Tuskys hires CFO to steady its ship

Friday, July 17, 2026

Home Tags Uchumi

Feature

Tuskys hires CFO to steady its ship

Staff Writer - October 7, 2020

Distressed Tuskys supermarkets has appointed Chadwick Okumu as its new financial controller as it seeks to stay afloat. Okumu replaces Daniel Ndirangu who left the...

MOST POPULAR

The inspiring career journey of two Muslim women who founded a thriving law practice By George Marenya By Amos Wachira In the bustling city of Nairobi, a small office hums with purpose. Here, Ludfia Maalim and Kheira Farah, co-founders of Farah & Maalim Advocates, pore over case files, their hijabs contrasting with sharp blazers. Their mission? To empower people through fast, efficient and cost effective legal services—one client at a time. Farah and Maalim Advocates is a tale of two young women brought together by a giant dream. In the beginning though, their circumstances and interests would not be more different. Soon after completing her O Levels, Kheira Farah was totally in love with business, she kept her ear to the ground about financial trends and what was moving the markets at any one time. Because of her love for the business world, she really wanted to plunge herself into the world of entrepreneurship right after her secondary school education. Her greatest mentor who is also her uncle had other ideas though. To him she was a perfect fit for law school, no amount of protesting would dissuade him. And so she was set for university, on one condition that if she fails the exams, she will not continue with her studies and would opt for business. When she joined Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and technology’s law school, she had made peace with her uncle’s choice of law. “I reasoned that a law firm was like a business, so I was good to go. I immediately loved the course as I was excelling in exams.” She says. After joining the law school, she met and became fast friends with Ludfia Maalim, who was also pursuing a law degree at the institution. After graduating with a bachelor of laws degree in 2020, kheira wanted to join the NGO world, instead of proceeding to the Kenya School of Law. Again her uncle would hear none of it. "But only ten percent of Kenya Law School graduates make it," she lamented. "Well," replied her uncle, "You will be among the ten percent. Who says you cannot be?" he told her. And that way, kheira was destined for the Kenya Law School, where her mettle and ambition to be a lawyer would be thoroughly tested. The duo’s “lightbulb moment” came during their oral exams at the Kenya School of Law. Kheira says, “Recognizing how tough the oral exams were, I told ludfia that if we make it to the end, we should vow to found our own law firm, Farah and Maalim Advocates. For Ludfia, the road to Law School and a Law Office was made of more rough pebbles. Having excelled in their academics, she wanted to pursue any course that revolved around gender and women empowerment. After completing her O levels in 2015, Ludfia went back to her native Matarajio Primary School, her former school to greet her former teachers. That’s when they told her they had a vacancy for teachers and she bought into the idea, rolling her sleeves and taking up chalk and books to teach grade four, five and six pupils. Her favorite pupils were in class four. With her love for the pupils still burning inside, she approached one of her mentors and told her how she wanted to follow her passion-teaching. The mentor gave her a reality check telling her that in this country "Passion does not pay," concluding, "Do not do anything merely for passion." So when the admission letter to join university came along, Ludfia was off to Murang’a University for a course in Maths and Economics. Not contented with the course, she did not last long as she immediately embarked on researching and applying to various Law schools to pursue law, her newfound course. Ludfia’s father, a retired Chief wanted her to be a banker. The thought of walking into a bank and finding his daughter minding peoples’ money was the old man’s dream job for Ludfia. It took quite some time for him to come around. While her parents thought she was busy studying at Murang’a University, Ludfia was moving around law schools in Nairobi looking for a vacancy. Her first stop was in Karen, at the JKUAT Law school. She paid for the admission fee and left. She then approached her brother for more cash to fund her endeavor. The following day, she approached her dad, who was shell-shocked. he told her to give him time to think about it as it was a family matter. When she finally got admitted at the Karen campus, she vowed to do her best, at least to appease her father. At the university, she met Kheira and they became best of friends. Four years later, they graduated and were admitted in the bar in March of 2023, one of their defining moments. Employment beckoned and as fate goes, the two women went their separate ways, each getting gainfully employed in plum law firms. Even as they worked in different parts of Nairobi, they kept in touch and kept their dream of opening their own law firm alive. After each of them had gathered enough work experience they met again in December 2023 and decided to get serious about opening a Law firm. That is how Farah and Maalim Advocates, situated in a bespoke and stylish office at the 4th floor of St. Ellis House came to be. But launching a private practice was never going to be a walk in the park. While Kheira really wanted to be her own boss, Ludfia was comfortable in her job which provided her with enough perks. “I had gotten comfortable at the law firm. The money was good, and I was looking forward to a pay-slip every month.” “Kheira told me that I should desist from getting comfortable as I could be replaced at any given moment. I thought it was just another quote. Then it hit me.” Not one to break their vow at the KSL, she accepted that the time had come for them to start and grow their own firm. But when rubber met the tarmac, they realized first hand that they did not have enough resources to establish the kind of law practice they desired. There were no funds for that. Unbowed, they put together any savings that they had and asked a friend to help them get an office space in the CBD. “We had a name but no cash. Nonetheless, we vowed to do it,” says Kheira. Once they had secured an office space, the next step was to partition it. They were halfway through the partitioning process when the cash they had ran out. Not one to be discouraged by setbacks, Ludfia approached her mom for a small loan. She was given Kshs 300 000 to complete the partitions. As for Kheira, she couldn’t get any loans from family members as they all knew she was working as a lawyer at a big law firm. They started with the bare minimum. In 2024, they opened their doors to clients, provide a wide range of legal services. These include, property and real estate, commercial and corporate law, banking, finance and tax laws, dispute resolution and debt recovery, family law and succession. Others are labor relations law, intellectual property law and insurance law. A Meeting of Minds Both daughters of Kenyan-Somali families, they witnessed firsthand how women and youth in their community grappled with legal voids. Navigating Kenya’s plural legal system, which intertwines civil, customary, and Islamic (Kadhi) courts, is no small feat. Early on, skepticism met their youth and gender. “Some clients asked, ‘Where’s the real lawyer?’” Kheira laughs. Undeterred, they leveraged their deep cultural understanding to bridge gaps. Challenges and Triumphs Funding remains a hurdle. Bootstrapping their firm, they are keen on organic growth, adding one client at a time. For any new lawyer, getting clients is a big challenge. For a start, there are many lawyers so competing with established firms for clients is a tough undertaking. Gender challenges The duo admits that sometimes gender plays a significant role in the career. A good example is when dealing with patriarchal communities who believe that men should be the ones to lead. When looking for lawyers, some get disappointed to find two Muslim women handling their case, while their expectations were that men could be the ones to do their bidding. Like any other business, challenges abound, but the duo deals with them accordingly. Yet their impact is undeniable: banks, financial institutions, NGOs, construction companies, private hospitals and property management companies form part of their clientele. The Road Ahead Looking forward, Ludfia and Kheira dream of expanding their team to reach more Kenyans. As dusk settles over Nairobi, the two pore over their diaries before calling it a day. Their journey, Kheira reflects, is about more than legal victories: “It’s about showing the world that young Muslim women can lead—and lift others as we rise.”

Defending Rights, Defying Odds

September 24, 2025

SAMSUNG HOSTS AI CENTRED ELECTRONICS CUSTOMER EDUCATION FORUM

September 2, 2021

Twiga Foods plans FMCG expansion with new partnerships

April 23, 2025

Merck Foundation announces ‘Stay at Home’ awards

April 28, 2020

HOT NEWS

Gadgets

Africa’s Business Heroes Announces Top 10 Finalists for 2022

News

GUINNESS BRINGS INCREDIBLE FANZONE EXPERIENCE TO MERU

Financial infrastructure firm, Tala, has launched a tokenized lending platform to cater to borrowers without a banking history in the world. It plans to deploy $50 million credit facility via the platform in USDC to power blockchain-enabled, permission-less lending for millions of global customers. The Artificial Intelligence (AI) underwritten consumer lending tool, in partnership with Huma Finance, is the first of its kind in Kenya and is powered by Solana and supported by USDC liquidity facilitated by the Huma Protocol For billions of consumers who lack access to traditional banking services and credit history systems, tokenized lending offers faster and more reliable access to credit, better rates through a global capital network, and a portable, digital reputation that enables broader participation in the global economy. Tala’s existing customer base of nearly 13 million across multiple emerging markets creates immediate scale for blockchain adoption. "After a decade operating across multiple emerging markets, we know how to translate frontier technologies into real-world financial power," said Shivani Siroya, founder and CEO, Tala. "By pairing Tala’s trusted platform with the power of blockchain technology, together with Huma and Solana, we can expand financial access, eliminate systemic inefficiencies, and help millions become active participants in the global digital economy.” The solution is powered by Tala’s proprietary credit engine, which has been trained on $7 billion in lending performance data across multiple continents. That dataset—largely invisible to banks and most AI systems—gives Tala the ability to evaluate borrowers who have historically been overlooked by the global financial system. By tokenizing these loans in an overcollateralized lending facility and connecting them to Huma’s liquidity pools, Tala unlocks a new funding mechanism for emerging market credit, bringing global capital directly to high-demand markets transparently and efficiently. Speaking during the launch, Erbil Karaman, Co-Founder of Huma Finance, said that Tala’s team has over a decade of experience in scaling high-performance lending programmes while providing financial access to tens of millions of people who need it the most.

News

Tala launches crypto lending platform

Gadgets

Monster Energy announces its first ever National Consumer Promotion

EDITOR PICKS

Africa’s leading electric vehicle (EV) and clean energy infrastructure platform, today announced the successful closing of its latest funding round at $270 million. This milestone follows a newly finalized $55 million investment from NewTrails Capital, a prominent Chinese growth-stage investment fund focusing on emerging markets with strategic locations in Shanghai, Shenzhen and Nigeria. Scaling Africa’s next-generation mobility and energy ecosystem This capital injection positions Spiro among the continent's most heavily backed Africa’s e-mobility and energy ecosystem. Building on the support of long-standing institutional partners such as FEDA, Spiro’s latest equity round also draws global capital from Europe and Africa, Impact Fund Denmark, Equitane and FEDA, on top of the recent backing from Nithio and the Africa Go Green Fund. "I would like to thank NewTrails Capital for believing in Spiro’s model and supporting our unique tech, energy and innovation journey. Having deployed 100,000 electric vehicles and 2,500 smart-swap stations across seven active markets, Spiro has firmly moved past the proof-of-concept phase. Partnering with NewTrail Capital’s deeply experienced team marks a powerful new chapter for Spiro as we prepare for the next steps of our pan-African and international expansion”, stated Gagan Gupta, Founder of Spiro and Chairman of Equitane. Yufan Zhang, Founding Partner of NewTrails Capital, added: “We believe Spiro is driving a profound “energy revolution” across mobility use cases in Africa. This represents not only a vast and highly imaginative market opportunity, but also the potential to grow into an infrastructure-like business that creates meaningful commercial, social, and environmental value. In our view, Spiro’s core strengths lie in its deeply localized operating capabilities, vertically integrated supply chain, digitally enabled ecosystem, sound unit economics, and strong ability to scale rapidly. More importantly, Spiro has systematically integrated vehicles, batteries, energy replenishment, payments, and service networks into a solution that is truly tailored to the needs of African users, effectively addressing long-standing structural pain points in the local market. As a Chinese fund committed to investing in Africa’s energy transition and green technology, we are also very encouraged to see Chinese supply chains and financing playing an increasingly important role in this process. Spiro is still a young company, and everything today is only the beginning. We look forward to continuing to fulfill our role as a long-term investor, contributing our resources and experience, growing together with Spiro, and helping accelerate Africa’s new energy transition.”, This partnership will be instrumental to support Spiro’s current manufacturing and supply chain localisation effort on the continent in particular with Chinese suppliers.

Spiro secures $55M additional backing from Chinese investor NewTrails Capital

July 10, 2026

Radisson Hotel Group (RHG) (www.RadissonHotels.com) is helping drive a new era in healthcare meeting planning, contributing to the industry’s evolution from operational event delivery to a structured, strategic discipline focused on improving scientific exchange, decision-making, and healthcare outcomes. The findings emerge from the Radisson Hotel Group Knowledge Exchange: Healthcare Planning, Design and Strategy Summit held in Florence, Italy, where 75 experts from across the pharmaceutical, healthcare agency, and venue production sectors came together to explore the future of healthcare meeting design. Built to drive tangible outcomes, the two-day summit centered on collaborative working sessions and practical workshops that translated industry insights into actionable frameworks, rather than a traditional conference format. The resulting report identifies a clear industry shift: healthcare meetings are increasingly being recognized not as standalone events, but as strategic communication systems that require structured design, measurable methodologies, and continuous improvement. “Healthcare meetings are no longer simply logistical exercises—they are strategic communication platforms that can drive measurable educational, scientific, and organizational outcomes,” said Muriel Poulenc, Senior Director, Sales Strategy at Radisson Hotel Group. “Across the industry, we are seeing growing recognition that better outcomes require more than flawless execution. They require structured design, integrated workflows, and a more deliberate approach to how meetings are planned, delivered, and measured. The organizations embracing this shift will be best positioned to create meaningful impact.” Healthcare meeting design is becoming a discipline A central theme emerging from the Florence summit is the growing professionalization of healthcare meeting planning. As regulatory requirements, stakeholder expectations, and organizational complexity continue to increase, the industry is moving toward shared methodologies, frameworks, and measurement systems that support more consistent and effective outcomes. Building on discussions first initiated at the 2025 Knowledge Exchange, participants worked to translate industry insight into practical, repeatable tools designed to improve meeting effectiveness, compliance, and stakeholder engagement. The report argues that healthcare meetings should no longer be viewed as isolated events, but as intentionally designed systems that support learning, collaboration, and decision-making across the healthcare ecosystem. The healthcare meeting planner is becoming a decision architect As healthcare meetings become more complex, the role of the planner is evolving beyond coordination and logistics. The report highlights the emergence of meeting planners as strategic decision architects, responsible for aligning stakeholders, structuring workflows, and helping organizations make better decisions throughout the planning lifecycle. Workshop discussions revealed that many organizational challenges, including delays, inefficiencies, and rework, are often the result of fragmented decision-making rather than execution shortcomings. Participants concluded that better meetings depend on better decision structures, greater alignment, and earlier strategic involvement from planners. AI won't fix healthcare meetings. Better systems will While artificial intelligence (AI) continues to dominate industry conversations, the Florence summit challenged the assumption that technology alone will solve healthcare meeting challenges. According to discussions and data presented during the summit, while AI adoption across the industry is high, relatively few organizations are achieving its full value. Participants agreed that the real challenge is not technology adoption, but the integration of AI into coherent workflows, governance models, and decision-making systems. The report identifies fragmented processes, disconnected workflows, and inconsistent planning structures as some of the industry's most significant barriers to progress. In many organizations, as much as 40–60% of planning activity remains focused on non-value-creating work. To address these challenges, RHG advocates for the adoption of structured methodologies, including Lean Six Sigma, Agile, and Sprint thinking, to redesign healthcare meeting planning around flow, efficiency, and measurable outcomes. Build. Measure. Learn. One of the report's key contributions is the introduction and exploration of the Meeting Flow Efficiency Ratio (MFER), a framework designed to measure the balance between value-creating activity and reactive planning effort. The model demonstrates how organizations can increase productive planning time by improving workflow design, reducing friction, and creating greater alignment across teams and stakeholders. The report also reinforces the need to move beyond one-off event thinking toward a continuous engagement model. This evolution is particularly important given the report's finding that 66% of healthcare professionals change their clinical practice or prescribing behavior following participation in industry-sponsored symposia, highlighting the significant influence healthcare meetings can have on professional decision-making and patient outcomes. An industry ready to evolve A panel featuring senior leaders from Inizio Engage XD, MCI, Emota, and Open Audience reinforced the report's conclusions. Drawing on longitudinal industry data spanning 2018 to 2026, the panel identified a common challenge: not structural failure, but structural inertia. While participation remains strong and investment continues, many traditional meeting formats have failed to evolve alongside changing expectations and technological capabilities. The report concludes that the future of healthcare meetings will belong to organizations that combine methodology, intelligent orchestration, and strategic design to create more impactful, measurable, and scalable engagement. By combining sector expertise, collaborative industry engagement and methodology-driven approaches, Radisson Hotel Group continues to support the advancement of healthcare meeting design and contribute to the ongoing development of the discipline globally.

Radisson Hotel Group shapes the future of healthcare meeting design

July 10, 2026

Irish and Kenyan Scientists Collaborate on Dairy Research

July 10, 2026

Third Africa Islamic Finance Forum Confirmed for Nigeria March 2018

March 23, 2018

EABL signs lease deal for office space in upcoming Garden City...

March 14, 2018

Facebook Introduces Messenger Rooms and More ways to connect

April 27, 2020

Tag: uchumi

Tuskys hires CFO to steady its ship

MOST POPULAR

Defending Rights, Defying Odds

SAMSUNG HOSTS AI CENTRED ELECTRONICS CUSTOMER EDUCATION FORUM

Twiga Foods plans FMCG expansion with new partnerships

Merck Foundation announces ‘Stay at Home’ awards

HOT NEWS

Africa’s Business Heroes Announces Top 10 Finalists for 2022

GUINNESS BRINGS INCREDIBLE FANZONE EXPERIENCE TO MERU

Tala launches crypto lending platform

Monster Energy announces its first ever National Consumer Promotion

EDITOR PICKS

Spiro secures $55M additional backing from Chinese investor NewTrails Capital

Radisson Hotel Group shapes the future of healthcare meeting design

Irish and Kenyan Scientists Collaborate on Dairy Research

POPULAR POSTS

Third Africa Islamic Finance Forum Confirmed for Nigeria March 2018

EABL signs lease deal for office space in upcoming Garden City...

Facebook Introduces Messenger Rooms and More ways to connect

POPULAR CATEGORY