There comes a moment in every finance executive’s career when the numbers alone cannot reveal what to do. Mi Vida Homes CFO Solomon Nzomo, Pass Trust finance director Doreen Mangesho and fractional CFO Michael Kariuki talk about the decision that tested them most and what it taught them.
It was early 2020, and Kenya had just gone into lockdown. Solomon Nzomo was sitting on a bond transaction that needed to be closed. At Centum Real Estate, where he was helping build the residential business from scratch, the team had been structuring Kenya’s first publicly listed zero-coupon bond by a private company when Covid19 hit.
“We were planning for a catastrophe. Sales collapsing, collections drying up. But by the second month, we were shocked. People committed their money to real estate when they had nowhere else to put it,” he says.
The company recorded its highest-ever collections and sales during that period, and the bond closed. It changed how Solomon thinks about risk entirely. The CFO role, as he now sees it, is about building a business that can survive what you did not predict.
“The problem with the human mind is that it can only decipher what it has experienced. Before Covid, none of us thought such a black swan event would happen. Now we are prepared for another pandemic, but the next big thing may not look like Covid at all. I often spend time thinking about what could be the next black swan event and how businesses can build resilience to withstand it,” he says.
Since joining Mi Vida Homes as CFO in 2023, Nzomo has helped grow the company’s projects and sales nearly tenfold in two years. He has also raised over $260 million in capital across his career. But it is the Covid19 period that he returns to most often when he thinks about what finance leadership actually demands.
“It is fortune telling. You tell people, to achieve all of this growth, this is what it means from a capital perspective. You structure the deal, manage the banks and investors, see it through to fruition. And then you watch the money come in,” he says.
Thinking outside the box
Doreen Mangesho is no stranger to liquidity crises. When the organisation she previously worked at ran into serious cash flow problems, cutting staff seemed like the move most leaders in her position would have considered first. Instead, she picked up the phone and called the suppliers.
“We could not pay them. So I, together with my fellow managers, invited them to the organisation and showed them what impact we deliver to the community. I met with suppliers independently and talked to them about what was at stake. That children and mothers were depending on what they were supplying,” she says.
The suppliers agreed to payment plans, and the organisation stabilised. When it was time for Doreen to leave the organisation, the CEO pulled her aside.
“He told me they valued me during that difficult time. They knew my purpose,” she says.
Doreen now oversees the finance, HR, ICT and sustainability functions across Pass Trust Tanzania, which manages billions of shillings in funds for farmers. She has carried that lesson into how she approaches every crisis.
“You need to make decisions when you are in a financial crisis and you have so many people depending on you. Leadership is about people. It’s about impact. Finance is the tool. But the goal is always people,” she says.
Letting people go
For Michael Kariuki, the hardest decision of his career came at a moment most finance leaders dread. The Silicon Savannah, as Kenya’s tech ecosystem is sometimes called, had hit a rough patch, drying up most sources of funding.
“We had to make some redundancies. I was the one to lead the process and advise management and the board on the steps we had taken. That was a very challenging time for me,” he says.
Michael has spent his career at startups and high-growth companies, raising over $60 million in a combination of debt and equity. But the redundancy process is the decision that reminded him of the tough calls finance leaders must sometimes make. What got him through it was being clear about the reasoning at every step.
“At startups and SMEs, you need to raise capital. That process is intense. You have to believe and sell the vision. But you also have to be honest when the vision needs adjusting. You become a salesman and a realist at the same time,” he says.
