WOMAN OF PASSION: In the business of leadership

It’s a full house when I meet Caroline Wanjiku, 30, for this interview. “The second shift has just checked in,” Wanjiku says as she looks at her watch.

“They come in from 2 to 10pm. We have another group working offsite; they are digitising documents for a corporate client.”

We are at the offices of Daproim Africa. Daproim offers tech services to other companies. It’s a business process outsourcing company, a BPO. The services they offer to their clients include data entry, transcription, research and virtual assistant services. Everything is done online from their service centre off Mama Ngina Street, in Nairobi’s CBD.

The workspace itself has the milling activity of a cybercafé – desktop computers hum in tandem to the clicking of keyboards and loose conversation in hushed tones from the students ofnthe afternoon shift. A chuckle drifts by once a while. Wanjiku tells me there are about 71 students at work here; 21 are offsite.

Wanjiku sits at a far corner of the floor, supervising the staff with Mary from Admin. From her laptop, Wanjiku can monitor what each student is doing, what deadlines they are working against and how much money has been made from completed work they’ve submitted. “Most of our clients are from the US, UK and India,” she says about their portfolio.

It’s amazing to imagine that only seven years ago, Wanjiku had a desk in the open space here. “I joined Daproim in 2009 as an accountant,” she says. “My undergraduate degree is in business and commerce, with a major in accounting. I got good grades so I enjoyed the course. Before I graduated, in June 2010, I interned with a courier company in Nairobi West as an accountant. That’s when I realised that this isn’t what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. I wasn’t motivated to apply for jobs elsewhere.”

Wanjiku applied to Daproim on a lark and got a job as their accountant. And that’s when her passion started to show itself. “I realised that I spent most of my regular working hours doing something related to IT, not to accounting,” says Wanjiku. Balancing books and reconciling ledgers had little room for innovation and creativity, something Wanjiku craved. The more she immersed herself into the world of tech, the more she appreciated that her curiosity and thirst for learning were skills that were readily transferable to tech. “I learned the company inside out, then came up with other products to support the products we already offered. I didn’t have the skills to code so I got our programmer to code for me.” I ask her about one such product: “I came up with software that interviews people. It asks random questions then grades you based on your responses. The catch is that you can’t copy someone else’s responses because of the randomisation.”

A year after joining the company, Wanjiku rose ranks to Programmes Manager then to Chief Operations Officer. In 2012, she became a partner in the company, holding 75 per cent equity and managing all operations on the ground. “That same year, we applied for a grant from Rockefeller Foundation. The grant was to get our social mission programme off the ground. It’s called Direct Campus Connect, DCC. DCC hires disadvantaged students from local universities. The ones selected from the shortlist work here for a small pay. We got $250,000 (Sh25.3 million). The grant helped us resource our outsourcing centre and set up structures to better deliver our products.”

While DCC had a noble mission, one of the challenges they encountered was that the university students weren’t ready to get into the job market. “We partnered with a recruiting agency to train the students on how to apply for jobs and interact with clients. We also have an agreement with the universities’ deans to balance between their schoolwork and our client work.

“Another challenge is that our local BPO sector is not standardised,” says Wanjiku. It’s not only BPOs – standardisation is a challenge that cuts across the tech industry.

Wanjiku returned to school to sharpen her business savvy. “I got a master’s degree in Entrepreneurial Leadership from Portland States University and last year, I graduated with an MBA from the University of Nairobi,” she says. “The final day I was defending my project was the day I had my daughter,” she adds, chuckling. “I am also a member of Keroche Foundation; it mentors and guides young entrepreneurs.”

Wanjiku’s plan in the next few years is to expand operations – including the impact of DCC – and double the volume of client work the company manages.

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WANJIKU'S ADVICE

Adopt a mentor – get a professional mentor from your industry, and a social mentor outside your industry.

Be a lifelong student – the business environment is constantly changing. Stay ahead of this change by understanding the leading practices, thinking and tools in your industry.

Be honest about your strengths and weaknesses – focus on what you are good at and hire others to do what you can’t.

There are so many transferable skills you can leverage for success in your career change, like leadership, communication and planning.