Mary Wangari Wamae, the Group Executive Director of Kenya’s Equity Group has encouraged professionals to maintain a healthy work-life balance.
She made the remarks while launching her book titled ‘The Village Girl: My Dream, Life and Legacy’ at the Kampala Serena Hotel last evening.
The book documents her journey from her roots as a young village girl in Nyeri (south Central Kenya) to her life as a mother, and a lawyer in private practice, to joining Equity Group in 2004 and rising through the ranks to become Group Executive Director overseeing the Group’s subsidiaries – a role she took on in 2017.
She spoke to four key spheres that are supposed to be kept in balance for a healthy life as a corporate leader.
She said, “There are four spheres: The mind sphere – which is all the knowledge and intellectual work we do which has to be worked on to grow professionally; the heart sphere -which is the emotional element involving love, family, spouses and so on; the health sphere –which involves mental and physical health and; the soul sphere – which is the spiritual element.”
She advised professionals to be proactive about allocating time for each of these spheres to have them all in harmony for a well-balanced life.
She also spoke about her passion for Equity Bank, highlighting the conglomerate’s growth from a balance sheet of $30 million to $18 billion in 20 years.
She said, “We were in one country only – Kenya – with 500,000 customers. Today, we are in six countries with 18 million customers and have grown our staff from 500 to 13,000 – all this within a period of 20 years.”
Eunice Waweru, UBL’s Finance and Strategy Director, said, “As a business that prides itself on providing opportunities for women and people from diverse backgrounds to thrive, UBL is proud to be celebrating you today with a gin that is the perfect mix of ingenuity, heritage and hard work – qualities that you embody.”
While giving the foreword speech, Dr. Peter Kimbowa – the NSSF Board Chair and former member of the Equity Bank Uganda board hailed Wangari for her social evangelism where she supports young ladies to move from the lower schools of mediocrity and inadequacy to the higher universities of womanhood and achievement.
