I was born in Kenya and spent my early years in Nairobi. At the age of 12 – my imagination captured by books such as “Tom Brown’s Schooldays” and the Bill Bunter novels – I convinced (they would say “emotionally blackmailed”) my parents to send me to boarding school in England.

Throughout my school years, holidays were spent either travelling around Kenya as a family, or – on occasion – taking holidays abroad. As a result, I caught the travel and adventure bug early!

After my A-levels, some school friends and I planned a four and half month backpacking trip that took us through Southern Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, and the USA. It really was an incredible experience and I have been working to recapture that feeling of freedom and adventure ever since.

After my gap year, I spent three years at university in London before starting my career. I say career but in fact I haven’t had a career in the traditional sense of the word. Since graduating from university, I have lived in four countries, travelled to over thirty more, worked in six completely different industries, completed two master’s degrees, been a CEO, sat on boards, and trained as an Executive Coach. I am very fortunate and grateful that my working life has been anything but conventional.

In 2016, I resigned from my job in the Middle East and moved back to Nairobi as CEO of the family printing business. I had been brought into the company to modernise it, but I quickly realised that company was in financial distress. My job went from modernising the business to saving it. The next few years were very tough for the business, the family, and me. Eventually, I managed to structure a deal that saw us merge the business with six other printing businesses – a first-of-its-kind transaction in Kenya. As a result, I managed to pay back the banks and to clear all the company’s debts.

Having fulfilled my personal and professional obligations to the family, I struck out on my own once again into a new career. Today, in my role at Career Connections, I am privileged to work with some of the leading companies in East Africa helping to improve the performance of their senior leadership teams and their boards of directors. I also coach business leaders and entrepreneurs to help them fulfil their potential and achieve their goals by addressing and changing their behaviour and mindset.

I am also fortunate to have met my life-partner Shalini, an old childhood friend. We reconnected as she had written two best-selling books and was looking to get them printed in Kenya. A one-hour business lunch turned into a four-hour conversation. I was fascinated by her and was therefore disappointed to find that she lived in the UK and was headed back there. However, a year later, we bumped into each other again and she told me that she had packed up her life in England to travel the world but was going to spend a few months in Kenya first.

We became friends and, by the time Covid hit Kenya in March of 2020 (scuppering her travel plans) we had started dating. This quickly turned to love, and we decided to build a life together here in Kenya, splitting our time between Nairobi and the small log cabin she had built on a beautiful conservancy at the foot of Mt. Kenya, where we plan to one day build our forever home.

With Kenya as our base and unfettered by traditional responsibilities, we choose to live an unconventional life. We intend to travel far and wide across Kenya (a country we love) and the whole world. We choose to live a life full of fun, laughter, travel, and adventure. We plan to explore new places, meet new people, and dive into new experiences.

Does our story spark some deep inner desire to do things differently? Do you dream of a life of adventure and travel? Are you already living this kind of life and do you want some ideas of where to go and what to do next? If your answer to any of these questions is “yes”, then this blog is for you.

Safari Njema. Travel well.

Amar

---

Follow us on Instagram and TikTok
Connect with us on LinkedIn
Watch us on YouTube