Victoria Cherotich, 39

At the age of 18 in 2003, Victoria arrived at Strathmore College in Nairobi from her native home in Kericho to train as a certified public accountant, eyeing a career in audit.

At the same time, she enrolled at the University of Nairobi for a degree in Economics. Her graduation in 2007 marked the end of her dalliance with economics after securing a job at Image Registrars, which was seeking hands to help with registry work and data entry during Kenya’s peak IPO season.

She would then transition from registry work to governance, joining Image Registrars’ pool of staff that were being seconded to company boards to carry out company secretarial work, including filing annual returns and compiling statutory books as well as compiling board minutes.

Today, she serves as company secretary for a number of listed firms such as Sameer under Image Registrars, where she has risen to become the chief executive officer.

"I always tell people that I have done every single task here. You have to learn from the basic things, so that when it gets to the bigger goal, you can understand the journey."

“I always tell people that I have done every single task here. You have to learn from the basic things, so that when it gets to the bigger goal, you can understand the journey,” she says.

For the CEO role, I said (to the board) “I’m here, I can do this job and trust me to do it.”

On the way, Victoria has picked inspiration from Mary Wamae, the former Equity executive director and Sasini CEO Martin Ochien’g, and her mother, who she describes as a strong woman who comes from a line of strong women.

Away from the office, she describes herself as a homebody, who prefers to spend her little free time with her husband and three sons. She has recently taken up golf as a hobby.

– By Charles Mwaniki