Wandia Gichuru

Wandia Gichuru was born in Montreal, Canada to a Canadian mother and a Kenyan father.[1] She is the only girl and the second born among three other siblings.[2]

She studied at Kilimani Primary School and later joined Loreto Convent Msongari High School.[1] She then joined the University of Western Ontario where she graduated with a degree in Economics.[1] She also achieved a master's degree in Business Administration from the University of Cape Town in 1996.[3]

Before she went to study in Cape Town, she worked for Kenya Wildlife Service and Citibank.[2] After her MBA, she came back to Kenya and began as an Operations Analyst at the World Bank and later on[4] worked as an associate at JP Morgan (London), a governance adviser with the UK Department for International Development (London) and a policy adviser with the United Nations Development Programme (New York).

Wandia left employment and started a fashion company in Kenya in 2011.[2] She co-founded the company, Vivo Activewear, with Anne Marie Burugu[5] and is its CEO as of 2016. She was also an investor in the Kenya Commercial Bank Lion's Den show in seasons 1 and 2.[6]

Awards

• The Kenyan Fashion Brand of the year 2017[7]