Presenting at a Global Health Forum
My LeadershipStory
25+ years building financial resilience across global health & development, from Nairobi to five continents.
From plant accounting on the factory floor to directing multi-country finance operations for U.S. Government-funded global health programmes. My career has followed a clear arc: greater complexity, greater accountability, greater impact. Over 25 years I have built and stress-tested financial systems at KEMRI, the CDC and EGPAF, stewarding portfolios from $10M to $150M across five countries. At every stage, the work has been the same: embed the discipline, build the team, and create the controls that let an organisation perform at scale.
Professional Experience
Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation
Director of Operations / Finance & Operations Lead
Nairobi, Kenya (Hybrid)
Key Responsibilities
- Led financial strategy and resource allocation for a $20M annual portfolio.
- Secured a 98% donor compliance rate by redesigning internal audit and statutory reporting cycles.
- Hardened oversight of a $12M asset inventory including a 100-vehicle fleet.
Centres for Disease Control and Prevention
Cooperative Agreement Specialist / Grants Manager
Nairobi, Kenya
Key Responsibilities
- Stewarded a $36M annual PEPFAR portfolio across 40+ implementing partners.
- Boosted partner audit readiness by 30% through targeted capacity-building workshops.
- Achieved 100% on-time approval rate for Country Operational Plan work plans.
Centres for Disease Control and Prevention
Budget Analyst
Nairobi, Kenya
Key Responsibilities
- Synchronised $10M in programme funding as primary budget liaison between CDC Kenya and the U.S. Embassy.
- Co-developed a custom budget and financial module within the FileMaker database.
- Designed project-status templates for 10+ distinct CDC programmes.
Kenya Medical Research Institute
Head of Finance
Nairobi, Kenya
Key Responsibilities
- Stabilised financial oversight for $24M in annual research funding across 10+ global donors.
- Resolved long-standing audit bottlenecks, clearing prior findings from 2004.
- Served as key member of the Navision ERP working group, modernising the institute's accounting function.
Kenya Medical Research Institute
Senior Accountant
Kisumu, Kenya
Key Responsibilities
- Supervised a finance team of seven including three Senior Accountants.
- Eliminated a 15% discrepancy in budget forecasting through a custom commitment tracking template.
- Recovered 60% of outstanding staff debt within the first year.
Unga Feeds Limited
Plant Accountant
Nairobi, Kenya
Key Responsibilities
- Managed the full-cycle financial recording for plant operations, transforming raw production data into accurate monthly management accounts that guided the factory's daily commercial decisions.
- Cut month-end closing time by 20% by playing a lead role in the migration to the BaaN ERP system, mapping manual accounting workflows into automated digital modules.
- Recovered 5% of annual operating margins by redesigning the production costing and variance analysis models to catch waste in raw material usage early in the manufacturing cycle.
Education
Master of Business Administration (MBA)
Strategic Management
Kenyatta University
Master of Science (MSc)
Computer-Based Information Systems
Strathmore University
Bachelor of Science
International Business Administration (Finance)
United States International University – Africa
Certifications & Professional Training
Certified Public Accountant (CPA-K)
ICPAK / Strathmore University
Certification in Project Management
PMD Pro
Certification in Grants Management
Federal Grants Administration
Federal Appropriation Law Training
U.S. Federal Financial Regulations
Coaching for Performance
CDI-Africa Coaching Group
Research, Field Work & Features
Operations is the Oxygen of the Organization
Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation (EGPAF)
When COVID-19 hit, I had one priority: keep the programme running. I led the digitisation of payroll for over 900 health workers across more than 100 facilities in Homabay County, set a 30-day procurement payment standard and rolled out SharePoint to hold our operations together remotely. This feature captures how I approached that period, not as a crisis to survive, but as a forcing function for the digital transformation we should have made years earlier.
A Framework for Optimizing Adoption of ICT Tools by Health Focused NGOs in Kenya
Strathmore University, MSc Information Systems
I wrote this research because I kept watching NGOs invest in technology and get nothing back from it. My MSc thesis at Strathmore University examined the structural and human barriers that cause ICT tools to fail in health-focused NGO environments, and proposed a practical framework for getting adoption right. The fieldwork was conducted at Bomu Medical Center. It shaped the way I approach technology and operations integration to this day.
PEPFAR Programme Oversight: Naromoru Health Centre
Centre for Health Solutions Kenya (CHS)
I have always believed that effective programme management requires getting out of the office and into the facilities. This visit to Naromoru Health Centre in Nyeri County was part of my hands-on oversight of PEPFAR-funded HIV service delivery sites across Kenya during my time with CDC Kenya, working directly with facility staff to understand what was working, what was not and what needed to change.
SIMS Quality Assurance Exercise: Othaya Sub-District Hospital
Centre for Health Solutions Kenya (CHS)
SIMS, the Site Improvement through Monitoring System, is the PEPFAR tool used to assess the quality of HIV services at facility level. I participated in this exercise at Othaya Sub-District Hospital as part of my CDC Kenya programme oversight responsibilities. For me, quality assurance is not a reporting exercise. It is how you close the gap between what a programme promises and what a patient actually receives.
CDC Kenya International Accolades: Finance Team Award for Programme Excellence
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Kenya
Our finance team at the CDC Kenya CoAg Branch was recognised for developing the Budget Marked-up Tool, a financial accountability system we built to track HIV and TB funding performance with greater precision and transparency. What made this recognition meaningful was that the tool did not stay in Kenya. CDC adopted it as a resource for other country offices, which meant the work we did here had a reach far beyond what any of us initially imagined.
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