Yukabeth Kidenda, 28, believes that she is on the right path toward achieving her career goals and aspirations.
rkshop program that gives young people a platform to launch a career of purpose, as well as connect them to a network of problem solvers and powerful potential employers.
It also seeks to give them real life experience and problem solving skills to help them thrive in the world.
She spoke to Nation.co.ke about her journey.
Tell us about yourself
I am the second born in a family of six children; I have four brothers and one sister. I have a Bachelor’s Degree in Business Administration and a minor in Marketing from Strathmore University.
Related Content
BOLD WOMAN: Mary Ngechu
BOLD WOMAN: Sallinder Nyawira
BOLD WOMAN: Jedidah Lemaron
BOLD WOMAN: Sisters set up app to ease women troubles during ‘monthly cycle’
I was born in Mombasa, but we moved to Nairobi in 2002.
Career background?
I was lucky to kick it off two weeks after graduating. I had been applying for a volunteer position to teach English as a second language. I applied through an organisation called Adventist Volunteer Services.
AVS is an initiative of the Seventh Day Adventist Church which I attend. I found out about the position from a friend from the same church who had gone through the program. I got the job and was posted in Honduras, Central America. While there, I also did tutorials for Math and Science for third to sixth grade.
It was a struggle to get a job when I came back to Kenya a year later. This was mainly because I had no tangible work experience that was recognised by employers. Additionally, I did not know how to interview or sell myself to an employer.
I never learnt how to interview or to build my CV well in school; skills I believe are extremely necessary in today’s world. I was in and out of offices, and busy applying for jobs for one and a half years. I tried attending all the forums I could just so I could get myself out there.
Then one of my friends, who offers corporate training, gave me a position in her company. She took me in as her Business Development Manager. I was responsible for scouting for business opportunities.
My mum always had an idea of what my first salary should look like, which was not the case, but I had to start somewhere. While here, I learned so much about professionalism in this role. She allowed me to shadow her meetings and taught me personal branding. I am grateful for the opportunity.
I only applied for the Microsoft job five months later because of pressure from my brother, which was actually the last day of applications. Two weeks later, I received an international call while visiting a friend. I thought it was someone from Honduras, but she clarified that she was calling from Microsoft to do a screening interview.
That was it. I had this great job as a Skills Program Manager, working in Eastern and Central Africa. It was a wonderful experience. I was responsible for their skills program for East and Southern Africa. I handled needs analysis, sales, deployment and training for their online platform for capacity building in ICT.
I grew, I met amazing people, and especially built myself in the education industry, more so using 21st century design and using technology as an aid for learning. I felt that this was a stepping stone into my career. I had a strong manager, Warren, who really shaped me.
The biggest highlight of my career at Microsoft was the travel and the meetings with senior officials from ministries of education from different countries across East and Southern Africa.
It made me fall in love with the education space to see how everyone was planting their own small seeds of change in a bid to transform the space! The most interesting person I met was our country manager Kunle Awosika.
He was a boss, mentor and friend. He was always available to help me through challenges and was a manager that made me motivated to go to work every day!
Then what happened?
I met a lady, Kathlyn Patillo, who wanted to start a venture here in Kenya while I was at Microsoft. She was good friends with my brother.
We talked about it mostly via email, and I once went to her house when she had a think tank session. It was really informal. I got to engage with many cool people in Nairobi’s education space where we discussed various issues affecting the space.
One Sunday morning, as we had breakfast, she asked me to work for her. I never had plans of leaving a multinational corporate to join a start-up.
Eventually, Kathlyn sold to me her idea of transforming the education space through collective impact by creating a platform where leaders could collaborate and I believed in it and still do.
I thought about it and realised that I needed a new challenge and more responsibilities which the start-up would offer.
It was an organisation start-up that would run a fellowship program for educators called Métis, and I was called to be the director. I then resigned from my job at Microsoft mid-2017, a move that my manager was not so happy about initially.
I then started at Métis, where we had a cohort of fifteen brilliant minds through a very targeted recruitment. We were determined to get the brightest spots in Nairobi’s education space.
We had a cohort of 14 superstars including Professor Olive Mugenda- former Kenyatta University Vice Chancellor, Radhika Lee- Director at Nairobi International School, and Dr Susan Kiragu- Founder of
