Billionaire heiress Mary-Ann Musangi elected vice chair of Kenya manufacturers body

Mary-Ann Musangi, the billionaire heiress to the late Kenyan tycoon Chris Kirubi and managing director of Haco Industries, has been elected vice chairperson of the Kenya Association of Manufacturers for a two-year term, adding a national industry leadership role to a business empire she has run since her father's death.

Musangi will deputise Hitesh Mediratta, managing director of PG Bison Kenya, who was elected chairperson of the association. The pair take over from Jane Karuku, group managing director of East African Breweries, who has completed her term and will remain on the KAM board as an ex-officio member. The lobby group is the main voice of Kenya's manufacturing sector, representing hundreds of companies in dealings with the government on policy, taxation and trade.

Musangi already chairs the association's Women in Manufacturing Programme, an initiative she has used to push for greater female participation in the sector through leadership development, mentorship and skills training. Her elevation to vice chair places her among the most senior figures shaping how Kenyan industry engages the state at a moment when manufacturers are pressing for policies to strengthen local production and competitiveness.

The appointment extends a steady rise in public and corporate roles since Musangi took over her father's businesses. She was named last year to chair a 23-member government task force charged with rebranding Kenya's "Magical Kenya" tourism image, and she sits on the boards of several listed and private Kenyan companies. The manufacturing role, however, sits closest to the business she runs day to day.

Haco Industries is the heart of that operation. The company manufactures and distributes fast-moving consumer goods across the African Great Lakes region, with products sold in Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi, Ethiopia and beyond, spanning stationery, personal care and household brands. Musangi was appointed managing director in February 2019, shortly after her father was diagnosed with colon cancer, and spent his final years learning the business alongside him before his death in June 2021.

The company is now weighing its next phase. Haco is exploring whether to bring in a strategic investor or pursue a stock market listing as the Kirubi family plans for succession, according to reporting by The Africa Report, a discussion unfolding as Musangi pushes the business into West Africa. Haco has moved to begin operations in Ghana through a joint venture with a local partner, with Nigeria and Senegal identified as the next markets. The expansion and the ownership question are linked, since growth at that scale requires capital that external investors or a public listing could supply.

Musangi's wealth flows from one of the largest fortunes in Kenyan business. Chris Kirubi, who died in 2021 at the age of 80, left an estate that court documents valued at KSh40 billion, about $309 million. Musangi and her brother, Robert Kirubi, inherited 80% of it, with the remaining fifth passing to Kirubi's siblings.

The inheritance is anchored in Centum Investment Company, the listed investment firm in which Kirubi held a 31% stake, the largest single holding. That stake, now shared between the two siblings, gives them exposure to a portfolio that includes the Two Rivers development, one of the largest malls in the region, the Vipingo Ridge estate in Kilifi, stakes in publisher Longhorn and SABIS International Schools, and financial-services businesses. The inherited assets also include holdings in KCB Group, one of Kenya's largest banks, Haco Industries and Bendor Estate, alongside interests in real estate, media and healthcare.

Estimates of Musangi's personal fortune have placed the empire she oversees at around KSh13 billion, or about $100 million, making her one of the wealthiest women in Kenya. The full Kirubi estate she and her brother steward is considerably larger, and its value moves with the share prices of the listed companies within it, chiefly Centum and KCB.

Her rise has coincided with a deepening of the family's public profile. Her husband, Andrew Musangi, was appointed chairman of the Central Bank of Kenya, a role that prompted her to resign from the board of Sidian Bank, part of the Centum portfolio, to avoid a conflict of interest. She stepped down after eight years on that board, during which she helped steer the lender's rebranding from K-Rep Bank to Sidian in 2016.

Musangi has cast her stewardship as continuity with her father rather than a departure from him, describing a shared work ethic and a determination to keep the businesses he built intact. She told mourners at his funeral that there would be no family fighting over the inheritance, a promise that has largely held as she has consolidated control and expanded the manufacturing operation abroad.

The KAM role now gives her a platform beyond her own companies. As vice chair, she will help shape the sector's lobbying on the industrial policy, tax and trade questions that determine whether Kenyan manufacturers can compete, at a time when the association is pressing the government for a more supportive operating environment.