Biographies for the Sinapis Annual Graduation and Business Plan Competition Judges
The following are the biographies for the judges who will be presiding over Sinapis Annual Graduation and Business Plan competition.
Sally Gitonga
Sally Gitonga is the Country Manager for Business Partners International Kenya Limited. Business Partners is a private equity firm that provides risk capital funding and mentoring/technical assistance support to Businesses (mainly SME’s) in the Kenyan market in amounts ranging between US$ 50,000 and US$ 1 million (ie. between Ksh 5 million – Ksh 100 million). Business Partners also currently has offices in South Africa, Uganda, Rwanda, Malawi, Zambia and Namibia.
Ms. Gitonga has over 20 years’ experience in the financial services sector, both from the banking sector and the private equity industry. She is passionate about working with SME’s, having had the opportunity to work with this sector for most of her career, in the area of providing funding services. She was responsible for setting up the Business Partners – Kenya office in 2006 and has been instrumental in the growth of the Company in the country since then.
Ms. Gitonga has an MBA from USIU, and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics & Sociology (Fist Class Honours) from Nairobi University.
She was recognised as one of the Top Women under 40 in Kenya in the year 2009.
Ms. Gitonga is very keen and passionate to see businesses grow and also engages in mentoring Entrepreneurs.
Read: Sinapis: Empowering Aspiring Entrepreneurs in the Developing World
Eva Muraya
(Brand Guru & Passionate Entrepreneur ͞Brand is the Business of Business)
Eva Muraya is CEO of Brand Strategy and Design Limited a regional integrated marketing communications consultancy firm that offers various services including brand audit and management, internal brand engagement and advertising, and public relations.
She holds over twenty years of diverse brand strategy development skill and experience. She was recently nominated by Women Inspiration and Enterprise Africa (WIE) as one of Africa’s Top 60 Most Influential Women. In 2008, she was a co-recipient of the inaugural Goldman Sachs Fortune Global Leadership Award.
She was also an award nominee at the Pan African Invent and Innovate Conference in Accra – Ghana in 2005, sponsored by the International Finance Corporation. Regionally, Color Creations Ltd was the only woman led top 10 finalist business out of 451 SME companies drawn from East and Central Africa in the 2007 Legatum Pioneers of Prosperity Business Award held in Rwanda and presided over by President Paul Kagame.
She was selected in 2006 by the US State Department to represent Kenya in a premier U.S. government-sponsored program dubbed the Fortune/State Department International Women Leaders Mentoring Partnership. She serves on the Vital Voices African Board of Advisers. She also serves as the Chair of Zawadi Africa Educational Program, the Kenya Association of Women Business Owners (KAWBO), and the Board of the Nairobi Women’s Hospital and is a member of the Board of Advisors for USIU’s Chandaria School of Business.
Eva is a fellow of the fourth class of the Africa Leadership Initiative-East Africa and a member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network. She is a devoted mother to two beautiful girls Stephanie and Zawadi Muraya. She enjoys listening to different genres of music, believes that prayer is the answer to everything and plays a mean guitar.