When he reflects on his career journey, Jonathan Gichohi, 30, says making it to the coveted list of top 40 under 40 is an honour and privilege.
But the journey has been years in the making. Jonathan says the achievement validates and solidifies his career journey and the mentorship role he has taken up in supporting students and young professionals in East Africa.
‘I see it [the win] as not only a personal achievement but also as a community achievement. I am looking at it as a beacon of hope that anybody can make it to the top level,” says Jonathan.
He currently serves as the lead in robotic process automation at Jubilee Insurance, a role he took up in January 2022. Outside work, he likes spending time with his family.
"I regard my career journey as not only a success story for Jonathan but also the team I work with and the students and young professionals we mentor."
Pioneering innovations and overseeing digital transformation as well as seeing young professionals he has participated in modelling start their careers is part of what is closest to his heart.
“I regard my career journey as not only a success story for Jonathan but also the team I work with and the students and young professionals we mentor to see that they can do it,” says Jonathan.
Among his achievements in under two years at Jubilee has been the revamping of the core business processes, leading to the elimination of errors and reduced human intervention in activities such as onboarding of customers and processing claims.
“I start my day with prayer and coffee. Each day is unique and I get to interact with different teams. So there are varied goals and targets,” he says.
Jonathan graduated from the University of Nairobi with a Bachelor of Commerce (Finance) and followed up with a Master’s degree in project management from the same institution. He is currently pursuing an artificial intelligence programme at Oxford University.
He started his career in 2014 as a business process analyst at the National Bank of Kenya before moving to Greenlight Planet in mid-2017 where he served as a senior associate manager for process excellence.
He says his big break was at Greenlight which by then did not have an IT team and this allowed him to do as much as he could for the organisation while also building expertise in in the process.
Prior to his role at Jubilee, he was a change and performance, process specialist at Equity Bank.
For him, his career journey has been moulded by identifying mentors who he discusses with the opportunities and challenges along the way. His advice to young professionals is to start early and stay hungry.
“There is a lot of free content out there and they have to identify their niche, identify key people who have gone ahead of them in that journey and reach out for support,” says Jonathan.
Patrick Alushula