The young woman helping businesses survive their worst moments
Insolvency practitioner at Senior Consultant Adili Associates LLP Emily Onyango during the interview at her office in Westlands, Nairobi.
What you need to know:
- There are fewer than 40 active insolvency practitioners in Kenya.
- In the Daily Nation of October 9 last year, the Official Receiver published a list of 36 people licensed to act as insolvency practitioners. Emily was the 33rd on the list that was dominated by men.
Had it not been for that inner voice that keeps pushing her to strive for more, Emily Onyango would today be a typical young lawyer trying to find her bearings.
But she chose a different path. She snubbed mainstream legal practice, which she had been advised to bank on, and took a path less travelled.
All law students undergoing the mandatory advocates' training programme cover a topic called insolvency law, and Emily encountered it in 2019. Not many think of it beyond being just a topic, but for her, that is today the core of her career.
She is not just a lawyer but also an insolvency practitioner, and her day job calls for her to apply her mind to reviving and restructuring businesses in distress. She also focuses on managing and recovering the assets of a firm facing turbulence.
"When businesses face financial distress, they need to engage professionals, including insolvency practitioners, to assess the options available to them and what possible outcomes can be achieved to resolve the financial distress," she says.
Because of the nature of her work, her job is sometimes likened to that of a mortician. She doesn't like that comparison.
"In my interactions with people outside work, the perception is that insolvency practitioners enjoy being morticians and conducting final rites. The truth is that most of us do not. The aim is to turn around and recycle businesses, including passing on a business to new owners, without necessarily transferring the company," she notes.
To be an insolvency practitioner, one has to be licensed. And when Emily got her licence, she was one of the youngest Kenyans to attain that status.
"In the first month of being licensed, I visited the portal several times just to confirm the status was showing 'licensed'," she jokes.
There are fewer than 40 active insolvency practitioners in Kenya. In the Daily Nation of October 9 last year, the Official Receiver published a list of 36 people licensed to act as insolvency practitioners. Emily was the 33rd on the list that was dominated by men.
She is not just a licensed insolvency practitioner—she is also a certified secretary and governance auditor. Some of those qualifications would not have been possible if she hadn't taken the bold step of enrolling for courses examined by the Kenya Accountants and Secretaries National Examinations Board (Kasneb) when she was in her first year at Kisii University.
Regarding her Kasneb enrolment, she notes: "I couldn't wait to be the powerful woman who walks into boardrooms in heels and sharp suits. The certified secretary family was my anchor into professionalism and leadership, culminating in the governance audit training. The law degree happened as per plan but with the insolvency licence, I grabbed an opportunity that life presented—and I have no regrets about it."
Emily's office is nestled in a glassy, spacious building in Nairobi's Westlands that offers scenic views of the city. She is a senior consultant with Adili Group, a corporate advisory firm, and taking a lift to her office is comparable to her life—a young woman aiming for the sky, slowly but surely.
African market
"In the next five years, I want to be a recognised authority in corporate rescue financing, shaping the landscape for a unified cross-border insolvency practice within the African market," she says.
To reach where she is, she has listened to many mentors—but not wholesale.
"I take advice from my mentors most of the time," says Emily. "The one advice that maybe I am glad I ignored was the advice to focus on mainstream legal practice. It may have been well intended, but I found my purpose is turnaround, restructuring and insolvency practice."
Back to 2019 when she encountered the chapter on insolvency law. The year that followed was a watershed period for Kenyan businesses.
"In 2020, when Covid hit, businesses started facing immense financial distress. The need for turnaround, restructuring and insolvency expertise grew in the market," recalls Emily.
"In early 2021, when an opportunity to work with licensed insolvency practitioners presented itself, I took it up. I had no idea what the actual practice was, because it is more complex than the textbook theory, but I took it up and I must say this was the best decision I made for my career at the time."
She was a trainee lawyer at Anjarwalla and Khanna (which has Adili Group as an affiliate). That pupillage period opened doors to the practice.
"I was part of the many people, particularly young lawyers, who were keen on building a thriving career in corporate commercial. The first months of starting to work in insolvency were filled with a lot of pressure to adjust, learn and relearn," says Emily.
"What got me glued to insolvency practice is the 360-degree nature of the work. The work is very dynamic, challenging and gives you exposure to diverse sectors in the economy, running businesses of different sizes and dealing with very diverse stakeholders. It is never a boring day in the life of a practitioner," she adds.
She was glad that there was a woman among the leaders who showed them the lay of the land.
"This eased out a lot of the pressure that comes with imposter syndrome in the early days. The one thing I always did, though, was to ensure I am seen and heard in every room and in every conversation. The point was not just to show up, but to show up and create a space for myself amongst the seniors," says Emily.
She has since joined the Association of Turnaround and Insolvency Kenya (Atik), and she remembers being the 11th to enroll.
"That was one great move that has allowed me space in the profession. From a lawyer working in insolvency practice to a licence holder facilitating training for other members, Atik has seen me grow in leaps and bounds," she says.
Emily is also a member of the Institute of Certified Public Secretaries (ICS), and at 24, she was a council committee member there. Asked how she convinced seasoned professionals to take her seriously, she replies: "I take myself seriously. They had no option but to take me seriously."
In 2024, she was named the winner of the Richard Turton Award. This award is given by INSOL International, an international association of restructuring, insolvency and bankruptcy professionals. Leading to her win was a paper she wrote titled "Financing Corporate Rescue in Kenya: The Case for a Corporate Rescue Fund".
"As part of the award, Emily was invited to attend the INSOL Europe conference in Sorrento, Italy in October (2024), where she was presented with her award certificate," INSOL-Europe said in a statement.
The 2025 winner is a woman from Albania; in 2023, the winner was a woman from North Macedonia.
Says Emily: "The Richard Turton Award was a great honour, being the first Kenyan to ever win the award, and it opened my career in many ways."
Despite the accolades, her age and her gender sometimes become stumbling blocks in her practice. She has had to endure comments like "you are not experienced enough to understand this".
"The way out for me has always been to listen empathetically but always maintain objectivity and professionalism. Eventually, they realise that despite my age and gender, I am qualified to do what I do," she says.
She goes on: "I have once had a stakeholder tell me that I cannot understand their grievances because I am not a parent, and that I am too young to have seen anything in this life. For context, this was a man almost my father's age. I sat through his rant session, composing myself and listening like I didn't hear the comment and went through the agenda of the meeting, reminding him of the legal position and what the outcome was going to be anyway. I was only a year into insolvency work at the time and that stuck with me."
On the personal side, Emily is a fitness enthusiast who hikes mountains to get away from it all.
"I don't skip a gym session or a run. Pushing myself physically has helped build resilience and grit, which translates to my work life," she says.
Regarding mountain-climbing, she describes the natural features as "my place of peace". Asked about what the mountains have taught her, she lets out two words: peace and structure.
"If you are a hiker or a mountaineer, your life has to be structured because hiking is not just the day of the hike," she says. "When you go on expeditions, it's when you realise how working with people in that moment is important for everyone's success."
At home, she lives simply.
"I lead a simple life. To my family, I am still the little girl who gets sent on errands. I don't think it ever changes with parents. To my friends, we still laugh at the same things and do what friends would normally do. I hope to keep it this way, because it keeps me sane just being me," she says.
From 2016 to 2018, she held the Ms Kisii University crown. She knows beauty, and she knows when to examine the downright ugly in a business as she works a way out.
"The most rewarding part of a turnaround is the employees retaining jobs and a steady income, the suppliers continuing in business and the owners of the business taking a breather from creditor pressures," she says.
However, there are times when the best decision is to remove a company from life support and let it die, and her job is to let the affected stakeholders understand that that is the best outcome.
To young women who want to reach where she has, she has some advice to share: "Once you set your mind on something, the universe aligns and brings your way mentors to help unlock ideas and opportunities to test your resolve. The main thing is to keep the discipline, focus and follow through."
