Speaker Bio

Florence is an out of the box thinker with an entrepreneurial mind that begun at an early age of Two(2) where Florence saved up soda bottle tops (as currency) and headed to the local market to purchase bananas for her mother.

Her work within the retail sector has seen her bring to life various innovative solutions.

Some of her notable innovations include: bringing to life an end to end value chain of the sweet potato (orange flesh) crop from tuber to bread that saw the farmers maximizing the price of their crop and implementing the first convenience retailing brand partnership within a petrol station (Tuskys and Shell) a model that has disrupted how convenience retail is done within petrol stations in Kenya.

More recently Florence pioneered, co-founded and serves as the Executive Director of the Institute of Certified Retail Professionals (ICREP) which seeks to professionalize the retail profession in Africa. The Retail sector in Kenya is the fourth largest GDP contributor contributing 8.1% to Kenya’s GDP, the third largest private sector employer with over 250,000 employees and is the largest informal sector activity.

ICREP is expected to reach a membership of 100,000 in Kenya in Three (3) years and 1,000,000 in Five (5) years across Africa making it the largest professional association in Kenya. The retail sector is the final link to the final consumer for other key sectors such as agriculture and manufacturing and is also a large consumer of the real estate sector thus the greatest economic catalyst to building sustainable value chains.

Florence is passionate about digital transformation specifically in digital marketing and e-commerce and is currently undertaking the Google’s digital marketing and e-commerce professional certificate. She is also passionate about women economic empowerment and is a UN Women champion for change.

Florence academic and professional credentials include:

Master of Business Administration (MBA) from the University of Birmingham,

Bachelor of Arts (BA) Economics from the University of Nairobi,

Certified Public Accountant of Kenya – CPA (K) & Certified Secretaries (CS) Part One.

Florence has undertaken trainings on Foundations of Everyday Leadership from the University of Illinois (2022) and Corporate Governance by Women on Boards Network.

She is a member of the Institute of Directors Kenya.