Kenyan businessman Kevin Mulei hit the news recently because of a car he had allegedly imported – A Sh 14.2 Million BMW i8 sports car. But who exactly is he?
Well he was the founder of the once popular Groove Awards and the CEO of Mo Sound Events. Kevin Mulei started Groove Awards in 2004. Back then, while he was just a DJ, he had a big vision of using the platform to reward, promote and celebrate talented youth that were spreading the Lord’s message in their songs. .
After careful research and planning, he executed the first Groove Awards in 2004. But it proved a tough venture because he had no state of the art equipment, no contacts to help him out and made many mistakes. In his own words
“If I’d been weak I’d have given up after the first one.”
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He didn’t give up though. At least not immediately. In 2005, he gave it another shot, but still received very little support from the stakeholders. This made setting up the second event even more challenging. The frustration finally ate up on him and with around $25,000 in debt, Mulei gave up, packed his bags and relocated to America for a year where he tried his hand in various business ventures such as real estate to media production.
While he was in the US, the thought of re-visiting his idea bugged him, so he came back to Kenya a year later and put together another Groove Awards event. This time he got very extensive cooperation from industry players and made profits that he used to set up the next one. And that’s how Groove Awards grew from an uncertain concept to the best Awards Show in East Africa.
Mulei also runs Mo Sound Events, a creative and equipment company which offers a wide variety of solutions in production, events management, digital media, brand activation and entertainment equipment. He has been quoted as saying that he was motivated to start Mo Sound after seeing the bad state of sound equipment in the country as a DJ. Mo Sound now has a branch in Rwanda and is set to open in Uganda and Tanzania. With over 70 employees, the company contracts the services of up to 40 more casuals when needed.
Despite mostly dealing in entertainment gigs, Mo Sound has grown to be the lead technical organizer for government and corporate events. Some of its best gigs have been organizing the Rwanda Independence Day celebrations, Kenya’s 50th Independence Day celebrations and the Global Entrepreneurship Summit (GES), graced by former US President Barack Obama in Nairobi.