10 Intriguing Questions with PMS Group Founder, Joanne Mwangi

Joanne Mwangi, founder and CEO, PMS Group (Kenya), cordially shares the nitty gritties about herself and the amazing agency that she founded.

1. What was your first job?

My very first job was actually selling vegetables because my mother had a kiosk. She would take us to the kiosk to work after school. I must have been around seven. My father also had a little restaurant in town so during school holidays we went and served. I started working at a very young age

2. Who has had the biggest impact on your career and why?

The one person who has had a really big impact on my success is Vimal Shah [founder and CEO of Bidco Oil Refineries]. He took me under his wing. He used to sit with me and take me through management lessons and tell me what to do to grow my business. He always looks out for me, and always wants to show me how I can I do better and improve. He is always rooting [for me]. He is one person whom I have always felt has my back. I have a lot of respect for him.

3. What parts of your job keep you awake at night?

I haven’t had a chance to worry for a while. I think I worry more about my team than anything else. I am not happy when my team is not happy. I always want my team to be working at optimum. So when I realise that there is some conflict or somebody is going through an issue that bothers me. We have a very family-like culture at PMS so I always want my people’s things to go right so they can work at optimum.

4. What are the top reasons why you have been successful in business?

I think first and foremost is hard work. I am very hard working. I am very committed. When I focus on a goal, I lock target; it’s very hard for me to unlock until I have succeeded. I have that zoom factor. Once I focus, I go. I will do anything to get there.

5. What are the best things about your country, Kenya?

Kenya is just the best country in the whole world. We have got fantastic weather. I have been to many, many countries and there is no place like here. The people are friendly, happy and welcoming. Even more importantly we have got something called peace that many people take for granted. I don’t know how to explain freedom, but for me freedom is being in Kenya. Freedom is just being home. Every time I travel I am just dying to come back home.

6. And the worst?

The worst is poverty. It really pains me because I think it is something that can be dealt with. If we deal with poverty, everything else will be dealt with… from health, ignorance… It is a chicken and egg situation because how do you break out of poverty unless you give people awareness of opportunities? I also don’t think that becoming a social welfare state where people are getting handouts is a solution. It is just about getting people equipped to make the best of what they have because everybody in Kenya is walking on gold. How do we get people to mine their gold? To see these opportunities and actually seize them [and] to have faith and confidence and the belief that ‘I can do it’? I believe it will all start with our education system.

7. Your future career plans?

I want to transition PMS Group to a point where I have divested enough and I have enough investors in the business that I feel that I am not so needed. I want to get to a point where my input is needed at maximum 30%. I have always wanted to write but I haven’t done it because I keep finding excuses. I would like to set a deadline and just write. Thereafter I would want to do more around education. I always wanted to be a teacher. I love kids. I wanted to have many children [but] I only had three (laughs). I wanted many, many children. My outreach for many years has been focused on women but I am starting to branch out to children. I want to adopt one school [and] use my savings, not start some foundation, to transform it. Then I will measure the results and see if I can replicate the same elsewhere to help more children.

8. How do you relax?

I play golf but I am useless. What I really enjoy is going to the gym. It really gives me that Zen. I love music and I love dancing so I will always look for every opportunity, everywhere, to dance. I am a party girl. I am a people person [but] I don’t like crowds. I prefer small groups. In small groups I thrive, I have a fantastic time [and] I unwind. I enjoy doing these things with my kids.

9. What is your message to Africa’s young aspiring businesspeople and entrepreneurs?

I want to tell the young people Africa’s time is now. We are so lucky because we understand the landscape. Foreigners can see the opportunities but they don’t understand our landscape. We just need to see the opportunity and seize it now. Don’t wait for tomorrow. It’s going. So please, can the young people of Africa make sure they seize the opportunity and keep it in Africa.

10. How can Africa realise its full potential?

By unleashing the power of the youth. The future is in the young people. Everyone today who is 30 and under; those are the people who own Africa. It is their collective efforts that are going to change this world. These people succeeding, each one at a time, is what is going to change Africa. The first thing is to make them believe they can and that is social cultural change which is already happening. Second is having role models. Take the case of Equity Bank CEO James Mwangi who was a village boy and is now a global icon. You don’t need to meet him in person for you to be inspired. Any boy in the village can understand that [they] don’t have to have been born rich and taken to the best schools [to believe that] I am good enough and I can achieve anything.

Joanne Mwangi is the founder and CEO of PMS Group. The group has four subsidiaries which offer a wide range of agency services including advertising, public relations, event management, trade promotions, consumer promotions, trade merchandising and marketing strategy development. The group has worked with some of the leading brands in East Africa including British American Tobacco, Bidco Oil Refineries, Safaricom, Reckitt Benckiser, Uchumi Supermarket and East African Breweries.

In 2010 PMS Group became the first woman-owned business and the only one since to be voted number one in the Top 100 SMEs competition in Kenya. Mwangi beat women entrepreneurs from 75 countries in 2009 to emerge winner of the Organisation of Women in International Trade Woman of the Year award. She has received numerous other awards.

Original Source:  howwemadeitinafrica

 

 

The Brilliant Mind Behind PMS Group

When she sells, people buy – meet Joanne Mwangi CEO Professional Marketing Services Group

By Fred Aminga @faminga [People Plus ]

At 26, Joanne Mwangi left employment to start her own marketing company. Then, the concept was not well understood and few people believed she would achieve much. Not one to give up without trying, Mwangi drew her fighting spirit from one of the greatest innovators the world has ever known, Thomas Edison who was told by teachers that he was ‘too stupid to learn anything.’

The American innovator was fired from his first two jobs for being ‘non-productive’. As an inventor, Edison made 1,000 unsuccessful attempts at inventing the light bulb. When a reporter asked: “How does it feel to fail 1,000 times?” Edison replied: “I didn’t fail 1,000 times. The light bulb was an invention with 1,000 steps.”

She says Edison’s answer: “Therefore, no, I am not afraid of failing; failure provides the opportunity to begin again, more intelligently,” was what gave her a spring in her gait and 18 years later, she is running Professional Marketing Services (PMS), one of the best marketing groups in the country.

Prior to working at PMS Group, she served in leading multinationals and led Kenya’s most successful marketing programme through the Kenya Tourist Board and the European Union. Mwangi was nominated as ‘Business Woman of the year 2013 in the Johnnie Walker Blue Label CNBC Africa, All Africa Business Leaders Awards, (AABLA) for the East African round.

Last year, the alumnus of University of Nairobi and United States International University was awarded the highest marketing accolade possible – a Marketing Society of Kenya Fellow that recognises her contribution to raising the bar in marketing and management standards.

And although the award ceremonies may not have given Mwangi a chance to narrate her journey on the corporate ladder, she never forgets where she came from, a lesson she picked during her days at Alliance High School. “I started this business in 1996, straight out of Colgate Palmolive, when I identified a gap in the market.

I used my savings to buy basic necessities to start off the business. PMS’s first premises were in a single room. I would drive in every morning, mop the floor, clean the table and dust the furniture. I would work on proposals and drive to industrial area to deliver them myself,” says Mwangi.

Before her stint at Colgate, she worked as a sales executive at The East African Standard. Charged with ambition and driven by the urge to take care of her young family, Mwangi was willing to risk it all and lunge into the uncertainty of self-employment.

Fortunately, luck was also on her side because when she ventured into the business, most people did not know that professional marketing services could be paid for, so she faced little competition and in three years, her company thrived beyond her wildest dreams at a time when the economy was in turmoil. However, this did not last because she misused her money, forcing her to seek employment again.

In between work, she went enrolled at United States International University for a Masters in Strategic Business Management. She says that the glitter of the corporate world was tempting. It was a comfort zone. The glamorous lifestyles led by her friends who were holding various positions in multinational companies could easily have derailed her dreams.

“I thought I might have given myself the short end of the stick by going to start my own business. When I went back to employment, I was employed at the Kenya Tourism Board and I was one of the top managers,” she says. Mwangi says the re-employment taught her vital lessons.

“There, I learnt so much, I got a lot of international exposure and I met the best brains in the world while I represented Kenya externally,” she says. This gave her confidence and faith in her marketing skills and she quit to start a company.

The newfound vitality enabled Mwangi to get business with the government and corporates like Bidco, Reckit Benkiser, Del Monte, Uchumi and Doom. The business is now a respected brand seller and she recently bagged a contract from the government to offer public relations services for online procurement.

Mwangi who is a mother to three children, two boys and a girl always endeavours to be home at 6 o’clock at least three times a week to spend time with them. To unwind, she likes to walk, listen to music or party with friends. Once in a while a rigorous hike or run helps clear her mind.

[Joanne Mwangi is founder and CEO of Professional Marketing Services Group. She also sits on the boards of various associations, some of which she founded with other industry players.]

PMS Group Power Team

PMS Group unveils new Power Team to steer it through its next Growth Phase

Professional Marketing Services (PMS) Group has made changes in its management as it embarks on implementation of a plan to steer it through its next phase of growth.

The new team is expected to take the integrated marketing and communications firm to greater heights by effectively diversifying its revenue streams as well as growing its footprint across Africa.

The company appointed Joanna Gow, PMS Group Managing Director. Prior to joining PMS, Ms Gow was a Business Head at Scanad. She has over 15 years of experience in the advertising industry, during which time she led the communications for some of the most renowned brands in Kenya including Safaricom, EABL, Unilever, Orange, Britam, Housing Finance among others.

Also on board PMS Group is John Gikanga, the Creative Director. Mr Gikanga is an expert in brand communications, digital media design, social media strategy and editorial direction. Mr. Gikang’a has scaled up brands for notable organizations in diverse industries, including; Cellulant, Safaricom, Standard Chartered, CARE International, The World Bank Group, UNEP, UNICEF, Habitat, Marie Stopes International, the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF), The National Treasury, Ministry of Information & Communications, The Communications Authority of Kenya, among others.

In addition Richard Njoroge is now the Chief Operations Officer. He was previously the finance manager at PMS Group. Charity Mbogho, who had been managing Quality Control and Field Operations at PMS, has an expanded role that includes Human Resource and Administration Management.

The new structure is a major boost for the firm that is transitioning from the league of medium enterprises in the country to a large enterprise, with an eye on being a regional brand.

Joanne Mwangi, Chief Executive Officer PMS Group, said the changes in senior management are part of broader changes that the company has made aimed at firmly putting it on its next phase of growth.

“With the team that we have in place now, I am confident that PMS Group will redefine the marketing and communications industry not just in Kenya but the region,” she said.

The newly constituted team is expected to bring to fruition the firm’s plans to increase its footprint in the region.

PMS Group currently has operations in Kenya and Rwanda and looks toward having presence in all the five East African markets. The firm is also scouting for opportunities in other sub Saharan markets. PMS Group will venture into the new markets either by way of affiliation or physical presence.

It is also diversifying its product offering. The firm has in the recent years diversified from a predominantly marketing company to include creative services, media buying, public relations, branded merchandise, events, promotions and outsourced management services in its product portfolio.

Original Source: Kass Media Group