Nkirote Njiru, CHRO for Old Mutual East Africa, shares how being tasked with culture integration became a career-defining pivot.
Old Mutual East Africa CHRO Nkirote Njiru was completely thrown off balance when asked to dive into the culture integration aspect of the business.
After the insurer acquired a controlling stake in a dynamic insurer with East African footprint and a microfinance bank in Kenya, she was on the M&A due diligence team, but was often the first to challenge the business on its preparedness around matters of culture integration and organisational design. A few years down the line the CEO asked her to oversee that element in an acting role. Little did she know that stint would become a career pivot.
“A lot has happened to me since I took on this role but I’ve also happened to a lot,” she said, jokingly, laughing as she recollects her career’s serendipitous transformation.
“I have had an opportunity to connect with my purpose, which is not an unusual experience when one steps out of their comfort zone. I was extremely comfortable and confident in the roles I had held previously. As a lawyer, I thoroughly believe in evidence and I had a lot of evidence to support my competence in the governance and legal space. But I also had a lot of evidence to support a real desire to see employees, and women in particular, advance within corporations,” she adds, referring to her work as the co-founder of the Women on Boards Network, which is dedicated to preparing women for boardroom roles.
A legal and governance professional by training, Nkirote has always been curious about what makes people tick. Her foray into HR was borne almost entirely from taking an interest in people practices. Very early in her career, she spent her spare time completing a six-month diploma in what was then called personnel management, purely out of curiosity. The HR bug bit again 10 years later as she was doing her MBA – the HR leadership module was so captivating that she took all those lessons into the work she was doing as corporation secretary for the Insurance Regulatory Authority in Kenya.
Eighteen months going on four years
But it was only when she was involved in overseeing the governance and legal elements at Old Mutual that her passion for people-related efficiencies shone through. She had enrolled for an executive coaching diploma, again simply out of interest, and brought those learnings into the strategy sessions.
It helped her to engage with other leaders within the business around the challenges they were facing. She noticed a common thread in what would be necessary to unlock the most value from the transaction – skills, capabilities and culture integration – and inadvertently became the people’s champion throughout the merger and acquisition.
“I would be the one questioning and challenging the decisions that were being made vis-a-vis their impact on the people. Through that, I realised that I wanted to be more active in the leadership space. We were having very tough conversations and I believe the value I was bringing to those discussions would deliver impact, not only from a business performance perspective but also in terms of the employee experiences,” says Nkirote.
When her deliverables surrounding the acquisition were complete, Old Mutual East Africa CEO Arthur Oginga approached her to stay on a little longer.
“He asked me which element from the transaction I thought still had a long way to go and, off the top of my head, I told him it was the culture integration piece because there was still a silo mentality, and so forth. He said, ’Oh, sounds very interesting. Let’s do this; Are you able to give me just 18 months to craft a strategy around how to make it work? And then we can say your job on this transaction is done.’ And I thought, 18 months is not so bad. I could do that. Besides, I was enjoying that particular aspect of the work so I agreed… that conversation happened four years ago and I’m still here.”
Grace in business
The time has gone quickly and Nkirote believes there is still much to do. Reflecting on what she is most proud of in her time as the CHRO, she mentioned the transformation of the leadership mindset, which now has a profound respect for culture and the needles that move it.
She has focused extensively on conveying the significant impact that corporate culture has on business outcomes. Quoting Arthur Levitt, former Chairman of the US Securities and Exchange Commission, Nkirote underscores that “no organisation inherently deserves capital or investment”.
Similarly, organisations are not entitled to the hearts and minds of their people, but rather should espouse the concept of ‘grace’ in business, where business leaders realise that their success is not guaranteed, but is rather sustained by the goodwill of investors, partners, employees and customers.
She says, “What grace do you exist under? As an individual, as a team, as a business and even as a sector? There are certain sectors and businesses in our economy that simply assume they will always exist. But after everything we have seen up to this point, how can we still hold such views? With the way a fifth industrial revolution is shaping up, no one can make any assumption as to their existence, their job’s existence, their capabilities’ existence, nor that of their industry.”
Nkirote adds that there is an entitlement mindset that often emerges through performance management systems that are overly prescriptive, reducing employees to mere cogs in a machine. At Old Mutual, Nkirote spearheaded changes that, in 2023, saw the Institute of Human Resource Management recognise the company’s culture and transformation strategy as the most impactful business transformation strategy.
“We cannot focus only on the numbers and slave drive our way towards strong business performance. If organisations do not create an environment where people bring out the best of themselves, where teams collaborate, where exceptional performance is recognised, and where behaviours aligned with the organisational values are rewarded, they are missing the path to sustainability.”
Staying the course
For anyone embarking on a career pivot, Nkirote’s advice is to stay the course regardless of the challenges. When she was pulled out of her comfort zone into a new field of work, it was not easy. She was not a career HR professional and many times had to lean on the expertise and wisdom of others, which was difficult for someone so accustomed to being the expert in the room. But she acquired an executive coach and was never afraid to admit when she didn’t know something.
There were moments when she thought about going back to legal and governance. But she stayed the course and has become more resilient for it, realising that, in HR, it is often very long before one bears any fruits.
“The feedback we were getting, the performance indicators we were monitoring… none were showing that we were headed in the right direction. But we eventually achieved the desired outcomes. I think it’s something many human capital leaders have to learn. The impact that you and your team are making is not always tangible, especially if you are looking at one business cycle, which is often only one year.”
Nkirote credits much of the progress that has been made at Old Mutual since her appointment as CHRO to her team, which has been instrumental in delivering all the recent successes.
“In fact we even have our own hashtag, referring to ourselves as #TheTeamthatDelivers – without them, I’m not sure I would have been able to soldier through some of the challenges we faced,” she says.
Learning to play
Nkirote is a mother of two girls whom she and her husband, Mich, are intentionally raising to be global leaders. She describes her eldest, Nia, who is 19, as a creative and compassionate soul, while 17-year-old Anisii is wise beyond her years. They are among her closest friends, a balance that requires focused attention to also maintain healthy parenting authority.
“At my core, I remain sold on the idea that good governance starts with personal governance and family governance. If you are not leading a well-governed family as far as it depends on you, then I think it would be difficult to have good governance in your professional capacity,” she elaborated.
Nkirote doesn’t refer to her extra-curricular activities as hobbies or interests. She calls them immersions. Much like the new chapter of her career, she immerses herself in everything she does. Whether it is taking her love for dancing further by joining a Latin dance class or doing something meaningful like singing in a choir that performs for cancer awareness, Nkirote doesn’t believe in half measures.
“If you are not going to immerse yourself in it, leave it for those who will commit wholeheartedly,” she says, adding that her approach to play is now different from her work. “Working comes naturally to me but I have had to teach myself to play. When I was young, I was invariably the one asked to coordinate or lead plans or activities. And I have a vivid memory of my dad telling me – I think I was eight or nine years old at the time – that I have to learn to put aside my role as an organiser and learn to play.”
Another one of her “immersions” centres around developing women in leadership through coaching and mentoring and also the Women On Boards Network. Launched in 2014, the organisation offers training that covers a diverse range of topics related to board leadership. It is also becoming the first port of call for many companies looking to admit women on their boards.
“We have over 1,000 members, 350 of which are in senior management with a broad range of diverse skills, technical expertise, experience and industry knowledge. To date, our organisation has placed 150 women on boards. It is work that I find extremely rewarding.”
