DP World head of finance Micah Nyariki sees finance as a platform for shaping strategy and enabling transformation. Throughout his journey, he has positioned finance at the centre of business decision-making, helping organisations navigate change. He has built his career around curiosity and the confidence to challenge what he sees.
The interest in understanding things at source has built much of Micah Nyariki’s career. He is cautious of filtered information and believes that a finance leader should seek a deep understanding of the business drivers behind performance before making a judgement.
“I believe leaders should remain close enough to the business to ask the right questions. While strong teams generate insights, effective leaders are accountable for validating critical assumptions and translating those insights into business decisions. My mindset is to always do the right thing whether at home or in the workplace,” he notes.
That mindset developed during his time at KPMG, where he learnt to approach his work with independence. The experience laid a strong foundation for his transition into commercial finance. Rather than relying solely on prepared reports, he sought direct access to underlying information to validate insights and better understand business performance.
His interest in understanding businesses has also influenced what he believes he would have pursued outside finance leadership.
He says, “I would be doing business consulting. I enjoy understanding an organisation’s business, identifying structural issues and offering solutions to help them gain a competitive edge.”
The determination to keep moving
Micah grew up in a family where education represented possibility. He comes from a humble background in Kisii and attended a public primary school. He later joined a local mixed day secondary school despite securing admission to Kisii School.
“My mother never had the opportunity to pursue formal education past secondary school, but she instilled in us a deep appreciation for learning. Despite limited resources, she worked tirelessly in farming to ensure we stayed in school because she believed education was the most powerful tool for transforming lives. Her determination became a major source of motivation for me.”
Financial constraints remained a reality throughout his education. To support his studies, he relied on Higher Education Loans Board (HELB) funding and later leveraged his CPA qualification to teach other students, supplementing his income.
“By my final year, I had completed my CPA and was already teaching economics, entrepreneurship and accounting to students starting their CPA journey. It helped supplement my income at a time when I was relying on HELB to finance my education, while also giving me an early opportunity to mentor others.”
He recalls" “I chose KPMG over an offer at Stanbic because I wanted experience in the Big Four. KPMG was a massive learning curve; it gave me a strong foundation in governance, risk management and business diagnostics. Working across different industries taught me how successful businesses create value. I stayed for slightly over three years and left as an Audit Senior to join BAT as a Commercial Finance Associate Manager, after having audited them and identified pricing and control gaps."
Finance and transformation
Through a series of progressively senior roles at BAT, including commercial finance manager for East & Central Africa, head of finance for Rwanda & Tanzania, commercial finance manager for Export Markets, and finance manager for Kenya, Micah built extensive regional leadership experience across East, Central and Southern Africa. The roles strengthened his expertise in commercial strategy, business partnering, performance management and cross-market leadership, while providing a deep understanding of diverse operating environments and growth dynamics.
He left BAT as Finance Manager for Kenya to join DP World as senior manager, commercial finance. During periods of leadership transition, Micah played a key role in maintaining business continuity, influencing strategic decision-making and helping teams remain focused on organisational priorities.
The aspect of Micah’s work that energises him most is transformation. He joined Surgipharm, a DP World company, during a period of transition following its acquisition and played a leading role in professionalising commercial decision-making. He established the commercial finance function from scratch, introducing structured analytics, strengthening forecasting capabilities and enabling more data-driven executive decision-making. His interventions contributed to improved commercial outcomes and greater operational discipline across the business.
“I am passionate about transformation and creating environments where better decisions lead to better outcomes. When I joined DP World, Surgipharm was going through a transition following its acquisition, and many decisions were being made informally without established processes. I had the opportunity to build the commercial finance function from scratch, introduce analytics capabilities and use data storytelling to support executive decision-making,” he says.
Automation has been another key pillar of his transformation agenda. His focus is not simply on efficiency, but on creating capacity for teams to spend more time on strategic and value-adding activities.
Beyond the beans
He notes, “I am a big proponent of automation. I came to the company when there was a lot of paperwork and I have since helped to automate several processes, reducing manual effort and improving the quality of insights available to decision-makers. Equally important for me is developing future leaders. One of my proudest achievements is creating environments where people can grow in confidence, expand their capabilities and take on greater leadership responsibility. Building sustainable talent pipelines is just as important as improving systems and processes.”
For Micah, transformation extends beyond technology and process improvement. He believes lasting organisational success comes from developing both capabilities and people, ensuring businesses remain resilient, adaptable and positioned for long-term growth.
Micah’s approach points towards what he believes finance leadership should become. He sees a profession that has moved beyond historical reporting and financial control towards a role that helps shape business decisions.
He says, “Finance has transitioned from being custodians of numbers and reporting to being strategic business partners. A future-ready CFO must understand the business beyond the numbers, look into the future rather than just reporting past numbers and use current data to guide executive decisions. They must be skilled at translating complex numbers into simple stories for non-finance audiences to influence strategic decisions. They must shape strategy, influence resource allocation, guide transformation and help organisations identify future opportunities before they emerge. Further, sustainability is an essential area that future-ready CFOs cannot afford to leave behind as organisations focus more on positive societal impact.”
It is a view consistent with the choices he has made throughout his career. Micah has consistently looked for ways to move closer to the business beneath the numbers. As organisations face increasing complexity, Micah believes leaders must balance commercial performance, innovation, people development and long-term sustainability. His focus remains on creating organisations that are resilient, adaptable and capable of sustained growth.
Aligning strategy, people and family
Having built experience across governance, commercial finance, regional leadership and business transformation, Micah increasingly views leadership through an enterprise-wide lens, believing sustainable success comes from aligning strategy, people, processes and culture around a common purpose.
His priorities outside work are, however, simpler. This part of his life provides a different kind of fulfilment.
“I am a family man. Outside of work, I spend as much quality time as possible with my children. I am married with three children, and watching them grow, learn and pursue their interests brings me immense joy. Family keeps me grounded and reminds me of what truly matters. The values of integrity, responsibility and continuous growth that guide me as a leader are the same values I hope to instil in my children.”
