The funeral services industry remains one of the most challenging sources of employment in Kenya and this is largely as a result of the high level of stigma that comes with death in most of the Kenyan societies.
The average Kenyan will have a list of wild but false myths that they associate with those who work in mortuaries.
However, many will be surprised to find a young, beautiful, and well-educated woman making millions from the business perceived to be a ‘taboo’.
31-year-old Ann Gathoni is perhaps an exemplary example of the rewards entrepreneurship brings to those who are willing to overcome the challenges that come their way.
Gathoni is a PhD candidate, has an MBA, and a part-time lecturer whose main source of income is a funeral home she started after resigning from a high-flying corporate job.
In 2013, after leaving a promising job at a leading telecommunications company, Gathoni founded Montessori Funeral Home that now employs more than 10 people and with a monthly turnover running into millions.
“My friends wondered what had come over me that I decided to go into this business yet I had a good and promising job. My parents have come to accept my business but my friends still give me that ‘really?’ look,” the business woman said of her transition to entrepreneurship.
The part-time lecturer narrates that she had considered several businesses but she chose the less travelled path.
Montessori currently supplies coffins, hearses, does cremation, embalming, photography, video, eulogy and printing of programmes.
The coffins' price ranges from Sh10,000 and goes as high as Sh200,000 for the executive caskets.
