Centum’s 40 Year Old James Mworia Now The Highest Earning CEO With Ksh.375.6M Salary

Centum’s 40 Year Old James Mworia Now The Highest Earning CEO With Ksh.375.6M Salary

Mr. James Mworia is a name to reckon with particularly because he started his career journey as Kenya’s youngest CEO rising from a position of an intern.

When the then Centum Investments board of directors, which was just a small company by then, appointed James Mworia, aged 30 at that time to hold a senior management position, he turned then down calling then too conservative.

When asked what he would do different, he said, “Give me a month,”

Just a few weeks after that, the young man who had left the company out of frustration, having stated as an intern and rising to the position of Chief Investment Officer in just five years, presented his map plan of what he intended to do and he was given a go ahead.

James Mworia took over as CEO in 2008, finding a company with just Ksh.6 billion in assests, Ksh.10 million cash and an overdraft of Ksh.200 million.

Today, the young man who started as an intern has grown the company to now own Ksh.50 billion in terms of assets in different sectors of the Kenyan economy.

Mr. Mworia’s story is one that has inspired a generation of young people to rise above the stereotype and shoot for the stars.

He started as an intern and over the years rose to become the CEO of one of the most successful investment firms today.

Well, in a recent report in the Business Daily, James Mworia has broken the record as the highest earning CEO in Kenya beating other CEOs of big companies like Safaricom, KCB Group and EABL.

His pay has risen over the years to a record breaking Ksh.375.6 million in the year ending March. This is in comparison to the year before where he was making 201.1 million taking his total earnings to close to Ksh.1 billion in just five years.

Find Out >>> How Centum’s James Mworia Rose From Intern To CEO 

Best Performing CEO

When he started, James Mworia found a company that was not doing well and decided to make the company better than he found it.

In the years he has been CEO, Centum has risen to be one of the leading investment firms in the country.

His salary is a translation of the performance bonus that he and his management team have consistently met over the years.

Rising to the Highest earning CEO In Kenya

Mr. James Mworia’s current remuneration places him ahead of giant corporation Chief Executives like Bob Collymore and KCB’s Joshua Oigara making him the highest earning CEO today.

Collymore and Oigara last year announced that they were making Ksh.9 Million and Ks.4.9 million translating to Ksh.108 million and Ks.58.8 million each year respectively.

This means that Nr. Mworia was already making multiples of the two CEOs’ earnings by 2012.

So what do Centum Employees Earn?

Just like the CEO and top management, Centum employees are also entitled to performance bonuses base on whether company meets the set goals.

This has seen employees walk home with huge end of year bonuses making it one of the best companies to work for in Kenya.

Creating value

According to Mworia, many people fail to recognise their true worth.

When negotiating his pay package, Mworia says he looked at the value he would create at Centum.

“This is where people usually tell how they have gone to school and so forth. I told the board what I am interested in is to create value – and get a share of the value. If at the end of the year I have not added value, please invoice me what you have paid me for the year,” says Mworia.

Today he is the fourth largest individual shareholder in Centum with 0.61% of the multi-billion shilling empire.

“Success is not what you have taken from others. It is a function of the value that you have added and the greater that value-add, the bigger the slice you get.”

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Compiled By Lilian Wamaitha

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