At the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, Equity Group Chief Executive James Mwangi (pictured) spent hours poring over historical records. Mwangi studied all the major pandemics and their impact on the health, social and economic fabric years after they struck. “Pandemics have a way of coming back and terrorising societies every 100 years,” he told Financial Standard in an interview. It’s now five months since the first Covid-19 case was reported in Kenya, and the toll of the virus on livelihoods has been devastating. Six out of 10 households blame the virus for unemployment within their ranks, according to the latest government data. Mwangi said the extensive research on pandemics such as the 14th century’s Bubonic Plague that killed up to 200 million people and the Spanish Flu in 1918 gave him the context of what the future could look like, helping him lay the necessary groundwork for the business. The Equity boss is one of the country’s business leaders leading the fight against the deadly virus in his role as the chairman of the health committee of the Covid-19 Fund. He said he has committed the tier-one bank’s infrastructure and most of his time in fighting the virus that has now claimed over 700 lives in the country. READ MORE
“Everybody now says I’m fighting Covid-19 more than running the bank. That is what I ought to be doing. Kenyans will never forget what I did when they needed me the most to lead a fight we are ill-equipped for,” said Mwangi. He has since delegated some of his duties and temporarily stepped aside from the board, with Executive Director Mary Wamae taking up his position. “Those who’ve been asking will there be Equity without James Mwangi can now see,” he said. Born to peasant farmers in Nyagatuga village in Murang’a 58 years ago, Mwangi’s rags-to-riches story is well documented, but never grows old in that it best exemplifies the role of businesses in times of crises. The astute entrepreneur has steered the lender from a collapsing village trading society to a pan-African lender with an asset size of over Sh605 billion and a philanthropic arm that has lifted millions of Kenyans out of poverty. Mwangi sparked a micro-financing revolution and banked the unbanked poor by removing hurdles such as ledger fees and minimum balance requirements for opening accounts. Equity has since risen to become Kenya’s largest bank […]