My Speech During Solutech’s 2021 Awards of Excellence & Annual Gala Dinner

Good evening my colleagues,

As 2021 comes to an end, I want to take this auspicious opportunity to reflect on a post-covid-19 year that turned out much differently than all of us could have expected. While 2021 was challenging in many ways with businesses trying to resurge after covid, it also showed how strong we are as a company, even in the toughest of times and that is something to cherish.

Big manufacturers and distributors, thousands of young men and women in now seven countries in Africa, depend on us every single day to be able to make sure they deliver their orders to that corner shop across different towns. It is always a joy seeing a local shop from my home town in Makueni transacting through Solutech. That shows how much responsibility we have as a company and what a team do we have at Solutech which has and continues to execute this. The reliability of the service we provide through SAT, Kodi and KaziTime is incredible. We must always be a step ahead to deliver the very best.

It is incredible what we have built at Solutech.

Furthermore, we did not just stay in the office but went out of our way some months ago to visit babies at Happy Life Charity Children’s Home in Roysambu through our Corporate Social Responsibility Programme. It was wonderful seeing how every one of you pulled their human side to interact with the babies, and our CEO, Alexander, playing the guitar to the babies was the icing on the cake.

We should never forget that we have a key responsibility to play in the communities we live in, as Solutech and as individuals.

We have grown as a team from the few of us we were at the beginning of the year to the 28 of us right now. Solutech will always remain a competitive company and we will always aspire to bring in super talented team members to join Solutech, but I would want to make the team lean as possible. I am super proud of you all who will win various awards tonight, for they are thoroughly deserved. On top of that, everyone will receive a bonus of between 20% to 30% of their monthly salary, and all winners will receive a bonus of between 50% to 100% depending on the award. Congratulations in advance.

I’m proud to say that while 2021 might have been challenging on many fronts, it certainly did not stop us. We expanded our operations to three extra countries in Africa: Tanzania, Rwanda and Ethiopia and hopefully in the first quarter of 2022, we will be adding Sudan and Malawi to this list. We further acquired major clients like GSM Group in Tanzania, Jumra Distributors, Phillips Healthcare Technologies Limited, Raisons Distributors, Sojpar Distributors, Eedi Kenya Limited, Kimfay East Africa Limited, Cofftea Trading Agencies, Karibu Flour Mills Limited, Grain Industries Limited, Pepsico in Ethiopia just to mention but a few. Overall, we extra doubled our clients count from 21 to 45. Congratulations everyone indeed. Not only did we achieve this but we strengthened our relationship with sales and marketing agencies like Faces Integrated, Interactive Communications, CASA Marketing Solutions and we will continue to strengthen these relationships to support agencies in their merchandising operations here in Kenya and beyond. Further, we ventured into new sectors like pharma, with Phillips Healthcare Technologies and we aim to venture into other sectors like the service industry and strengthen the building and construction sector through Crown Paints PLC, Tononoka Group and new clients.

So, I want to thank you all for the hard work and commitment you have shown over this year. Our combined strength and sheer dedication are what makes us successful as a company.

As you celebrate the holidays with friends and family, sit back and reflect on your accomplishments in 2021 with a broad smile.

I wish you and your families all a happy holiday season.

If we do not see each other again before the year ends, see you in 2022.