It is said that behind every successful man is a woman. Well, behind the success of former NASA strategist and economist David Ndii's career is Mwende Gatabaki, his wife.
Mwende is the daughter of Senior Chief Peter Gatabaki of Thakwa who is also the former Githunguri MP.
Setting the path to her career, she studied at Kenyatta University where she pursued a bachelors degree in Mathematics between 1987 and 1990.
Mrs Ndii later joined Salford University for a post-graduate diploma in computer science between 1994 and 1996, and the United States International University for a masters in management and organisational development between 1994 and 1996.
She was thrust into the public eye on December 4, 2017, when she asked President Uhuru Kenyatta to release Ndii, following his dramatic arrest, as reported by The Standard.
Mwende boasts an illustrious career, having served for over eighteen years in the government, public and private sector organizations at national, continental and global levels. Most notable, a state appointment in 2014.
She is an award-winning digital strategist, having been feted for her achievements in ICT on four occasions.
Mrs Ndii was feted with the Excellence in ICT Utilization and Management honour at the Kenya@50 Years Awards in December 2013.
While she served as a special advisor to the first president and chief operating officer of the African Development Bank group between 2010 and 2014, President Kenyatta sent a request to the AfDB president in March 2014 to allow her to come back to Kenya and work on the digital transformation of his administration.
She was appointed as the acting director-general of Kenya Citizens and Foreign Nationals Management Service, and project director at Umoja Kenya, where she served between March 2014 and June 2015.
The project, she revealed, was supposed to curb insecurity following the 2013 Westgate Al Shabaab attack.
Adding to her spectacular resume, Mwende served at the helm of the Kenya Tea Development Authority as the group general manager for six years- 2004 to 2010. During her tenure, KTDA became the first African organisation to clinch the global CIO 100 Award in 2009.
"The CIO 100 Awards celebrates 100 organizations and the teams within them that are using IT in innovative ways to deliver business value, whether by creating competitive advantage, optimizing business processes, enabling growth or improving relationships with customers," the company website states.
Mwende worked with McKinsey & Company, as a senior public sector advisor in East Africa (Partner level) between July 2015 and October 2016. She was tasked with building the public sector practice to deepen the company's socio-economic impact and grow revenues.
By January 2018, she was working at Lattice Consulting Limited as a practice leader.
Lattice Consulting is a boutique advisory and investment firm established in 2003, with a clientele across the private and public sectors in East, West and Southern Africa.
