Michael Joseph has opened up on what his wife thinks about the struggling national carrier Kenya Airways.
In an interview with a local daily, Joseph says that his wife thinks that the national airline is damaged beyond repair and it will end up ruining his glittering corporate brand.
“It is a tough business. My wife tells me all the time: “Just give up,” said Joseph. “The risk in the responsibility of me being the chairman of KQ is that Kenyans expect that I, Michael Joseph, can save and reproduce the financial successes at Safaricom.”
Joseph is currently the board chair at Kenya Airways. He is also the chair at Safaricom.
Joseph said that unlike the experience at Safaricom, with KQ, he knew he was going where “everybody maligns you and shouts at you.”
He however thinks that KQ can return to profitability by 2025 and win back the hearts of Kenyans who now view the airline as a mysterious bottomless pit that is always feeding on taxpayers’ money, yet keeps growing weaker.
“All these people talking about wasting taxpayers’ money on KQ either don’t understand that this is a strategic asset of the country or understand but say so because it is politically a good thing to say,” he says.
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“I have a legacy to live up to. Looking at the situation at KQ and how hard it was, it would have been very easy for me to walk away and say ‘I don’t want my legacy destroyed by what I can or can’t do at KQ’.”