Nahashon Gathai, director of finance and strategy at AA Kenya, has built a career by stepping into uncertainty. For the finance executive, the future belongs to those willing to learn continuously and welcome innovation.
The instinct to move toward unfamiliar territory is Nahashon Gathai’s defining characteristic. Throughout his career, every change has shown a willingness to take on complexity.
He notes, “I cut across the CFO world, but also business, entrepreneurship and leadership because in all the organisations that I have worked in, I've worked closely with CEOs, Boards and Leadership teams.”
Today, as director of finance and strategy at AA Kenya, Nahashon is helping guide the organisation through a defining chapter. Following its transition from an over 100 years old members’ association into a public limited company, AA Kenya is preparing to list in the Nairobi Securities Exchange.
“For AA Kenya, I came in at an interesting time because it was transitioning from a members’ association under the societies act to a public limited company, which is regulated under Capital Markets Authority (CMA) . From an accounting perspective, these are some of these unusual events because it requires a lot of financial judgments, financial disclosures and remember, it's not something that you went and learned in school. So, you learn by the day,” he recalls.
The transformation is particularly significant because AA Kenya operates at the intersection of mobility, road safety, driver training, vehicle services and financial inclusion. Its national network serves individuals, businesses and institutions through products ranging from driving-school training and road rescue to vehicle valuation, membership, licensing and fleet services.
Nahashon sees this breadth as both an opportunity and a responsibility.
The finance leader has approached every stage of his career with curiosity. Even after reaching the executive suite, he continues to invest in learning. He recently completed his MBA and is pursuing further postgraduate studies in blockchain, tokenisation and digital assets.
“I have a lot of interest in digital assets or virtual assets, what you’re seeing the world going towards; the cryptocurrencies, the stable coins and all that,” he adds.
Lessons from uncertainty
Every role Nahashon has taken on has shaped his professional journey, but his time in Ethiopia left the deepest mark.
He joined Quantum Technologies which was aiming to build one of Ethiopia’s first digital lending businesses. He expected rapid growth, but instead, he encountered bureaucracy and civil conflict
“Quantum technology was starting digital lending in Ethiopia. They had an interesting model and I thought it could work because it was the first,” he recalls. “They had everybody. The right connections in government, in banks, in the National Bank of Ethiopia and all that. It was just a matter of going, plugging and playing, and making money the following day. When I got into Ethiopia, the first few weeks were about setup. Month one lapsed, month two lapsed. And it is very interesting because they have a lot of bureaucracy because the people who are supposed to make these decisions take their sweet time.”
The experience eventually brought him back to Kenya. But the setbacks taught him resilience and strategic patience. These same lessons would prove invaluable when he joined AA Kenya in 2024 and led them through their demutualisation process.
“Any accountant knows what demutualisation means, because you spend a lot of sleepless nights balancing figures here and there. The main reason why we were demutualising from an association to a PLC is because we needed to raise capital which we eventually did.” He adds, “Again, we are still in the journey because we want to list in the Nairobi Securities exchange.”
Preparing for a blockchain future
Nahashon’s interest in blockchain and digital assets is fuelled by the belief that finance is entering a period of reinvention. An ordinary moment of reading about cryptocurrency while travelling was the start of his fascination with digital assets.
“I was traveling to Germany, I think. Then as I'm seated, I'm reading a magazine on how people are trading in crypto in Germany and in Africa, especially Nigeria. That's where I developed my interest. Now I have started reading a lot of articles about it,” he recalls.
But he didn’t become interested in crypto speculation. Instead, he became interested in how digital assets change finance and ownership.
“The reason why I decided to study that area is because assets in our books are moving fast to become digital assets because digital assets provide something we call liquidity.” He explains, “KICC probably is worth one billion. They can tokenise it into one billion tokens of one shilling each. Assuming you can just afford one million shillings, you just pay one million to get one million tokens of KICC. And then at the end of the month, whatever rent comes from KICC, you can get a percentage of the share.”
This curiosity led him to participate extensively in industry consultations and stakeholder engagement in the drafting of Kenya's virtual assets legislation.
“Interestingly in AA Kenya, I'm finding a lot of customers asking to pay for their driving school course with stable coin such as USDT or Bitcoin. You won’t send them away.You adapt to where the world is going,” he says.
Growing people
At AA Kenya, Nahashon leads over 100 people in both the strategy and finance teams in their over 100 branches. He focuses on exposing his team to news ideas and professional networks.
“One of the things that I do to mentor my team is; one, I have tried to expose them as much as possible to training. Two, every quarter we have our own bonding session whereby we just discuss the emerging issues in finance.” He continues, “Three, I try as much as possible to make sure that my people talk to ICPAK as much as they can and therefore, I have created direct links whereby my finance manager will have a direct link to the head of policy in ICPAK.”
Many know him only as CFO. But those closest to him know a very different side.
“People would be surprised to learn that I'm a techie and I'm very good on the front end.” He continues, “The other thing that people who I meet for the first time don't know is that I am also a trainer. I train people on various things. I train people on digital assets. I train people on blockchain. I train people on their life skills.” He adds, “I serve in our church as the chairman of the parenting ministry. I'm passionate about kids. I’m happy helping parents reach out to their kids in the right way.”
Measuring success
Years after leaving Ethiopia, Nahashon watched the digital lending platform his team built begin transforming access to finance and change lives. This is his proudest achievement and the perfect example of his philosophy that finance should ultimately improve people’s lives.
“The CEO of Oromia Bank is still a friend of mine, so the other day he shared with me a dashboard that showed they have lent one billion Birr in the last six months. My moment of pride is the fact that digital lending in Ethiopia was not there. People could not access convenient credit. And right now, they've been able to even scale that to SMEs,” he adds, “Anytime that I talk to my friends in Ethiopia and they tell me I'm able to access some money from my banking app, I feel that it has really changed.” He concludes, “For me, that was my biggest highlight, knowing that the work I did touched an entire nation. Because the system right now is in almost four banks and two micro finance institutions.”
