•Tabitha Karanja is competing with multinationals in a male-dominated industry.
• She was up against monopolies and many thought she would be short-lived.
Image: FILE
She is one of Kenya's most influential women.
Tabitha Karanja is known for helping to liberalise the liquor business and has faced off with established multinationals in the industry, fighting to claim her fair share.
Her first business was a hardware shop she opened with her husband, Joseph. The hardware business was successful but Karanja also wanted to try her hand at manufacturing. In 1997, the couple closed the hardware store and went into wine-making.
Karanja later saw a gap in the beer market and introduced a brand that is 100 per cent local.
It wasn't easy as she was up against monopolies and very few thought she would last long in the industry.
Summit Lager, Keroche Breweries' flagship beer, was launched in October 2008, then followed the much- anticipated Summit Malt in 2013. The two beers quickly gained popularity and are competing successfully with established brands.
Concerning her current tax tribulations, Karanja has made it clear that she is determined to come out even stronger and prouder.
“Does it mean that when you build an enterprise that is competing with multinationals you must close it one day?” she asked after it emerged that she would face tax evasion charges.
Karanja is the CEO of Keroche Breweries Limited, a company she founded with her husband, Joseph Karanja Muigai, in 1997 in Naivasha. He serves as chairman.
Keroche Breweries is the first alcoholic beverage producer to be fully owned and operated by a Kenyan national — and a woman.
The allegations levelled against Karanja and her husband relate to tax fraud involving products manufactured and sold by Keroche Breweries between January 2015 and June 2019.
She is expected to put up a spirited fight and be true to a statement she made two years ago: “I have always been driven by the need to prove that African women have what it takes to get things done and at the right time.”
Current woes aside, Karanja has always talked of increasing her share of the liquor market and her ambition to penetrate markets outside the country.
She is on record saying she will not stop and never tire until Summit beer finds its way north into in Morocco and all the way down to South Africa.
Keroche ambitions to claim at least 20 per cent share of the beer market has made Karanja one of Kenya's leading entrepreneurs.
East African Breweries Limited gets over 60 per cent of its net sales from Kenya and controls nearly 90 per cent of the beer market share.
Karanja took on a business monopoly that is almost a century old and dominated by men, and broke the ice. “I knew what I wanted in life and I worked day and night to achieve it,” she was quoted saying in 2017.
She also told women entrepreneurs to value relationships with their customers, saying they should always be king and their number one priority.
Apart from day-to-day running of her business, Karanja formed the Keroche Foundation to empower young and upcoming entrepreneurs.
The foundation seeks to foster a culture of entrepreneurship and encourage innovative businesses.
Her efforts and ambition to make a difference in the society have not gone unrecognised.
She was honoured by President Mwai Kibaki in 2010 with the Moran of the Order of the Burning Spear (M.B.S.) Award.
In 2014 she was awarded the CNBC East Africa Businesswoman of the Year Award and subsequently the CNBC Africa Businesswoman of the Year Award.
In 2015, Karanja received the Transformational Business Award, a continental award organised by the OCP Group and the African Leadership Network (ALN).
In 2016, she received the Global Inspirational Women Leadership award and induction to 100 Global Women Leaders Hall of Fame.
In June 2017, when The Africa Report published its list of the 50 women Star Dealmakers, two making the list were Karanja and Julian Adyeri Omalla, managing director of Delight Uganda.
Karanja was born in Kijabe, the eldest of 10 children. She attended Bahati Girls Secondary School in Nakuru and has two sons and two daughters.