Richard Waitumbi: Meet 35-Year-Old Kenyan Earning Ksh 4 Million Salary As Goldman Sachs Managing Director

At 36, Richard Waitumbi has risen to the highest echelons of his investment career.

He currently works as the managing director of Goldman Sachs Asset Management in New York, United States.

He credits his success to hard work and dedication, saying that his parents have given him the best they could from an educational point of view.

Waitumbi’s academic journey dates back to Greensteds International School, a private institution near Nakuru.

There, he served as the school’s head boy during the 2008–2009 academic year.

His relocation to the US was courtesy of a scholarship he received to pursue an undergrad in Engineering Sciences and Chemical Engineering at Dartmouth College, an Ivy League university in New Hampshire, United States.

He graduated in 2013 with qualifications in Engineering Sciences and Chemical Engineering, earning the prestigious magna cum laude academic distinction.

After graduating, he joined the world of management consulting at Bain and Company, where he learned about private equity investing.

“I quickly realised that there was a much bigger world than engineering that I’d come to believe was my future,” he said in an interview with Business Daily.

He also became interested in learning how investments can drive job creation and open opportunities for people with special needs like autism.

In 2016, he moved to New Mountain Capital, an American private equity firm, as an investment associate.

With time, his interest in the world of equity overpowered his earlier plans to become an engineer.

He subsequently enrolled at Harvard Business School to pursue a Master of Business Administration.

He graduated as a George F. Baker Scholar, which is an honour that is reserved for students in the top five percent of Harvard Business School’s graduating MBA class.

Waitumbi also won the 2019 Harvard Business School Investment Strategies Competition, earning a $10,000 prize.

After earning his Harvard MBA, Waitumbi advanced his career at another investment firm called Bain Capital.

He became a principal in the company’s Double Impact investment business, which supports companies that are capable of delivering measurable social benefits.

His hard work and dedication caught the eye of his mentors and industry leaders, who eventually presented him with an opportunity to join Goldman Sachs in 2024.

Today, he works at Goldman, where he steers the company’s investments in education and workforce development.

As expected, Waitumbi’s position at Goldman comes with an impressive paycheck.

According to a 2025 Wall Street Journal report, Goldman Sachs Managing Directors typically receive base salaries of approximately $400,000 annually.

That translates to about $33,333 monthly (about KSh 4.3 million) before taxes and other deductions.

The directors also receive performance bonuses, which can range from thousands to millions of dollars.

The Wall Street report also states that the director role at Goldman Sachs is the final stop before employees can ascend to Goldman’s partnership.

Waitumbi’s job involves identifying promising businesses, analysing their financial prospects, finding investors willing to support these businesses, and supporting their expansion.

Waitumbi also serves on the boards of Ignite Reading, a company that provides literacy tutoring, and TNTP, a US-based organisation whose interests lie in the educational sector.

In 2025, Waitumbi was recognized among Kenya’s Top 40 Under 40 Men.

Away from Wall Street, Waitumbi is married to a woman named Maggie.

The couple tied the knot in Kenya in 2021, according to a 2022 alumni tribute from Greensteds International School.

At the time, they were living in Boston, Massachusetts.