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First Reading

Draft provisions, consultations and appointments: read before a final rule exists, so operators know what is actually changing.

John Kibunga Kimani bought one third of the company where he worked as a boy.
Capital Lives.

John Kibunga Kimani bought one third of the company where he worked as a boy.

John Kibunga Kimani spent nearly a quarter of a century building his Kakuzi stake from 1.78% to 33.53%, becoming its largest directly registered shareholder and eventually winning a seat on the board of the company where he says he once worked as a boy. His accumulation has long carried a stated concern for workers and neighbouring communities. Now a dispute over 3,200 acres places that language of obligation alongside the duties of a director and major shareholder defending the company’s property and shareholder interests.

Investor Corner · 25 Sep 2026 · 12 min read

The room Joram Mwinamo built.
Inside The Rails

The room Joram Mwinamo built.

Joram Mwinamo has spent two decades helping African entrepreneurs turn founder-led businesses into stronger institutions, culminating in SNDBX, a network that brings more than 30 professional disciplines around a single enterprise. As the model expands from Kenya into Ethiopia and the US, its next test is increasingly familiar to the founders it advises. Can SNDBX coordinate its experts, prove measurable results for clients and build enough leadership depth to work just as well when Mwinamo is no longer in the room?

CEO Spotlight · 21 Sep 2026 · 14 min read

If M-PESA Took a Week Off, Kenya Would Discover We Have a Problem.
Opinion

If M-PESA Took a Week Off, Kenya Would Discover We Have a Problem.

M-PESA has become so reliable, familiar and deeply woven into everyday life that Kenya rarely stops to ask what happens if the bridge everybody uses suddenly closes. A hypothetical seven-day outage turns that question into a very Kenyan comedy of cash shortages, stranded payments and improvised solutions, while exposing a less amusing truth about what happens when an economy becomes too dependent on one payment rail.

Payments · 20 Sep 2026 · 10 min read

Safaricom’s shares sale outran the Constitution. The Court has ordered them back
Independent

Safaricom’s shares sale outran the Constitution. The Court has ordered them back

The High Court has ordered Kenya’s 15% Safaricom stake restored to the State after finding that the KSh204.3 billion sale to Vodacom failed constitutional tests on public participation and transparency. Reversing the trade now means unwinding ownership, money, dividends and transaction costs, while confronting a harder lesson for future privatisations. A public asset should not be transferred before the legal authority to sell it is settled.

Policy & Regulation · 15 Sep 2026 · 12 min read

Who owns the warning before Kenyans lose their money?
First Reading

Who owns the warning before Kenyans lose their money?

Kenya’s latest investment alert names platforms that had already been flagged by regulators elsewhere, including CBEX in Nigeria and QVSE in Ghana. The problem is no longer access to warnings but what happens after they arrive. Investors need a system that turns cross-border alerts into domestic assessment, assigns responsibility to a named agency and makes the path from first warning to investigation, referral and public protection visible without forcing victims to navigate multiple regulators themselves.

Policy & Regulation · 14 Sep 2026 · 7 min read

Kenya can Dream that Big again.
First Reading

Kenya can Dream that Big again.

Kenya Once Made Ambition Feel Ordinary. Can Its Institutions Do It Again?

Kenya we want · 7 Sep 2026 · 11 min read

Kenya Wants a Bigger Cut of Corporate Profits. Should KRA Start Acting Like a Shareholder?
First Reading

Kenya Wants a Bigger Cut of Corporate Profits. Should KRA Start Acting Like a Shareholder?

As Kenya considers extracting more revenue from highly profitable companies and top earners, this feature challenges the adversarial relationship between the tax authority and private enterprise. It argues that if government shares directly in corporate profits through taxation, KRA should behave less like an external enforcer and more like a partner in business growth, potentially taking a formal role in corporate governance to improve compliance, reduce disputes and align tax policy with the profitability of the companies expected to fund the state.

Tax & Regulation · 6 Sep 2026 · 5 min read

Doage Wants to Help African InsurTechs Turn Funding Into Growth.
Partner Content

Doage Wants to Help African InsurTechs Turn Funding Into Growth.

African InsurTech startups have attracted more than US$300 million in funding over the past five years, but capital is only the beginning of the commercial journey. Doage is building a platform around what comes next, helping ventures secure insurer partnerships, enter new markets, strengthen distribution and turn promising products into sustainable revenue.

Insurtech · 2 Sep 2026 · 7 min read

Kenya’s Aviation Strikes Expose the Cost of Settling Flights Before Settling the Dispute.
Independent

Kenya’s Aviation Strikes Expose the Cost of Settling Flights Before Settling the Dispute.

Repeated walkouts across Kenya’s aviation system have shown that restoring operations at JKIA is not the same as resolving the labour disputes beneath them. With tourism earnings at KSh500 billion and the airport carrying most of the country’s international arrivals and air cargo, the unresolved bargaining failures at KCAA, KAA and Jambojet have become a wider economic risk: reliability is now part of Kenya’s tourism product, and another temporary return-to-work deal will only defer the next disruption.

Economy, Labour, and Worker's rights · 31 Aug 2026 · 6 min read

The engineer who built NCBA for scale, and now faces its biggest integration yet.
First Reading

The engineer who built NCBA for scale, and now faces its biggest integration yet.

John Gachora has spent three decades moving from electrical engineering and Wall Street securitisation to African banking, culminating in the merger that created NCBA. With Nedbank now seeking control of the group, he faces a familiar but larger problem: how to connect two complex financial systems without losing the local judgment, culture and operating discipline that made NCBA valuable.

CEO Spotlight · 28 Aug 2026 · 17 min read