Popular musician Juliani has been appointed in the powerful Kenya Private Sector Alliance (KEPSA). Juliani, whose real names are Julius Owino was appointed as the vice chair on KEPSA’s governing council in the Sports, Arts and Culture sector. Juliani will be deputizing Mr. Tonnie Mello who was appointed as the chairman of the docket.
Juliani was appointed during KEPSA’s annual general meeting held on Thursday last week at Sarova Panafric Hotel. In the AGM, Ambassador Dennis Awori was also appointed as the new KEPSA chair. Mr. Awori, who is also the chairman of Toyota East Africa will be taking over from Mr. Vilmah Shah, who is the chief executive officer at Bidco Africa. He was appointed as chair for a period of two years.
The Cabinet Secretary for Industrialization and Enterprise Development, Mr. Adan Mohamed who was the Chief Guest during the AGM, said that the Government will continue supporting initiatives driven by the Private Sector. He noted that the collaboration between the Private Sector and the Government was a learning point for other African countries. He challenged Kenya’s Private Sector to become globally competitive and not limit itself to regional competitiveness. “We need to know how to compete with the world beyond competing locally and regionally”, he said.
In his address to the AGM, Amb. Awori, says the Foundation will implement social projects that affect national development and impact on vulnerable groups such as the youth and women. “While KEPSA focuses on public-private dialogue engagement to address policy and legislative issues on behalf of its members, the Foundation will focus on other areas that are important in improving the business environment,” he said.
KEPSA CEO, Ms. Carole Kariuki, highlighted key organizational developments since the last AGM. KEPSA had continued to play a critical role in advocating for an enabling business environment and Kenya’s overall economic growth remained resilient in spite of the spouts of security challenges.
Ms. Kariuki added that KEPSA continues to strengthen its engagement structures to meet the needs of its members and support investment through policy reforms which were critical to the country’s development agenda. The engagement structures were anchored on the National Business Agenda II (NBA), whose five year strategic focus is aligned to the overall goals of the National Vision 2030.
