Kyesubire Greigg is the lead storyteller at Akiko Stories, a young boutique communications firm
I have always been interested in business and started in the events industry as a casual for a friend. I started and built two event firms then moved to pursue my personal interest in communications. As is my habit, I found a place to work part time and gain experience that helped to understand the industry and find my place. My business is now focused on telling the African story and documenting Africa’s richness.
In the early days, I assumed that whatever money I had in the account was mine to spend. An event could be Sh1 million. The client would pay 60 percent deposit and I would forget that it wasn’t all my money and pay ourselves, cover utilities and other needs and forget that most of the deposit was supplier money, seeing that our management fee was usually 16 percent. One time, we had several concurrent projects going on and there were delays in the payments. We dipped into money for other projects to pay the daily running costs only for other payments to delay. When it was time to pay suppliers deposits, we had less than half of what was needed. I had to try and calm down angry suppliers.
