Business
Profile: Tabitha Karanja – founder and CEO Keroche Breweries
Tabitha Karanja – founder and CEO., Keroche Breweries. PHOTO/Daily Nation
Tabitha Karanja of Kenya, is an entrepreneur who has dared to “tread only where men walk”. She is the founder and CEO of Keroche Breweries – the first enterprise of the sort to be owned by a woman in Africa.
Ms. Karanja who faced seemingly insurmountable challenges including high taxation, competition from the multinationals, threats, intimidation has watched her business grow from a small three-roomed factory with five employees at inception in 1998, to a state of the art brewery employing hundreds of Kenyans.
Keroche Breweries has experienced phenomenal growth and as a result Ms. Karanja has recently invested US$ 11.9 million in expansion – the plant now has a capacity of producing 15,000 half-litre bottles per hour.
Karanja plans to increase Keroche Breweries’ 20 percent market share in east Africa to 40 percent in the next three years.