Mandi Sarro, popularly known as Miss Mandi, is a media personality, digital content creator, food stylist and self-published author.
Miss Mandi Sarro, a food content creator, shares the series of opportunities that led to her successful career.
I began working at the age of 16 when my family relocated to Canada. So I began understanding how to handle money at a very young age.
When I moved back to Kenya in 2014, having lived in Canada for about 10 years, I tried several auditions to be on TV, but I was turned down because I had an accent.
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Then I met John Rabar at Homeboyz Radio, who loved some of the ideas I had, like doing tweet news, which wasn’t a thing in Kenya then.
At Homeboyz, I stayed as an intern until I met Nick Mutuma, who worked at 1FM. He loved my voice, and I was invited to audition, and I got a show, ‘The Morning After’.
Radio personality, Mandi Sarro aka Miss Mandi at the Capital FM studio on November 27, 2015.
Around this time a friend and I began a YouTube channel. So, I would do radio, then go and shoot food content.
In 2015, I landed a TV gig that was paying me Sh100,000 a week. I invested a lot in the YouTube channel, and by our ninth video upload, we had gone viral with over 1 million views.
My first brand gig on YouTube, I got paid peanuts, about Sh25,000, but I thought it was a lot of money then.
Then later on, I was speaking at a content creation event, then this official walk up to me asks if I would love to be on a Lenovo campaign.
They sent an email, which said I was going to be paid $10,000 (Sh1.3 million). I almost lost my mind. With that cheque, I bought myself a car, which I still have to this day. Then I was invited by Thailand embassy to attend their food festival in Bangkok, on their bill.
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Then another invite comes from Lamu county to be a guest judge for the Lamu Food Festival. Then Senegal came calling, they were looking for food creators across Africa for some paid gig. All this is happening in 2016.
Mandi Sarro, popularly known as Miss Mandi, is a media personality, digital content creator, food stylist and self-published author.
I tell you, my 2016 was lit, I was catching flights. There was a lot of travel for me that year, and that's when I learnt the importance of network expansion.
My father encouraged me to extend my stay on those trips and cultivate relationships with the people there.
The ‘Morning After Show’ at 1FM opened doors for me, because it's from there that I got a call from Capital FM in 2017. I wasn't offered a show; instead, they offered me a swing presenter slot. So I would fill in for presenters who couldn’t make it to their shows.
Three years later, Capital offered me a full-time show. I did it for one year, then left in November 2020 to focus on food content creation.
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