EUNIE NYAKUNDI: Scaling the Corporate Ladder

Eunie Khimulu Nyakundi, 31, is the head of marketing at Resolution Insurance Company Limited and sits on the executive council of the Marketing Society of Kenya (MSK). She previously worked in advertising as an account director at Ogilvy & Mather, and before that as senior account manager at Tequila Advertising. She talks to EDNA GICOVI about her early start into the corporate world, climbing the corporate ladder and the valuable lessons she has learnt.

Given that her career profile indicated she had worked for a little over 10 years, I assumed Eunie Nyakundi was much older than 31. I looked forward to hearing her story when we finally met for this interview. Eunie is pleasant and lively. She speaks fast and laughs easily, yet has a crisp, businesslike aura about her. She is elegantly dressed, in a green suit and gold jewellery and requests to have her phone nearby during the photo shoot in case her son calls.

Eunie is the last of three children. “My father and brother passed away 15 years ago within six months of each other so now it’s just my mother, sister and I. We’re very close-knit and my family means the world to me,” she says as we get started, adding that these experiences of losing close family members have made her stronger and also made her realise that she has to make the most of her life presently.

She was barely 16 when she completed her high school education at the Greensteds International School in Nakuru. She explains that this happened because she switched education systems from 8-4-4 to the International General Certificate of Secondary Education (IGCSE) system but never did her A-levels, choosing to finish at the system’s equivalent of form four instead. She still managed to perform well in her final exams, despite having experienced the tragic loss of her father six months earlier and her brother during the examination period.

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