Chris Kirubi, best known as CK, was a popular bilionaire who loved the limelight. His sickness and subsequent death at the age of 79 came as a shocker to many. In this article, WoK looks at the career paths the late billionaire children took following his death.
Robert Kirubi
He was little known until his father’s demise. For his education, Robert mostly studied in the USA and partly in Kenya in the same school as Jimmi Wanjigi. Before his death, the billionaire had revealed that his son declined to work with him.
“…….My son is in Brussels Belgium, he works for DHL. I think they pay him so much money that he refused to work for me. But it’s good he has accumulated a lot of experience. He travels a lot. I see myself in my son,” he shared.
Mary-Ann Musangi
She is the billionaire’s child who followed into his footstep. Before Chris Kirubi’s death, Mary-Ann worked as the MD of Haco industries and sat on the board of the companies as director.
The CEO of Haco industries played a pivotal role in the rebranding of K-Rep Bank to Sidian Bank. She resigned as a board director following the appointment of her husband Andrew Musangi as the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) chairperson.
Mary-Ann, unlike her late father, has kept her life from the glare of the media rather concentrating on running the multi-billion empire left behind by her dad.
Fiona Kirubi
Unlike Chris two children, Fiona was never close to the billionaire. And this was evidenced when she only got 4 million as inheritence. Her siblings, however, agreed to give their half sister a 9.95 percent of the estate from their shares which translated to about Ksh1.6 billion.
Fiona has an MBA from Harvard Business School and an M.A. in Islamic finance from INCEIF, in addition to her B.B.A. from the American University in Dubai, and a B.A. in finance and management from Richmond University- UK.
Her bio on the Meaningful Business website reads:
Fiona (Farha) Kirubi is a partner at Gateway Global and head of Fintech and Leadership development for Africa.
She is active with Gateway’s Conversion Factory, Digital Strategy & Fintech, Gender Equity; Inclusivity, Real Estate, and Social Responsibility & Impact practices.
Her mission is to deliver innovative solutions to communities, institutions and governments.
Previously, she worked at Globaleye as an independent investment advisor, where she was responsible for portfolio strategy, asset allocation, investment management and corporate solutions on pensions and insurance.
Fiona is a regular speaker and serial entrepreneur having co-founded the first Islamic finance advisory firm in East Africa.
She has experience with tailored training on leadership, entrepreneurship, and Islamic banking and has been instrumental at developing training in Kenya and Malaysia for hundreds of bankers and several board members.
She is also a mentor for the start up community and she brings her versatile experience and empathy to offer clients a deep and global outlook in their business decisions. She is listed in the Women in FinTech Powerlist 2017.
Fiona is the chairperson for Muslim Women Tech, an NGO focused of developing tech skills for women based in Malaysia and sits on several advisory boards; Datacultr, which is an AI driven risk management technology platform and two charity foundations, Stara Rescue Center and Talent Foundation International in Kenya.
She has just signed on to be a regular contributor on the CSR Journal were she will also launch her podcast on emotional intelligence and transformation.
