Chief Executive Officer of tech firm Seven seas listed new billionaire in town

One Mr. Mike Macharia, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of tech firm Seven seas.

Macharia joined the envious club of billionaires, Courtesy of a recent sale of stake to the Africa development fund of Japanese multinational Toyota valued Seven Seas Technologies (SST) at an estimated Sh3.2 billion.

The venture capital arm of Toyota Tsusho’s injection of Sh300 million ($3 million) into Seven Seas in return for a 9.5 per cent stake, confirms that 41 year old Macharia is indeed a billionaire.

The transaction put the value of Mr. Macharia’s 35 per cent shareholding in the company at Sh1.12 billion.

Macharia’s journey to the top however has not been a walk in the park.

He was Born and bred in Nairobi, and while in college he dropped out of a mathematics and physics course to become an accountant.

His first job was an accountant at a local IT company where he was actually considering to fly to the United States to study.

Looking for greener pastures in Rwanda would however be his best career move, it will be here in the land of a thousand hills that he would strike gold.

His first job contract involved helping the Rwanda national carrier set up its IT systems.

It was this contract that necessitated the setting up of the company, an initial partnership with Dutchman Rob Van Hoek, who has since left the company but retains a minority stake.

The ambition to take on the world was fiercely burning in his heart and the name Seven Seas was meant to evoke the spirit of a company unlimited by geography or sector.

“Seven Seas aviation. Seven Seas hospitals,” Mr Macharia quips.

Rwanda proved a fertile ground for Seven Seas, Just as he was finishing the Rwanda Airlines job, the country’s military approached him with their own contract.

He soon found himself making a presentation to uniformed officers, to cut a long story short, He clinched that deal too.

Over the years the Company continue to grow, attracting the attention of James Gachui, a tycoon, with a dominant presence in Kenya’s business circles, with interests that ranged from manufacturing to retail trade.

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Mr Gachui bought into the company and served as its board chairman for years, injecting into it “maturity”.

“He played a key role in guiding a young team toward institutionalisation of the business,” Mr Macharia told Business daily.

Another major investor in Seven Seas is the Abraaj Group, with 21 per cent stake.

Never one to fear the unknown, Seven Seas ventured where many others dared not, it spread to Nigeria, a market that was and remains daunting for many East African firms. It even has a foothold in Europe through a Portuguese subsidiary.

Recently, the company has turned its gaze to the health sector which now accounts for 60 per cent of its revenues.

Over the past year, Seven Seas has been working with American multinational General Electric on a project to lease medical equipment to 98 hospitals across the country.

Mr. Macharia revealed that they had just finished outfitting the last of the hospitals and he is already looking forward to bigger health projects in the future.

“In the next four or five years, I see Kenya becoming a medical tourism destination for the region and we want to be at the centre of that,” Mr Macharia said.

Seven Seas wants to become the middle-man between local hospitals and international multinationals, clearing the route for the supply and maintenance of medical equipment and pharmaceutical products.

Mike has attended numerous management development courses all over the world and is also Executive Management Alumni of Nairobi Strathmore Business school and Spain IESE business school, one of the top ranked executive institutions in the world.

He is also a member of the Young Presidents Organization,Kenya Chapter (YPO).

Mike is married to Consolata Macharia and they have a baby son called Leo.

The new billionaire love to listen to music which considers very healing, he also play golf sometimes, biking and art.

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Chief Executive Officer of tech firm Seven seas listed new billionaire in town

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