Growing up, Alfred Mathu imagined a very different future from the one he lives today. Long before he became a financial advisor and business owner, he had wanted to become a Catholic Church priest.
This dream was deeply personal to him, but it was also important to his family. His mother had prayed for years that one of her sons would join the priesthood, and Mathu embraced that vision wholeheartedly.
He excelled academically and was enrolled at a Catholic seminary for his secondary school education, convinced that he was preparing for a life of service in the Church.
However, when it was time to choose between attending the major seminary or university, he made a decision that altered the course of his life.
“I thought I could first get a university degree and then return to pursue the priesthood,” he recalls.
He enrolled at Moi University and graduated in 1998 with a Bachelor of Science in Chemistry and a minor in Botany. By then, life had begun to pull him in a different direction.
“This life has got a lot of monsters,” he says with a laugh. “One of those monsters swallowed my vocation to become a priest. By the time I was considering it, I was thinking about other careers."
The priesthood never called again. Instead, in April 1998, Mathu travelled to Nairobi in search of employment. By then, the available jobs were in the field of finance. Within a month, he had secured a position as a junior financial advisor at Old Mutual, unknowingly stepping into the profession that would define the next three decades of his life.
Today, nearly 30 years later, he is the founder and managing director of HISA African Insurance Agency, which distributes financial products for Absa Life and Old Mutual.
Through seminars, social media, and public speaking, he has branded himself as Kenya's 'financial doctor'—a title reflecting his belief that many people's financial problems stem not from a lack of income, but from poor planning. Although he joined Old Mutual intending to build a career, it was one moment that convinced him he had found his life's work.
Financial Coach Alfred Mathu speaks during the 6th edition of the Man Cave event at Lukenya Gateway in Athi River, Machakos County, on June 20, 2026.
Photo credit: Bonface Bogita | Nation Media Group
On May 23 1998, just weeks after joining the company, he met a businessman from Kangemi who ran matatu services and sold shoes. During that meeting alone, the client purchased four policies: one for himself, one for his wife, and one for each of his two children.
“That was my turning point,” says Mathu.
The sale transformed his view of financial services. It showed him that there was an enormous demand for advice to help families protect and grow their wealth.
His confidence continued to grow under the mentorship of Stuart Anderson, who was Old Mutual's chief executive in Kenya at the time. Anderson's own journey, from military service in South Africa to a senior leadership position in the insurance industry, convinced Mathu that success in the sector depended less on one's starting point and more on discipline, consistency, and building relationships.
Over the next two decades, Mathu steadily rose through the ranks at Old Mutual, eventually serving as General Manager of the Kenyan business. Yet even while climbing the corporate ladder, he was already thinking about life beyond employment.
“I knew that when I left employment one day, I wanted to run my own business.”
This vision led him to establish the HISA African Insurance Agency in 2013, while he was still employed. Five years later, in 2018, he left corporate life to focus entirely on developing the agency. Unlike many insurance agencies that rely on large sales teams, HISA has been deliberately built around one person: its founder.
“I am the one who has literally sold all of those 10,000 policies,” says Mathu.
Rather than employing a large network of agents, the company has kept its workforce relatively small. Most of its 13 employees work in customer service, administration, operations, and digital marketing. Mathu believes that this structure enables him to maintain quality and consistency.
“When you have many people selling in your name, you don't always have control over the information that reaches clients.”
The strategy has worked. Rather than spending heavily on advertising or cold outreach, the agency has grown largely through referrals from satisfied customers.
This focus on relationships is evident in the way he serves customers. He makes a point of attending weddings, funerals, graduations, and other important family events whenever possible.
“Whether they are mourning or celebrating, I make an appearance,” he says. “That makes you very credible.”
Another defining feature of HISA is Mathu's insistence on personally investing in every product he recommends. For him, credibility begins with practising exactly what he advises others to do.
As his business grows, Mathu is increasingly focused on succession planning. His eldest daughter now heads operations, another daughter leads customer service, while a niece serves as the firm's principal officer.
“If I had stayed on as General Manager, my children could never have inherited that position,” he says.
True success, he believes, is not simply measured by profits, but by whether the business can continue to serve clients long after the founder is gone.
Mathu says that some of his biggest lessons have come from painful experiences. One such experience was the unexpected departure of a longest-serving employee. She had become central to the firm's operations and had accompanied the company on an incentive trip to the United States. Little did Mathu know that she and her husband had already decided that she would remain in the US.
“I was left in the wilderness,” he recalls. “I was thrown into the deep end.”
This experience made him realise the importance of succession planning, cross-training employees, and involving trusted family members in the business earlier on. In more than 13 years, only two employees have left the company.
He also deliberately hires younger professionals, particularly in areas where he recognises his own limitations. This approach has proven particularly valuable in digital marketing and social media, enabling the agency to reach younger clients and expand beyond traditional face-to-face selling.
Just as doctors encourage people to seek preventive healthcare rather than waiting until they are ill, Mathu believes that financial planning should begin long before problems arise. At the heart of his advice lies what he calls the 25-50-25 budgeting framework.
Under this model, 25 percent of income should be saved or invested, 50 percent should cover essential expenses, and the remaining 25 percent can be used for lifestyle spending.
The savings portion should be divided into three categories: an emergency fund to cover three to six months' worth of expenses; medium-term savings for goals within five years; and long-term retirement investments, which ideally begin with a person's first salary. In his view, too many Kenyans delay saving until major expenses, such as a university education, are only months away. Others accumulate wealth almost entirely through land, neglecting liquid investments, retirement planning and estate planning.
He also believes that debt and lifestyle inflation undermine the financial security of many middle-income households.
At 54, Mathu says there is little he regrets, although he wishes he had left formal employment earlier.
