By Prudence Minayo
Samuel Kiraka is the Chief Executive Officer at EGM Securities. This is the first Capital Markets Authority (CMA) regulated online non-dealing forex dealer in the region. He has served at the capacity since 2019.
Kiraka also served as the team leader of corporate banking at Gulf African bank, team leader of Financial Planning at British American Asset Management, head of Finance and Investments at Equity Bank Limited and Investments Manager at British American Insurance.
He hails from a humble background and learned to work his way to the top. At the beginning of his career, Kiraka worked for a small audit firm as a trainee and office messenger. He later got into finance and rose to the position of senior accountant. By 30, he was an investment manager at Britam with the dream to hold a top managerial position.
Here is his career journey as told by WoK.
Career
Prior to EGM, he worked for ABC Capital Limited from 2012 to 2014 as the company’s general manager.
From 2014 to February 2017, he worked as the head of Old Mutual Securities.
In the course of his career, he has seen business opportunities change. He encourages the younger generation to be patient and value saving a percentage of their income for future use. According to Kiraka, wealth creation is not about taking big steps but starting small and being consistent.
As a leader, he prefers to talk less and listen more. He also wishes to become a shareholder and not just a CEO. While he wishes he had invested more in preparation for retirement during his younger years, he has no regrets about how things turned out.
His ultimate goal is:
“To see a population that is more enlightened about the journey of wealth creation and financial freedom by facilitating training and skilling”
Family
The CEO comes from a strong Christian background with both his parents serving in the church. His father serves as canon in the church and is always interested in Samwel’s contribution to the church.
“My parents inculcated in me; integrity, hard work and honesty, the same values I am imparting to my children,” he told Business Daily Africa.
A married man and father, he derives joy from the success of his children. In a previous interview, he said his son had just joined the veterinary school and that was something of great joy.
EGM Securities
EGM Securities was launched as a start-up in Nairobi, Kenya as part of the Equiti Group in the middle of 2018 to provide an alternative avenue to investment opportunities for Kenyans in a regulated environment.
“Soon after we started our business operations, we realized the large and growing demand from Kenyans to trade online currencies, CFDs, single stocks, commodities, global indices and precious metals away from the traditional investment classes so we created an offshoot called FXPesa,” Kiraka said during an interview with EGM Securities.
FXPesa is a simplified mobile application that facilitates a smooth trading experience for traders of all levels. This means that traders can trade the global markets on-the-go, 24 hours a day, 5 days a week.
“It is only a year ago since the launch of FXPesa, but with all the interest and trading volumes we have experienced and training we’ve conducted, it feels like a decade ago,” Kiraka said.
“We are proud to have grown the business in the country, which means, we have tripled our staff complement to support the number of growing clients. This growth also meant that we had to expand our physical reach and presence in Kenya so we set up an office in Nakuru earlier this year to offer client training and support,” he added.
