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

There are very few good books about business written in the world. Most seem to be exercises in futility: lots of seemingly well-educated people telling you the blindingly obvious and making it sound like a dramatic breakthrough in management thinking. The style of writing covers the full spectrum: from painfully dull to messianic. But most […]

The World Social Forum is done, and the throng is gone. Nairobi had the honour of hosting the first African WSF; the assembled delegates had the honour of looking African poverty in the eye. “Another world is possible” was the slogan. And another world – a fairer, braver, more equitable, more sustainable world – is […]

This week I want to pay tribute to John Sibi-Okumu. John is a man with many strings to his bow: he is a teacher, a dramatist, an actor, a TV personality, an editor and a columnist. And those are just the pursuits I know about. He inspires children and intimidates politicians in equal measure – […]

This column often tries to glean management wisdom from the world of sport. The cricket world has been shouting something in recent weeks, and the message is coming from the ‘Ashes’ series held between England and Australia. Cricket aficionados will know that in the just-concluded series, Australia thrashed England 5-0. That’s five test matches – […]

One of the more depressing news items to appear at the close of 2006 concerned the problems that have emerged in the consortium (headed by VTEL of Dubai) that won the Second National Operator (SNO) telecommunications licence earlier in the year. This was the operator we all hoped would go head-to-head with Telkom Kenya. It […]

Britain’s Serious Fraud Office (SFO) has been investigating allegations that the defence firm BAE Systems paid millions of pounds in bribes to Saudi Arabian officials to secure the Al-Yamamah deal – the country’s biggest-ever defence contract, worth 40 billion sterling pounds over the past 20 years. Just before Christmas last year, Britain’s Attorney General called […]

This is the last day of the year. As we all put down our glasses to wonder about next year, many questions come racing into our minds. What changes will 2007 bring to Kenya? Will life get better or worse? Will it all be very dull, or unbearably exciting? To answer your questions, I decided […]

An unusually dressed man passed through Kenya this past week. His flowing white robes and long hair and beard marked him out as an Indian sage. But this extraordinary man is not a religious leader. I had the privilege of interviewing him, and what he had to say is worth recording during this season of […]

CSR – three letters that have become very important, very common, even very fashionable in the common discourse of business people. Companies now seem to need a special corporate social responsibility strategy, special positions in the organisation dedicated to CSR, and a whole menu of special events laid on during the year to show the […]

Address given at Ufadhili Trust CSR East Africa Conference, Safari Park Hotel, 29 November 2006 Ladies and Gentlemen Thank you very much indeed for inviting me here. It is a privilege to address this very important gathering – the more so because you are drawn from all over East Africa. CSR – three letters that […]

As I waited for the world to descend on Nairobi to debate climate change, a couple of names from my past loomed up in the international headlines. And both, remarkably, were enlightening the world about the vexed issue that is climate change. The first name was that of John Hawksworth, once a colleague when I […]

You’re working on a very important report, and you’re behind schedule. An e-mail marked ‘urgent reply needed’ pops up on your computer screen. You start reading it, and see that it does indeed need your immediate attention. You start working on a response. There’s a knock on the door, and a colleague walks in. You […]

If you are in Nairobi and happen to be in the State House area, you may notice a freshly painted bright yellow line in the middle of State House Road. You may also notice another thing: the line is crooked. Why am I telling you this on a Sunday morning? No, I haven’t run out […]

Muhammad trained as an economist, and obtained a scholarship to study the subject further in the United States. After returning home with a doctorate, he began teaching at a local university. But he lived in one of the world’s poorest countries, and something was bothering him: he engaged in intellectual repartee with his fellow academics, […]

There is a fable that is widely heard in Kenya. This fable has two versions, depending on who’s telling it. If it’s a Kenyan South Asian doing the recounting, then it goes like this: Kenya’s Wahindi are born business-people. Excelling at business is in their genes. They can make any venture work, and can wring […]

‘S’ works at night as a watchman. He was on his way to work one evening, when a frantic neighbour caught up with him and told him to rush back to his home – a one-room shack in Dagoretti – because it was on fire. S pedalled his bicycle like a madman, weaving amongst all […]

We are still very traditional in our approach to business in Kenya. Most enterprises are owned by families; most look to the eldest son in the family to take the reins as the first line of succession. Anything wrong with that? It’s a time-honoured practice across the world: the eldest son must always assume the […]

Which is the best country in the world in which to do business? You may be surprised to learn that it is not the world’s largest business-centred economy, the United States. No, top ranking in the World Bank’s recently released report, ‘Doing Business 2007’ actually went to Singapore. New Zealand was the runner-up; the USA […]

We love mega-conferences in Kenya, do we not? We take great pride in the arrival of thousands of delegates from all around the globe, assembling in our land to debate the great issues of the day. Whenever one of these shows is rolling into town, we get all excited: we spruce up the city, flatten […]

There is a serious crime that most of us have committed at some point in our lives. I have done it and, in all likelihood, so have you. It involves stealing from others; denying people their rightful livelihood and pocketing it for yourself. Not guilty, you shout? Don’t be too sure. I am referring to […]

Mention the word ‘activist’ in Kenyan corporate circles, and watch all the chief executives head for the nearest exit. In business, activists are persona non grata at best, dangerous hotheads at worst. There is nothing to be gained from associating with these people, who seem to get high on tear-gas and are only truly alive […]

I wrote last week about the lamentable state of customer service in Kenya, and I appear to have touched a nerve. I received an avalanche of e-mails, mostly from very angry people wanting to share their own dreadful experiences with Kenya’s leading companies. So it is perhaps worth keeping this topic going for another week. […]

The customer, we are told as children, is king. Anyone who has spent some of his or her life in Kenya could be forgiven for screaming at that fanciful notion. Here, the customer is a serf, a pauper, a desperado. Are the following sad tales not the common experience of anyone trying to buy goods […]

We are impressed, are we not? Many had doubts and misgivings about what a visiting American senator could do for us. Many of us feared that Kenyans would take the visit of ‘one of their own’, and an influential one at that, as an opportunity to line up and plead for assistance. But Senator Barack […]

These are interesting times in world business. In the early part of this year, the international corporate community was gripped by the audacious bid by Mittal Steel, the world’s biggest steelmaker by volume, for Arcelor, the second-biggest producer. Arcelor’s strongholds are in Europe; Mittal’s are in emerging markets and in America. So the two companies […]

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about the remarkable charitable efforts of the world’s two richest men, Bill Gates and Warren Buffet. In particular, I enthused about the new business-like and systematic approach to philanthropy being pioneered by the Gates Foundation. I almost regret writing that article. My in-box has been inundated with mail […]

Patriotism is back on the agenda. We are at that stage in our evolution where we need to define what a ‘Kenyan’ is. Nations only prosper when its people possess common cause and unity of purpose. But what, exactly, is a Kenyan? Is it something defined by your passport or ID card? Your domicile? By […]

So our five tumultuous by-elections are done. Did we learn anything, and are we moving forward? I am afraid the answer to both questions may be “no”. Like a tape running on rewind, we may actually be unlearning what we know whilst driving backwards. How can we be said to be moving forward when we […]