SHE MEANS BUSINESS| From leaving baby to work abroad to Women on Boards mission: Catherine Musakali's journey

This week, She Means Business sat with Catherine Musakali, the co-founder of the Women on Boards Network in Kenya to discuss the choices and sacrifices associated with achieving work success, and what it takes to get a seat on a board.

According to the latest research by the Kenya Institute of Management, Kenya Private Sector Alliance (Kepsa), Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE) and New Faces New Voices, women comprise about 36% membership on the boards of listed companies in Kenya.

Catherine says that many people misunderstand what sitting on a board entails and look at it as a goal to set towards self-actualisation, forgetting that it involves a lot of sacrifice and service.

She says when interviewing potential candidates to sit on boards, she often gets skeptical when the interviewee is too quick to ask about the allowances associated with the position, adding that the work involves more of giving back and is not supposed to be about selfish goals.

Catherine advises both women and men aiming to get seats on boards to work on packaging themselves properly and networking in the right places.

On work-life balance, Catherine says she believes it is more about choices and sacrifices, adding that there is never a perfect balance.

She spoke of how she had to decide to leave her one-year-old daughter in Kenya to pursue an opportunity in the UK because she realized that to scale up the career ladder at the organization she worked for, international experience was required.

For more on Catherine’s journey, watch the full episode of She Means Business below.