Kinuthia Mbugua has risen from the lowest levels of Kenya's administration to become one of the people closest to President Uhuru Kenyatta.
The immediate former Nakuru governor has been serving as the State House comptroller during President Kenyatta's second term in office.
Before vying for and winning the Nakuru gubernatorial seat, Mbugua served as an Administration Police commander.
He took charge of the AP academy after his predecessor Edward Oku Kaunya disappeared in height of the International Criminal Court's investigations into the 2007-2008 post-election violence.
Kaunya would later re-emerge from the self-imposed exile in South Africa in 2016 and won the Teso North parliamentary seat in the 2017 General Election.
It was alleged that the police force were partly responsible for the mayhem that followed the December 2007 elections under then Police Commissioner Mohammed Hussein Ali who would be indicted at the International Criminal Court on 8 March 2011.
Kinuthia would try to take over the police force when he applied to become the first-ever inspector general but lost out to David Kimaiyo.
His illustrious career in the civil service began in 1978 when he was appointed as a district officer (DO) rising to become a district commissioner of Nakuru District.
The quiet smooth-talking gentleman is at the peak of his service and was appointed to State House after losing the Jubilee nominations to the eventual winner of the Nakuru County seat, Lee Kinyanjui.
When he launched an appeal against his opponent, President Kenyatta convinced him to bow out and later called him to serve at the house on the hill.
