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If you’re the envious type, then you have several opportunities to exercise your emotion if you come across Lawrence Mbugua’s resume.
Take your pick. If you’re still slaving over your postgraduate degree (or always on the verge of registering for one), then the fact that Lawrence earned his PhD at the age of 28 may just do it for you.
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If you’re a football fan, especially if you root for Arsenal, then you’re welcome to begrudge his role in the building of Ashburton Grove (better known to you as the Emirates Stadium —the new home of the Gunners). If your gig is real estate, then Lawrence’s role in the Kenyan Property Exhibition (www.investin-africa.com) in London may be what galls you.
If it has not hit you yet, Lawrence is one of those rare creatures – a polymath who excels at everything he touches. This statement has the element of hyperbole in it, but a closer look at what Lawrence has been able to achieve will justify the statement.
Mbugua currently works for CAPITA, the largest Business Process Outsourcing company in the UK. (It may surprise some, but there are many BPO companies in the West, many of which are thriving.
As corporations adopt the twin mantras of leanness and core competencies, there are numerous opportunities for companies to take up the services that these companies excise from their operations.
And the opportunities are not just going to companies in China, India and Kenya.
Many outsourcing opportunities are staying right at home). Dr Mbugua is a Principal Consultant at CAPITA, responsible for providing project and programme management support to clients with large scale or difficult projects.
And large scale is what some of these projects can be, when one considers that CAPITA had a turnover of £2.4 billion in 2008. He’s currently working on the 2011 UK census, which the British Government has outsourced to CAPITA.
Before that, Mbugua had a similar role at PricewaterhouseCoopers, where he also led a team in the project and programme management practice — a team that was involved in providing strategic advice and support on major transformational initiatives.
In simple terms, it meant advising on any project from a local council on its capital expenditure programme, to advising on the relocation of a government body from the capital city of London, while ensuring that all systems (IT, HR and knowledge management) were kept in place and that the move was seamless.
This may seem a far cry from Lawrence’s humble roots of Eastlands (his mtaa of Mbotela) and original training at the University of Nairobi (UoN), from where he graduated with a degree in Building Economics and Management.
He enrolled at UoN from the Starehe Boys’ Centre, which is undoubtedly Kenya’s most admired secondary school institution. For him, being in construction and project management was a natural fit. He says: “I enjoy seeing ideas germinate into reality.
I find the whole process of discussing ideas, then planning how to make them real and then actually making things happens very exciting and this keeps me driven from project to project.”
The grounding in Building Economics was followed up by a Masters’ degree in Property Investment and Development, quickly followed by a PhD in Strategic Business Performance Measurement.
What the dry rendering above has failed to mention is that, from the day he matriculated from Starehe, all through his two years of waiting to get into university and through his university education, Lawrence held a series of jobs that displayed, not just the breadth of his curiosity, but the skills that he was busy acquiring.
In short order, he was an Accounts Clerk at Raymond’s (remember it — the woollen suits that were a central part of every Kenyan man’s wardrobe?); a Junior Investment Analyst at the then Dyer and Blair Stockbrokers; and was part of the team that setup the Kenya Agricultural Commodities Exchange.
This grounding in both academia and the working world has stood him in good stead throughout his career, although it led him to be a tad impatient with life.
After his PhD, he lived the true academic life, but quickly tired of it. “I started off as an academic, published a few papers and lectured at a University in UK, but soon felt that it was too early for me to stick to lecturing as I was only 28 then.’
This impatience is what led Lawrence to a career that included work in both the public and private sectors in the United Kingdom.
There have been useful lessons learned from each, and these are lessons that can be easily applied to Kenya. He says: ‘I have worked in both public and private sector organisations.
Whilst working for Islington Council, I was involved in the building of the Emirates Stadium (by Arsenal FC) and was amazed at how local authorities are able to maximise the positive impact of development for the benefit of their local communities.
For instance, Arsenal FC not only built the stadium but also invested in the local community by contributing to the upgrade of the tube (underground rail) station, building affordable housing and to local safety schemes, such as street lighting. I think there are plenty of opportunities for Kenyan developers to invest in local transport schemes, affordable housing and the like’.
The question always arises about whether Kenya is better served with its professionals outside the country getting skills and experience, or being at home and building the country from within.
It is a quandary that exercises Lawrence’s mind: “On one hand, I enjoy what I do and I feel I still have a lot to learn from the UK, but on the other hand, I feel that there is so much that I can contribute to Kenya if I came back.’ What he has decided to do, instead of wringing his hands in fair imitation of an indecisive Hamlet, is to act.
He has set up an organisation called N4P – short for NETWORKING4PROFESSIONALS.COM, which seeks to search out and connect like minds.
The organisation has already had significant successes.
The Kenyan Property Exhibition in London, first held in 2007 and now an annual event, has grown in two short years to being one that attracted 15 exhibitors and well over 600 investors.
Bright path
More recently, in collaboration with Realken International, they facilitated an Invest in Africa Awards ceremony in Nairobi (www.Investin-Africa.com), where they recognised companies that are positively engaging with the diaspora.
Mbugua is still fairly young — well below 40, and his skills and energies are burning a bright path through the UK’s public and private sectors.
(That he is still in the UK is something of a wonder to him. When I experienced my first winter in UK, I was ready to return. However, I decided to stick it out for a while and am still here after 12 years ). He wants to make sure that his efforts have an impact on both his temporary home in the UK and in Kenya.
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