Njeri Rionge, the celebrated technology veteran and co-founder of Internet Service Provider (ISP) Wananchi Online, is dead.
Njeri was mourned by her brother the former ICT CS Joe Mucheru who wrote, "Goodbye Njeri. We will miss you greatly."
The reason the 54-year-old has been trending was because of the speculation by people online surrounding her death, things we will not repeat here.
But who was Njeri, a lady mourned by many a friend
The lady was a hugely successful senior executive with extensive local and international experience in strategic leadership and organizational development and was also a lawyer.
She was the first female African representative at the Internet Corporation of Assigned Names and Numbers ICANN's board, from June 2003 to November 2008.
Her entrepreneurial start
She allegedly sold yogurt to pupils at the Loretto Convent Musongari High School and the International School of Kenya when they were on breaks, and she also worked as a hairdresser at night, according to her former schoolmates.
Later, she would take flights to London to bring back expensive goods for her expanding clientele. After three years of devoted work and advancement through the ranks at Inter-Connect, a nearby ISP, Rionge was promoted to marketing manager.
Wananchi Online-Her Magnum Opus
Inter-Connect's technical manager Mucheru and the marketing manager at the time, Rionge, left in February 1999.
They established Wananchi Online Limited (WOL) in December of that same year, and the business started operating in March of 2002 with a drastic pricing war that included discounts of up to 85 to 90 percent.
In 1999, Rionge and her brother Mucheru co-founded the multimillion-dollar business Wananchi Online, which later developed into Wananchi Group, the parent company of Zuku.
Rionge and her group oversaw the company's development from conception to exit. In order to create the Wananchi Group, which has operations in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Burundi, Rwanda, Somalia, South Sudan, Ethiopia, Zambia, Malawi, and Mauritius among other countries.
She and her team witnessed Wananchi Online raise several rounds of both equity and debt financing from private equity firms including Liberty Global, Emerging Capital Partners, Export Development Canada, Altice, and Prudence Holdings, among others.
By December 2005, WOL has become a favourite among corporate, SME, and individual clients, making it Kenya's top ISP services provider.
Later achievements
She co-chaired Elevate Tech 2018 in Toronto and was a well-known speaker at international events, including the 2015 Oscars, which she attended on behalf of Cadillac.
She served on the boards of directors for Unilever Tea (Brooke Bond Kenya), the Institute of Directors (Kenya), ICANN, the East African Tea Trade Association (EATTA), Ambulance Air Rescue (AAR) Holdings, and Wananchi Group in Kenya.
She also served on the Vatican's Sport at the Service of Humanity advising committee. One of the few female pioneers in the African technology industry, Rionge was soliciting money for an African private equity firm with a Cayman Islands basis.
Throughout her entrepreneurial career, Rionge has consistently been a devout born-again Christian.
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