Raymond Oruo is the Chief Executive Officer of Gor Mahia, arguably one of the most successful football clubs in East Africa. He had always been interested in sports from a young age. He would later go on to pursue a career in teaching before finally quitting to chase his passion.
Here is his story as told by WoK.
Background and Education
Raymond was born in California, in Eastlands and grew up in South C for a while. His parents went on to enrol him at Hill School Primary in Eldoret.
Here, he continued to nurture his football talent and other games. His dream was to join St. Patrick Iten since he heard they have a good basketball and hockey team.
However, he ended up in Nairobi school. While he was disappointed at first, he soon realized the school had all kinds of games and got involved in some of them.
Career
He went on to pursue a Bachelor of education degree at Moi University and proceeded to become a Geography teacher for a few years. While teaching, he helped coach the hockey and Rugby teams.
Raymond quit teaching and was employed by the Kenya Rugby Football Union (KRFU) as a referee. After three years, he joined the world of marketing and advertising.
Before becoming a sports team manager at KCB bank group, he had worked for different agencies including:
- Ogilvy East Africa limited – account manager
- Scanad Uganda – events director
- Nuturn limited – PR & events manager
- Pacific Sports Limited – director
In 2020, Gor Mahia was looking for someone to replace the then CEO Ambrose Rachier and they approached him. He was appointed the team’s sports management consultant and acting CEO of Gor Mahia. Currently, his goal is to see the team grow and adopt strategies that will elevate it.
He took over the team at a difficult period when the pandemic was at its peak and it was hard to manage games or even organize for the team to travel.
Speaking to Catherine on KTN, Raymond Oruo said one of their biggest challenges after Covid was filling up stadiums. While numbers had increased, they hadn’t reached pre-covid levels.
