you sell event tickets digitally, track who is buying and eliminate the fragmented cash and paper systems that defined Kenya’s events industry? M Tickets went on to process more than 1 million tickets across 1,000+ events. But the real business challenge came later. Commission rates that once reached 20% fell to 15%, then 12%, and ev...

From four stores to 72, Betty Wamaitha was part of the commercial journey that helped transform QuickMart into one of Kenya’s biggest supermarket businesses. In this conversation, she breaks down what actually drives retail economics: supplier negotiations, margins, shelf space, loss leaders, product movement, customer data and why availability can matter more than marketing. Betty’s own financial...

A busy restaurant can still be a bad business. Sonia Iraguha, founder of Bicu Lounge, built the Kigali hospitality destination during COVID after investing roughly RWF 40 million, learning the economics of hospitality from the ground up. Five years later, cocktails contribute roughly 50–60% of revenue, but Sonia has had to learn the harder lessons around margins, pricing, table turnover, breakage...

Fred Waswa started working on KSh1,500 a month. After losing his father as a teenager, he became responsible for helping support his mother and siblings, learning early that making money was not enough; you had to know what to do with it. That mindset followed him from his early jobs at Pioneer Insurance and Minet to Standard Chartered, where his salary rose from KSh4,500 to KSh75,000.The money st...

Richard Musinguzi once received UGX400 million from his animation business and realised that making serious money was easier than knowing what to do with it. The creator of Katoto Uganda had built a recognised creative property from a simple character sketch, eventually producing 500+ advertisements, growing to an 18-person team and generating an estimated UGX1.6 billion over four years. But behin...

What if you could build a business from assets your customers never need to own? Patricia Mwalimu started Party Lounges with roughly KSh 85,000 worth of furniture. Today, furniture rental accounts for about 90% of the business, furnishing events for thousands of people. In this Business Edition, Patricia breaks down the economics behind the model: how they decide what to buy, how furniture recover...

Lookie’s automotive journey did not begin with a luxury car, a large audience or a dealership. It began with approximately $1,000 from his father and a family connection in London that helped him import small automotive accessories into Kenya. The early margins were modest, but the business introduced him to sourcing, customer relationships and the mechanics of serving a specialised market. From t...

Bashir Yannick Ntwari’s first gym attracted hundreds of members. The numbers still didn’t work. After returning to Rwanda in 2015, he invested in his first fitness business without fully understanding the market, pricing against what he knew from the UK, taking on too much space, spending heavily on equipment and underestimating the cost of delivering the service. Eighteen months later, the gym wa...

Bilha Ngaruiya has watched Kenyan music change from CDs and physical distribution to Spotify, Boomplay, YouTube and a global streaming economy. She has also seen the uncomfortable side of that transformation: artists can have the talent, the audience and even the numbers, yet still struggle to turn music into lasting money. In this Financially Incorrect Personal Story Edition, Bilha Ngaruiya Count...

Rachel Natukunda did not grow up with everything figured out. She grew up seeing what financial security looked like from a distance, worked for her own opportunities, earned a government scholarship, took on part time jobs and eventually saved enough to make one of her first major financial moves: buying a car. In this Financially Incorrect Uganda Edition, Rachel takes us through the money decisi...

What happens when you remove alcohol from the party business? Zanelle Wanja’s answer was Nani’s Cafe Party, a Nairobi social experience built around music, coffee, wellness and community. But before Nani’s, Zanelle built Azana Collective, a fashion business that generated strong sales but struggled with high production costs and weak financial controls. The experience taught her a crucial lesson:...

Wanini Wachira built a career out of understanding people, selling to them and growing businesses. As Head of Retail at Hotpoint, she has helped drive major growth, including more than doubling branch sales over a three-year period. But her own relationship with money was a very different story. Wanini grew up learning financial discipline from a single mother who knew how to stretch every shillin...

Paradis Nishimwe never set out to build a furniture company. It started with a crib for her baby and eventually became Wood Habitat, a Made-in-Rwanda furniture and interior design business serving high-end homes, hotels and corporate clients. But getting there was far from smooth. At one point, 8 out of 10 products were coming back because of quality problems. The business was under pressure, cash...