How Kenya’s vibrant tech scene influenced Meg Whitman’s appointment as US Ambassador

Ms. Whitman, a billionaire business executive who formerly served as CEO of Hewlett Packard (HP), was appointed for the role by US President Joe Biden last December.

She was confirmed in a unanimous vote by the US Senate as the eighteenth United States Ambassador to Kenya in July before assuming office on August 1.

The former corporate executive has said that Kenya’s vibrant tech ecosystem, with its mobile banking and the startup scenes, was one of the things President Biden pointed out when seeking her willingness for the government position.

“I was called by the President of the United States and he asked whether I would be willing to be an ambassador. And the next sentence was, ‘We want you to go to Kenya.’ And I said, ‘Okay, tell me why. Tell me more’,” Whitman told Sunday Nation.

According to the envoy, Mr. Biden termed Kenya an influential technology leader in East Africa which the US is seeking to build partnerships around. 

“And he said, ‘Kenya is one of the most important countries in Africa, and so I’d really like you to take up a post there. The other thing that I think would be a good fit for you and the United States is that Kenya is the East Africa leader in technology; with Safaricom, M-Pesa and the start-up community’,” said Whitman.

She told the publication that the US president considered her vast experience in Silicon Valley an important factor in choosing an ambassador to Kenya due to the country’s prominence in Africa.

According to Whitman, M-Pesa is a technology breakthrough which has turned heads in SIlicon Valley since its launch.

“What Kenyans have to build on are things like the penetration of M-Pesa. I’m not sure that Kenyans realise how impressive this is. In Silicon Valley, we all knew about M-Pesa and were amazed at the penetration and how it had lifted people out of poverty and now everyone in Kenya is banked,” she said.

Whitman is the former CEO of Quib- a streaming content platform for mobile devices and has held senior leadership positions at Hasbro and StrideRite Corporation. 

A Princeton graduate, she went on to Harvard for her MBA and worked for a number of major US corporations, including P&G, Disney, and Hasbro, before joining eBay in 1998.

Immediately after assuming office last month, the ambassador said she was seeking  to push for increased business for American tech giants in Kenya.

She had previously told US lawmakers of her plan to see the country possibly overturn the dominance of Chinese firms, including linking American tech giants such as Facebook, Apple and Google to local deals.

“Kenya is well-positioned to be an African leader in information technology, telecommunications, and mobile banking and is open to partnering with the United States,” she said.

Kenya has lately been positioning itself as a regional technology hub and a destination for multinational tech giants as well as global venture capital firms who are pouring millions into local startups.

Google recently became the third company to set up a hub in Nairobi within the past three months, after global digital payments giant Visa and American tech powerhouse Microsoft.

Whitman noted that there is a lot of potential in Kenya’s startup scene, saying “I think it’s very vibrant, but maybe at the beginning of the cycle.”

“What you need to create an even more vibrant tech scene is some large companies: Safaricom, now Google is here, Microsoft,among others. What they are doing is bringing in young tech workers and training them.”

The Kenyan startup ecosystem was recently ranked 2nd in Africa in terms of the total funding secured since 2019.

With over Ksh.22 billion ($1.9 billion) capital raised from global investors in the past three years alone, Kenyan startups accounted for 19 percent of the funding investors channelled to the continent.

“You need an investment community: venture capital. And venture capital is alive and well in Kenya. In fact, if you adjust for the size of GDP of the country, Kenya has the biggest venture capital sector on the continent of Africa,” the US envoy said.

Most recently, 12 Kenyan startups were among the 60 selected for the second cohort of the Ksh.479.2 million ($4million) Google for Startups Black Founders Fund for Africa.