Last week, the African Leadership Group launched In The Room podcast with Ken Njoroge as their founding guest. The 45-minute interview featured Ken as he speaks on his formative years, the art of resilience, pivoting Cellulant into a fintech and what the company’s next phase means for the payments and Agriculture marketplace.

His candid take on the African mobile banking landscape and his willingness to open up about the costly mistakes he has made in his journey both as an entrepreneur and a leader offers some great insights to aspiring entrepreneurs into what it takes to build an impactful business.

Podcast Highlights; Ken Njoroge’s Entrepreneurship and Leadership Journey

In the 48 minute interview, Ken speaks to Veda on;

• When and why Cellulant pivoted from a music content business into payments.
• How Cellulant is now entering phase 3 of its business strategy focusing only on two business lines; Tingg for digital payments and Agrikore for the Agriculture Marketplace.
• Mobile Banking; An outlook of the Kenyan and African landscape. 
• Laying the foundation for the payments and digital businesses. 
• 4 key painful and costly commercial and leadership mistakes that he has made over the years.
• Ken the entrepreneur; why he sees himself as a mobile commerce evangelist.
• The point in his life when he discovered that we wanted to be an entrepreneur and how that came about.
• Lessons from a career in the startup world, the first stint as a successful entrepreneur and co-founding 3Mice. 
• Why it’s important to build a world-class business in Africa and what it will take
• How growing up from a humble background prepared him to take on a lot of risks as a young person. 
• The art of resilience and developing strong core values.
• Finding a higher purpose, the road not taken and why it has made all the difference.
• Is Cellulant a social enterprise? Why he has struggled with the traditional construct of what a social enterprise is.

In The Room Episode One; To make it count, do it at scale

About Africa Leadership Group (ALG)

ALG is an ecosystem of institutions which share a common vision: transforming Africa by developing and connecting a new generation of ethical, entrepreneurial leaders. The institutions in the AL Group were all founded by Fred Swaniker, a serial entrepreneur with a pan-African vision. 

About In the Room Podcast

In the Room is a monthly podcast where guests who are rewriting the definition of leadership for the 21st century are invited to speak on their contribution to tackling important global challenges and their aspirations. The show is hosted by Veda Sunasee Head of College at The African Leadership University who unpacks how 21st-century leaders find their mission in life.  In the Room is a meeting point for the ALG community to engage global icons as well as everyday Africans around the desire to make the world a better place.