Lizzie Wanyoike started life as a naïve village girl in rural Murang'a and rose to a top educator and entrepreneur in Nairobi.
Growing up in Gathukeini village under a colonial chief who doubled as a Mau Mau agent during the struggle for independence, Lizzie did not know much, but as time went by it became clear to her that her bread would be buttered in the education sector.
She grew up during the State of Emergency in the 1950s that instilled in her a go-getter and fighter spirit.
The proprietor of Nairobi Institute of Business Studies died last week aged 73.
But as a child, Lizzie did not like school. She was shy and sucked her thumb, attracting the wrath of her teachers.
“I would hide inside coffee farms so that I would miss school,” the sixth child among 10 said in an interview last year. But her father pushed her.
Through with primary schooling at Gathukeini she proceeded to Kahuhia Girls Secondary and began thinking of becoming a secondary school teacher.
“I believed that was where real teaching was taking place and I would be paid a good salary,” she said.
Eventually, she ended up at Kenyatta University College to study education. Upon graduation, Lizzie was posted to start her teaching career at State House Girls High School in Nairobi.
“When I was finishing school, I was determined not to go back to the village. I knew back there, I would find a school to teach, get a man there and get married and live there. I did not want that,” she said.
“So, I made up my mind that I would not go back.” And that was how the man who would later marry her emerged in the city.
He was separated from his wife. After Lizzie became pregnant, they married. But the union later failed.
“We only had a huge age gap, almost 15 or 16 years in between, making us not to have similar interests and view of life,” she said.
With a broken heart, the teacher turned her focus to entrepreneurship and founded NIBS.
She has been hailed for her remarkable journey from an educator to the pioneering force behind the esteemed institution.
She is also the owner of the prestigious Emory Hotel and Lizzie Wanyoike Preparatory School.
