It’s not every day that Larry Madowo, writes this on his Twitter/X about anyone;
“You see him on TV, you hear him on the radio, you read about him in the papers, and when you go to parties, he’s there. And that’s why Kenyans like him. We naturally like characters that are larger than life.”
If Larry Madowo were to write that about me, then I might probably end my career there and then.
However, to him, he had heard praises from every place. He had heard praise from people who were bigger than Larry Madowo because he was the real deal. How did he become this big of a real deal though?
Christopher Kirubi, famously known as Chris Kirubi or CK, not Calvin Klein the label, but CK anyway; is the legend, the myth, and the man. Or if you like, we can go with the emperor, the conqueror, the champion, the lion. Hello, Gen-Z’s.
This man could do it all. Whether it was business, entrepreneurship, education, philanthropy, investment, or even disc jockeying. A billionaire jack of all trades, as they say.
Did he have any inheritance? Not really. Then how was he able to conquer the world even before many Kenyans mastered their own anthem? That’s the million-dollar question that we are yet to answer.
Early Life
He was born in Murang’a, a small county in Kenya, a few kilometers from the capital city, Nairobi. Death took away his parents at an early age and he didn’t remember much of life with his parents.
To escape this matrix and create something for himself and probably for his children, he worked hard in school and earned scholarships that took him through school.
After his primary levels, he was able to join Friends School Kamusinga, in Western Kenya, where he excelled so well.
The worst part about his schooling life was when they would close school and he’d have no home to go back to. Mostly, he would stay at friends’ homes over the holidays and do odd jobs to fend for his younger siblings.
He was working hard so that he would be able to at least have a place he could call home. He also was working harder so that one day he would, in return, take care of his siblings and friends who took care of him while he was schooling.
He didn’t know exactly how he was going to do it, but he knew it was possible. True to it, even after his death due to cancer in 2021, he is still one of Kenya’s rich elite that touched many lives in a positive way.
Harvard Business School
Chris Kirubi’s first job after graduation was in sales. He was a salesman for Shell, an oil and petroleum multinational company. He would sell and sometimes repair gas cylinders for people back then.
He would also do at-home deliveries where he would sell and fix gas cylinders for clients.
Before you wonder how someone who was selling gas appeared in 2011 Forbes’s list of top forty richest people in Africa and the second richest person in Kenya, you should know that he was a hard worker.
Working in sales was eye-opening to Chris and made him start loving business and everything in between.
He knew staying as a salesman, especially at such a low level, was not going to take him where he wanted to be. After all, when you want to go higher, you try something bigger.
Chris Kirubi proceeded to pursue an accounting course at INSEAD in France and a business course at Harvard in the United States of America.
It was at Harvard Business School where he expanded his business skills besides building networks that catapult his career progression.
To progress fast, Chris Kirubi never kept one job for more than two years. In an interview with Capital News, he explained;
“This is because I did not believe in working in one place for more than two years. I had to move on because I felt like somebody was holding my progress. However you have to be very careful with any changes you make because they must be for the better”
In the 1970s Chris was appointed General Manager of Kenatco, a Kenyan government owned transport corporation that moved cargo across Eastern Africa and provided rent-a-car services of sleek Mercedes Benzes in Nairobi.
Business Empire
After Kenatco, Chris started venturing into real estate before real estate in Kenya was ‘real estate’. He would buy dilapidated buildings on the cheap in Nairobi and Mombasa, renovate them then sell or rent them out .
This was in the eighties and nineties before property prices in Nairobi acquired rockets.
After investing in several real estate projects, and companies, he narrowed down on the acquisition of shares at Centum Investments Company Ltd.
Many of his business friends did not believe him when they saw him investing in Centum. By then, Centum was not a top investing company. It was a fully owned subsidiary of the Kenyan government’s Industrial and Commercial Development Corporation (ICDC).
However, Chris Kirubi knew that Centum was just a sleeping giant. To him, he was seeing the potential that Centum had and he knew how high his involvement can take him and the company too. So the more Centum shares that ICDC offloaded to the Kenyan public, the more Chris bought.
True to it, decades later, he was the largest shareholder of Centum Investments and Centum was one of the leading investment companies listed in Kenya’s Nairobi Stock Exchange.
I mean, were it not for Centum, then maybe Two Rivers Mall, one of the biggest malls in Africa would not have existed.
As of February 2024, Centum had a market cap of KES 5.5 billion and a portfolio that spanned Real Estate, Education, Energy, Marketable Securities and Agricultural sectors.
Chris Kirubi has been associated as either owner, CEO or chairman of some great Kenyan companies such as Kenya’s DHL franchise, DHL Express Kenya, Haco Industries Ltd, Smart Applications Group, Bayer East Africa Ltd, UAP Insurance Ltd, Kiruna International, International House Limited, Nairobi Bottlers, and Capital FM among others.
In 2011, Chris was listed at number 31 in Forbes inaugural list of Africa’s wealthiest people with a then net worth of USD 30 million.
In 2018, Chris sold his BIC Stationery, Lighters and Shavers franchise to French multinational, Societe BIC for a mouth watering sum of KES 2 Billion (USD 20 Million), payment of which was staggered over a couple of years.
Radio DJ
His love for music had him at Capital FM, not only as the owner but also as a disc jockey with a mid-morning rock music show. The man loved his life, his Italian design suits, his women, his cars, and his work. A true epitome of “Work hard, play harder”.
Everyone would comment about this billionaire DJ. His show at Capital FM attracted many youths who looked up to him and sought his advice on various matters from investing to career and even dating.
He also grew a huge following on his social media platforms that he used mostly to share and advise young people who formed the majority of his followers.
Progressively growing his wealth and also staying afloat in the digital world, Kirubi believed that the best advice that he received when he was young was to believe and trust in his capabilities.
Had he not believed that Centum was one of those places to focus on and grow with, then most probably there would not be an article about Chris Kirubi today.
In an interview with Business Daily, when asked what he was working towards at seventy years, having achieved what most only dream of, he responded that he was working toward more achievements.
What exactly does achievement mean?
Clearly, Chris’s and I’s definitions of achievement are not the same because in Chris Kirubi’s life, all I see is achievement, in Capital and in Bold.
He achieved beyond many people’s imaginations by being an ambitious hard worker who knocked on so many doors when most people did not even know such doors existed.
Controversy
For a man who did not shy from sharing his opinion on even the most sensitive topics, Chris’s journey to billionaire status was not without controversy.
As a General Manager of Ketraco and Chair of the Board of Directors of Uchumi Supermarkets, he was in the middle of two government owned parastatals that collapsed under the weight of corruption and mismanagement.
Kenatco collapsed in the 1980’s while Uchumi Supermarket, a publicly listed chain that at its peak had branches in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania was placed under receivership in 2006.
Chris resigned from being Chair of Uchumi Supermarkets in 2004, at a time when the chain was posting record losses and its huge loan book was literally suffocating operations.
However, throughout his life, Chris denied any wrongdoing in both companies and maintained his innocence. Court cases against him on the Uchumi Supermarket mismanagement found him not culpable.
Family
Chris Kirubi loved his senior bachelor’s life. On a popular Kenyan show, The Churchill Show, he once said;
“Marriage is enslavement and you have to be careful. You have to agree to go into slavery and into ‘jail’.
If you marry a good woman, it is such a pleasure. But there are some women, who are like they first went to the army then came back for you to marry them. They are always in a fighting mood. God has to bless you (with a good marriage)”
Chris was once married but divorced. He pointed that he was outgoing and loved his night life but his conservative ex-wife could not entertain it.
He preferred his life single, where he got the freedom to do anything, go home at whatever time to be met by his excited sausage dogs rather than a quarrelsome wife. Through out his post-marriage relationships, he made sure they didn’t get to the commitment stage.
He had three children. Mary-Anne Musangi who took over the management of his vast business empire and Robert Kirubi who is settled in Europe and works with DHL in Brussels, both from his first marriage and another daughter, Fiona (Farha) Kirubi from another relationship.
Even after he died in 2021 at age 80, Chris Kirubi still stays at the top of the table. His name, his legacy, his businesses, and his entrepreneurial insights are still a great source of inspiration today.
Enough said about DJ CK. With that business idea that you probably think won’t sell, just work on it day by day and it may signal the universe to point you to the right places at the right times. You might be the next Christopher Kirubi, who knows?
Also, while working on your business and dreams, remember to have fun. Be a disc jockey even. Life is for the living.
