Gina Din Kariuki was not what you would call a bright student.
Teachers mocked her from Nanyuki, a tiny red-soil township in central Kenya where she went to primary school, to the London School of Journalism.
“I wasn’t very clever. I had negative reports, and I was at times told I was wasting my time in school,” she says.
Gina Din—as she is known in Kenya—hauled this baggage, heavy with low self-esteem, into her first job as a communications manager at Barclays Bank Kenya in 1985. Yet, that job turned out to be Gina Din’s epiphany, catapulting a below-average student to the top of Kenya’s public relations and corporate communications class.
As her role at the bank expanded over a 14-year period, so did her obsession with the job.
Like a meticulous chess player, Gina Din planned her exit years before.
“It wasn’t really challenging as it was the same old thing. I even set up the bank’s CSR agenda through a community relations department, which was replicated in the whole of Africa. I had no interest in it but I found myself enjoying it very much,” she says.
Blue-chip companies in Kenya, such as Kenya Airways, Kenya Commercial Bank (KCB) and East African Breweries (EABL), were keen to recreate what Kariuki had done at Barclays.
“I became a generic term because these corporates were looking for a Gina Din. That made me realize I can replicate what I did for Barclays, but I really didn’t want to go to another company because it would be the same thing. I had been building a brand without realizing it. When I stepped out I had a name and brand that stood for something,” she says.
She set up Gina Din Corporate Communications, a promising public relations outfit that would be courted by global companies. Interestingly, her first client as an entrepreneur, on October 1, 1997, was the employer she had just ditched and from which she poached four of her colleagues. A year later, she won over South African Breweries, which was entering the Kenyan market, followed two years later with Safaricom, then a struggling start-up without an office.
Gina Din was on a roll, amassing clients as the PR market grew in Kenya. Four staff grew to 15 in five years.
Over the last decade, Gina Din has been a mean closing machine. At one time, she enjoyed the lion’s share of blue-chip accounts, including national carrier Kenya Airways, leading mobile operator Safaricom, Kenya’s biggest bank in terms of geographical distribution KCB and LG Electronics.
But this unassailable position has waned over the last few years forcing Gina Din, a feisty dealmaker with a penchant for showbiz, to rethink her strategy. She has lost the big-dollar accounts, including Safaricom, which she held for 10 years, KCB, and Kenya Airways.
The losses have been a big blow to Gina Din. Many in the industry were writing her epitaph. But she claims—in a bit of ambitious PR—that the loss of business was strategic, even though the huge Safaricom loss sparked speculation.
“I had to take the backstage to consolidate business without them (Safaricom), because if we continued with them they would have been every part of the decisions we made. In terms of staff we had lots of people on the Safaricom account. It did not make business sense,” she says.
Gina Din argues that she actually walked away from the most profitable company in the region and the highest-paying client, to save her business. Still, it was her worst day as an entrepreneur.
“I wanted to do other things. We didn’t walk out in totality; we still do government work for Safaricom. It was very amicable. Our other clients were complaining because we were so Safaricom. It didn’t seem that there was enough space for anybody else,” she says.
“It was a strategic decision. I didn’t want my brand to be identified with one client. It was tough financially, but it was necessary to take a year off making huge amounts of money to rebuild the business.”
Part of this consolidation strategy, or what others see as a comeback plan, is a partnership with big brands in the industry. Recently, Gina Din, with a personal fortune estimated at more than $5 million, entered into an affiliation partnership with Weber Shandwick, one of the world’s leading public relations firms, to anchor expansion into the African market. Africa is the strongest of emerging markets, with a growing population and middle-class attracting multinationals.
“We had requests from many firms to partner with or even buy us out. We searched and vetted and agonized, and found we had chemistry with Weber.”
The show-stopper in Gina Din’s revival was the October 2013 marriage with a rival Kenyan company after six months of secret courtship. The transaction involved a share swap with IMAGINE, a mid-level marketing and communications firm in Kenya, strong in one aspect that Gina Din lacked: creative marketing.
The firm was rebranded to Gina Din Group to consummate the union and has launched an ambitious five-year strategy that seeks, among others, to have a presence in West Africa. Now Gina Din, which already serves Camac Energy in West Africa, can boast a significant presence in the region, thanks to IMAGINE’s clients, such as Vodacom in Tanzania and Heineken.
“Traditional PR no longer works. Clients want a one-stop shop. I know PR and nothing else and so I had to get someone with a background in marketing and creative. Also, the average CEO in Kenya today is 40 years old. The workers need someone of their age group to take the brand to the next level so I can focus on business development.”
The shift in gear comes with a change in its offering. Gina Din says the group is now focused on providing strategic communication solutions.
“I don’t want to be your average PR company putting up banners at events. I want to provide and shape discussion. We are shaking up the industry. I want to change the business from the event organizer thing. There is space for those who want to do that. I want to be a consultant and I want to offer strategic guidance and counsel in the league of Deloitte or PwC. I’m not really keen on golf competitions. We have taken some shocks because of this decision. I am confident this will lift my brand to the next level.”
Dismas Mokua, who worked for Gina Din for five years as a media director, says the company has the capacity to bounce back given the founder’s extensive connections and lobbying prowess.
“I think she started developing interests outside her core strength of political lobbying and that diverted her attention. She can come back as her political connections are still intact and now she has built systems to run the business. Gina knows how to open doors and she’s charming,” said Mokua, who is vice-president of Sadiki East Africa, a political advisory firm based in Nairobi.
Gina Din emphasizes that she is not ready for a buyout yet, but to grow the brand further.
“I have reached the point in life where it’s not about money. I am transitioning from being successful to significant, and going across Africa is part of the new direction. As we speak, we are helping (the United States International University) USIU-Kenya to build a public relations curriculum,” she says.
Looking back, she relishes her journey in PR which has deepened her understanding of societal issues. She spearheaded the Kenyans for Kenya campaign in July 2011 to feed starving people, which raised KSh700 million ($7.9 million). Now she is the Kenya Red Cross goodwill ambassador.
The last born in a family of four sisters, and a mother of two, Gina Din turns heads with her flamboyant lifestyle and dress.
“I love being a woman and owning that space. I love to dress and I don’t do it for anybody else. If a guy can be manipulated by how you are looking, what kind of guy is that? It’s really sad. I love being feminine.”
For this, Gina Din has been a target for gossip. One of the most hurtful was about her coziness with former Safaricom CEO, Michael Joseph. Talk resurfaced when Safaricom engaged a different PR agency just two years after Joseph’s term expired.
“I am so used to that; I have developed a thick skin. At Barclays, whenever a woman got promoted you’d hear stories. We had a very turbulent relationship with Michael. If anything, we would fight like crazy; we would challenge each other and it was intellectually stimulating. We were never good friends until after six years. It took hard work to get that respect from Michael,” she says.
It is this defiance, in an unforgiving business that has seen her rise, fall and rise again. Gina Din says she has learnt from her mistakes, for instance, holding onto the business for too long at the expense of professional management. She rues that she didn’t hire more staff earlier on.
“You have this founder thing that I have to nurture this baby. But it’s never too late, we are there now. Two or three minds are better than one.”
She also made mistakes in under-pricing her services in a market with high overheads. She was excited to get business, she says, and cared less about payment. At some point Gina Din had 40 clients, but was subsidizing some.
“I have become much more of a businesswoman in the last three years. I was following my passion blindly; it didn’t matter whether I made money. Women lead from the heart and at times we do things because we love to do them. Sometimes you take steps and ask if they make sense. But, a time comes when you can’t do everything you want to do. I ran my business as if it was a foundation.”
Gina Din has had many worst days in her business, but the Kenya Airways Doula crash in May 2007, which killed all 114 on board, hurt her as she presented the airline’s message to the people.
“The communication support I gave KQ changed me as a person. It made me realize how fragile life is. My hubby is a pilot with KQ and it could have been him. I also realized how crisis communication is important. From then, we started insisting our clients prepare for crisis communication. There’s no point building the ark after hearing the thunder.”
You can be sure, in business, Gina Din, will have hammer and nails in hand long before the sky turns dark.