Frida Mwangi, 39

Founder, CEO

KaziRemote

Frida readily admits that if she had known in advance the challenges that awaited her when she was starting her enterprise, she probably would have never embarked on that odious journey in the first place.

It was good she didn’t because in her own small way, she has— and still is — helping to shape the future of online transcription in the Kenyan business arena.

The mother of four, who had lost an opportunity to pursue higher education despite her good grades in high school, says she started working online as a transcriber in one of the global freelancing market places, upwork.com, back in 2015.

Three months later, she became top rated globally due the quality of her work. This, in turn, gave her the opportunity to work with both local and global clients.

"“It was not easy when I was starting out. I had to hire a legal expert to take me through the process of establishing a business...""

Two year later, armed with Sh35,000 from her husband as starting capital, Frida established KaziRemote, now a leading Kenyan transcription service provider.

The company provides professional translation services to tens of organisations across the region. It offers services such as court, academic research, media and general transcription services.

“It was not easy when I was starting out. I had to hire a legal expert to take me through the process of establishing a business. I didn’t actually know anything about business because I had stayed home for long. The good thing is that I was willing to learn as I moved on,” says Frida.

Some of its clients include the Australian University, Stephen Synder, founder of Life after Bankruptcy, Genpact, Motley Fool, Flare Emergency Response Kenya and Stanley Black and Decker.

English, Chinese, Arabic, Spanish, Portuguese French, Swedish and Kiswahili make the list of languages she uses to serve her clients.

She serves clients coming as far as Sweden, Germany, Spain, Italy, Mexico and Japan as well as in the African market.

In the next five years, she is looking forward to expanding her business to more countries across the globe and transform it into a one stop platform that creates work for young graduates.

She also hopes to double the number of her employees from the current 15.

–Boniface Otieno