Childhood is so short, but lasts a lifetime. Reehan Anwar knows this—it was, after all, the recipe for his success: a tough childhood. Of course, there are other salient ingredients such as discipline, sacrifice, consistency, and focus. “Focus has been about setting goals year after year and giving my best to achieve them,” he says. “I had to sacrifice a lot in the early days of my career: saving money, putting in extra hours, and having the discipline to see it through.”
Beneath his polite patina and steady, good-natured demeanour is a steely relentlessness. Suffering, abasement to the collective: this is his schtick. It is how he has grown Sojpar, a warehouse dealing in food and beverage, stationery, and logistics, among other FMCGs, to serve 15 counties and more than 10,000 retailers in Western Kenya.
Needless to say, the shareholders’ dividends are ballooning under his hustle, with the company posting a turnover of Sh4.5 billion annually over the last four years, and its workforce swelling from 44 employees to 248 employees. How did he do it? “When I joined Sojpar, I sought to change the culture. It lacked equality, racism was rampant, and there was no fair growth for all. So, transforming that, and giving a fair opportunity to everybody made me grow through the ranks.”
At dawn in Kisumu’s industrial area, Anwar’s day begins the way it did when he was a boy—on his feet before sunrise.
"It’s not about money but having the peace and connection with oneself."
Having planted the seeds, the results are now flowering. But, he explains: “It’s not about money but having the peace and connection with oneself.”
With an ACCA qualification from Strathmore University, he is scooting over and making space at the table for others. How you treat people matters, he says. It is one part why he gives Entrepreneurship Talks to K.A.G Milimani Youth Church, and another why he initiated Sojpar’s first CSR project that supports Joyland School for the Disabled.
-Eddy Ashioya