"CEOs can't wait to read Sunny Bindra's articles every week."

My recent interview on NTV (August 29, 2009, with Misiko Andere) is now up on the NTV website, courtesy of YouTube. Watch it here

“For a while, they were just right there, in the middle of American culture,” says Richard Polk, the owner of Pedestrian Shops and ComfortableShoes.com, based in Boulder, Colo. Polk’s store was the first real shoe store to stock the crazy-looking plastic shoes, a few years back, when they first roared out of nearby Aurora to […]

Last week my respected fellow columnist Professor Makau Mutua laid into Kenyans for following English rather than Kenyan football. The good professor was concerned about this new “colonisation” of the minds of Kenyans by its former ruler. Now, I have raged against inauthenticity and mindless mimicry myself many a time on this page, so why […]

“The very essence of having a strategy is being selective about choosing the criteria on which a firm wishes to compete, and then being creative and disciplined in designing an operation that is finely tuned to deliver those particular virtues. …Strategy is deciding which business you are going to turn away.” David Maister, Strategy & […]

Last week this column looked at the issue of nationality and patriotism as seen in world sports championships. I suggested we would lose many more of our athletes to richer countries, simply because we are not making this an attractive country for young people to be in. Do we ever stop to ask ourselves: why […]

“When researchers considered a meta-analysis – a broad study incorporating data from every scientific work ever conducted in the field – they found that there’s only a small correlation between first-date (unstructured) job interviews and job performance. The marks managers give job candidates have very little to do with how well those candidates actually perform […]

When the athletes came round the final bend, our girl looked a distant third, her energy seemingly spent. The expected winner, from Ethiopia, began sprinting away and building a supposedly insurmountable lead. But somehow the Kenyan runner, against all the odds, found a final reserve tank and moved into higher gear. She began a frantic […]

Those are just two of the current and previous participants in Fast Forward, along with Linus Gitahi, Jane Karuku, Zeph Mbugua, Norah Odwesso, Frank Ireri, Winnie Ouko, Polycarp Igathe, Jeenal Shah, Martin Miruka, Karim Anjarwalla and many more. The intake for Fast Forward 2010 is now open. FFWD is the region’s most talked-about leadership development […]

I will be on Misiko Andere’s NTV breakfast show at 7.30 am on Thursday 27 August.

“More than two thousand years ago, the Roman orator, belletrist, thinker, Stoic, manipulator-politician, and (usually) virtuous gentleman, Marcus Tullius Cicero, presented the following story. One Diagoras, a nonbeliever in the gods, was shown painted tablets bearing the portraits of some worshippers who prayed, then survived a subsequent shipwreck. The implication was that praying protects you […]

These days, I don’t know whether to laugh or cry about the Nairobi City Council. There are reasons to do both. Let’s get the crying over with first. Was it possible to watch the recently concluded mayoral election in Nairobi and not burst into tears, even if you’re a grown man? For this process stretches […]

“It is clear that governance failures contributed materially to excessive risk taking in the lead up to the financial crisis. Weaknesses in risk management, board quality and practice, control of remuneration ,and in the exercise of ownership rights need to be addressed in the UK and internationally to minimise the risk of a recurrence. Better […]

This has been a time of being lectured and hectored by foreigners, and not many of our leaders liked it. Prime Minister Raila Odinga took umbrage at the tone and message of the American ambassador at the opening of the AGOA conference last week. He said, in no uncertain terms, that Kenya does not need […]

“Despite everyone knowing that nothing stays still, there are countless examples of no natural successor being in place for when the time comes, especially when the leader has an air of invincibility. Most potential successors will not hang around long if they do not feel there is any chance of the boss moving on. Consequently, […]

Hillary Clinton paid her much-anticipated visit to Kenya. US President Barack Obama had already signalled his unwillingness to visit his fatherland, so we knew that his redoubtable Secretary of State was the next best thing. Now, I often wonder about these visits and whether they serve any purpose other than spelling out America’s agenda in […]

Wangari Maathai is back, grabbing our attention about the damage we are doing to our collective mother, the planet. But where has she been? The good lady became inordinately quiet these past few years, ever since she dabbled in politics. She should have been banging our eardrums about the Mau Forest debacle a long time […]

“…Today, no meeting of the high and the mighty is complete until someone polishes the conventional wisdom: “Our big trouble today is getting enough good people.” This is crystal-clear nonsense. Your people aren’t lazy and incompetent. They just look that way. They’re beaten by all the overlapping and interlocking policies, rules, and systems encrusting your […]

We don’t have a welfare state in Kenya. Or do we? Look at it this way. Of our 35-plus million people, only around 2 million are in any form of ‘formal’ or ‘modern’ employment. Kenya as a country offers proper employment to fewer people than Wal-Mart does. It is these few people who form most […]

I will be discussing my book, Crown Your Customer, at the Storymoja Hay Festival at the Impala Club, Nairobi on Friday 31 July, 10.00-11.30 am. Come and join the discussion – I’d be delighted to have your company. The Storymoja Hay Festival is the first time that this prestigious literary event is being held on […]

“Every marketer is up against this new reality: The world is overflowing with brands, and consumers are having a hard time assessing the differences among them. In 2006, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office issued 196,400 trademarks, almost 100,000 more than it had in 1990. The average supermarket today holds 30,000 different brands, up threefold […]

I will be on KTN’s Enterprise Kenya programme on Tuesday 21 July at 7.35 pm, discussing my book, Crown Your Customer. The programme is repeated on Saturday 25 July at 4.00 pm.

“No country is going to create wealth if its leaders exploit the economy to enrich themselves, or police can be bought off by drug traffickers. No business wants to invest in a place where the government skims 20 percent off the top, or the head of the port authority is corrupt. No person wants to […]

“Kenyan shareholders may soon have to make do without the Annual General Meeting perks should a move by Safaricom be adopted by other listed companies. The mobile firm’s roster of over 800,000 shareholders – the largest number in corporate Kenya’s history – has pushed it to identify cost-cutting measures during AGMs. Chief among them is […]

The customer is king, customer first, customer focused, customer centred, customer this, customer that. You would be hard pressed to find a big company these days that doesn’t chant the customer mantras. In all CEOs’ speeches, in annual reports, in investor presentations, in awards ceremonies, the message is emphatic and repeated: they REALLY care about […]

“G.M.’s managers must answer to a new majority owner, the federal government, which in turn hopes to sell off its stake to other investors. Chrysler executives are learning to work with the Italian automaker Fiat, which acquired most of its assets. Ford’s top managers said they have no such worries about their controlling shareholders. “These […]

I wanted to write an article about Michael Jackson this week. But as I sat down to do it, I found myself at a complete loss. There are at least four different articles I could write about the man, some of them contradictory. But perhaps contradiction is what defined the ‘King of Pop’ who died […]

I am writing this column because I am still alive. Sounds obvious, but many are no longer alive to read these words. The insane crime wave that has gripped the country over the past few weeks has taken many casualties. We, the survivors, are able to talk about insecurity and feel outraged by it. Those […]

“When you are at the top of the world, the most powerful nation on Earth, the most successful company in your industry, the best player in your game, your very power and success might cover up the fact that you’re already on the path of decline.” That question—how would you know?—captured my imagination and became […]