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It is hard not to feel inspired and captivated by the zeal, energy and sheer tenacity as you listen to Wanjiru Githiomi. Graceful and elegant, her enthusiasm is infectious and her resoluteness endearing almost to a fault. This, as I go on to learn, has been cultivated through many years by this former attorney at law turned sports marketing and corporate social responsibility consultant based in Cape Town, South Africa.

A Director at Leverage Inc, a company she founded 7 years ago, and the only 100 per cent black woman-owned agency of its kind in Cape Town, Wanjiru can easily be termed as forthright and unruffled.

Born and raised in Kenya, she completed her high school  in Kianda School and left for South Africa 16 years ago, armed with a suitcase, a dream and Sh30,000 to pursue a  career as a lawyer. She did her matriculation, a pre-University course at Rosebank Progress College and graduated with the distinctions she needed for admission to the prestigious University of Cape Town School of Law. Not even the almost “white’s only” faculty at the time could daunt her from running  for a student government position and doubling up as President of Amnesty International, Cape Town.

“I walked away from law and never looked back. But I have never regretted that move as I am now in that space where I do what I love, I own my own space and I live a very comfortable life,” says  the now successful organiser, orator, and marketer. With a natural flair of seeing what works and what doesn’t she is determined to assume the responsibility of adopting a system that works in Kenya.

“The work ethic that we have cultivated in this country sets us apart in more ways than one and if you set us up in a system that works we do very well,” she says, admitting that there are many Kenyans who are quietly successful in foreign lands. “There are many Wanjirus  out there.” The success, Wanjiru admits, did not come easy. Listen to her:  “Everything is as difficult as you make it and the limitations that you place on yourself are your own creation and if you think you can’t make it, everything around you will prove you right.

“The audacity, the appetite, the challenges were so irrelevant in the context of how big my dreams were, I refused to let my race or gender dictate my present reality at the time because I was not only fighting the fact that I was a foreigner but as a woman and a black one at that. “I could not afford to be mediocre, I didn’t have a plan B; I burnt my bridges just like Napoleon. In a system that works like that of South Africa you can only go one way and that is up.”

Wanjiru has been nominated for several awards, including the Shoprite Checker’s community builder awards and Business Woman of the Year 2005 besides being the brand Ambassador of her former school, Rose Bank Progress College - formerly known as Damelin.

Her company’s client portfolio of is as impressive as it is diverse; from  the Ministry of Basic Education, Department of Foreign Affairs and numerous provincial government departments in South Africa, to the likes of Old Mutual, First National Bank, Lexus, Elizabeth Arden, MTN and the South African Broadcasting Corporation.

“We have worked with the big brands and I am very proud of having made the last FIFA World Cup a success albeit in a small way.” “One of the objectives I have in Kenya is to introduce the idea of sports marketing. I am very passionate about commercialising sports in Africa; there has got to be a sustainability model, we need to create another career of choice for the youth as there are so many youths falling between the cracks because they are not academics.”

This she relates to intellectual laziness, which manifests itself in so many other ways. Part of this intellectual laziness coincides with the removal of sports from the education curriculum despite the fact that intelligence and sports are related. “For instance, you exercise so many cognitive skills in a little game of football - cognitive skills, teamwork, leadership, competitiveness, creativity in the pursuit of taking that ball to the other side; consequently anything is possible and your mind is open to absorb all this information.”

Certainly never one to back down from a challenge, Wanjiru aims to champion the cause for youth welfare. “The biggest social problem that I am trying to deal with is youth development especially the youth at risk, to prevent the kind of dereliction that is rampant amongst the youth. It’s been an uphill challenge but that is the vision,” says this firm believer in the spirit of ‘ubuntu’ – I am because we are.

“I always tell my children, you have to have made a mark on this earth in order to earn the oxygen. I am a student of Thambo Mbeki’s school of thought, and a believer in African renaissance. Africa can and has the potential to be whatever it can be but we have to keep our eyes on the end goal,” she says, matter-of-factly.

By JANE MWANGI