The roofing queen

Irene Wanjiku goes through life with a smile on her face. She’s chirpy and chatty, and when she speaks, her hands speak with her. She wanted to be a lawyer, but with no money, she could not afford to pursue her dream course.

 “At 18, I got a job which paid 500 bob a week,” Irene says about her first hustle. “Pocket money was 500 bob a term.”  This modest wage earned Irene her independence. It taught her that making money was easy, and that she could live off her own sweat. She traces her work ethic back to this first job.

At 21, she got a job selling cell phones from a nondescript dealership. The job paid her tuition fees for a diploma in purchasing and supplies. She graduated then got a job at an importation company. “I worked at the reception for one year, then as an accounts executive for the next three. After that, I worked as a personal assistant to one of the directors for two years.” The last two years were a drag. Irene could take minutes and send faxes with her eyes closed: “I wasn’t professionally challenged, so I went back to school.”

In 2011, Irene had her eyes and ears open for business opportunities. The idea for roofing found her when she and her uncle visited the construction site for his home, and he asked for her opinion on his choice of walls and floor tiles. After this, Irene would drive around Syokimau and Kitengela, in the outskirts of Nairobi, sourcing for clients – her proposal was to roof their homes. “I got a handful to get me started,” she says.

Irene quit her job in October 2011 and registered Rexe Roofing Products as a company in November. She rented a desk in a shared office space and proceeded to learn more about roofing from Google and from members of her family who were building homes.

In April 2012, Irene attended a building expo at the Kenyatta International Convention Centre (KICC) in Nairobi that changed everything. She was snaking her way through the stands when she bumped into a white guy. As she was apologising to him, she caught sight of the brochure in his hand. “What’s that?”she asked. He explained that he worked with an international roofing company based in Belgium, which manufactured mainly shingles.

GAME CHANGER

“They were looking for local distributors for their products. I told him I could be their distributor.” The guy turned pink with confusion but she convinced him that she was the right person for the job. Irene went to bed that night with a smile on her face – she had found a way to break into the market.

In June 2012, Irene was invited to bid for a contract to roof 100 holiday homes in Mount Kenya. Irene was jittery. “One night, at 2am, I wrote a lengthy email to the shingles’ manufacturer. I told them that I needed their help to win a contract. I asked them to send me an engineer to train my people and to install the product.” The Belgians were moved, they said they would.

Winning that contract was the game changer for Irene. The contract ran for seven months and it meant many things for Rexe: steady cash flows for the business to break even; a hands-on learning opportunity for her staff; pushing serious volumes of product into the market; recognition and awards.

Other contracts – commercial and residential, local and beyond borders– came in after this first big win. Her staff numbers grew to 25 permanent, and 30 casual workers. Irene moved office to a maisonette tucked in Kilimani, where we met for this interview. She also earned the title of partner to the shingles manufacturer, no longer just a distributor.

Her last big contract? “The Hub, a shopping mall in Karen. Have you ever been there?” I tell her I haven’t. “You should go. Just drive by and have a look. The first thing you’ll notice is the roof,” she urges.

Irene’s best sale is shingles. Think of shingles as a blanket you drape over a bare roof structure. Then you smooth it over the nooks and crannies, trimming off the excess.

 “It’s very neat and beautiful,” she says with pride. “Plus we give you a 50-year guarantee.” Clay tiles are the local benchmark for roofing materials. A unit per square metre is three times cheaper than shingles. After clay tiles comes stone-coated metal types – mabati tiles. Think of it as the love child of shingles and clay tiles; it has the better features of both. Irene is rolling out a new locally-made product this August.

Irene and I have been chatting for just about an hour. I am about to turn off the voice recorder when she says, almost in passing, “People look at success and talk about how we’ve ‘made it’. But no one talks about the hard work or the struggles to get to that success.” Irene continues, “Everything looks good and easy from the outside. It isn’t until we hire someone that they realise the work we must put in to keep things running. Most of them quit before they’ve settled in. No one talks about how I trained my staff under a tree because I couldn’t afford office space. Or the run-ins I had with City Council because I was unloading a container by the side of the road. Or how I waited out in the cold because the unloaders clocked out before they were finished. No one talks about this.”

IRENE’S INSIGHTS

• Hire specialists to provide the skills you don’t have. I hired engineers, quantity surveyors, technicians and designers to do the groundwork. I manage the business.

• Turn your weakness into a strength: Being a woman in this male-dominated industry gives me an edge because I have an eye for colour, aesthetics and detail.
• I am always learning about new technologies and reinventing myself as a businesswoman so I can remain competitive in the market.
• My mantra lies in these ABCDEs: take Action, be Bold, stay Committed, be Dependable, strive for Excellence.