Who Is KBC's Wachira Waruru?

Immediate former KBC CEO Wachira Waruru


The first time I met "coach" as he was fondly nicknamed was at Lenana High School in 1978 where he was a sixth former and the school champion in the 100 metres dash. He also put his speed to great use playing rugby on the wing. Sadly he never extended his career to the club level and so many people missed this great talent.

But Mr Waruru had other talents that have stood him in good stead. Trained to be a teacher at Kenyatta University, Mr Waruru instead opted for a career in jourmalism, joining Hilary Ngweno's revolutionary new broadsheet daily in those days, The Nairobi Times as a stringer writing mostly business stories. His copy was so good that most of it got used and he was soon earning more than staff writers, which forced Ngweno to hurriedly hire him on full time basis. Shortly after that however, he Nairobi Times which was losing a lot of money despite its' quality was sold off to Kanu. The political party changed the name of the newspaper to Kenya Times and it was clear that they had no room for Waruru at the paper, because he was viewed as an anti-establishment radical.

Waruru was accomodated at Hilary Ngweno's other publication at the time, the weekly news magazine that shaped the face of journalism in Kenya, the legendary Weekly Review. He started off as a reporter but quickly climbed the ranks to be News Editor and then Managing Editor.

Meanwhile Waruru's other passion, motor rallying helped him build up important contacts that saw him launch his own PR and media consultancy business, which was moderately successful in the short space of time he run it before his appointment as Standard Newspapers CEO. Actually it was his contacts that helped him land the Standard appointment. Movers and shakers at the time like Gideon Moi and Mark Too, both great personal friends of Mr Waruru.

When Waruru's contract run out at The Standard newspapers, he was appointed KBC CEO by the Narc government, a position he has held for about 3 years now, until the recent developments. Wachira Waruru is the son of controversial Nyeri politician and former Cabinet Minister Waruru Kanja.