Susan Wakhungu-Githuku

Last updated

Susan Wakhungu-Githuku
Born
Susan Nakhanu Wakhungu

1960 (age 63–64)
Bungoma, British Kenya
Other namesSusan Nakhanu Wakhungu-Githuku, Susan Wakhungu
Occupation(s)Tennis player, business executive, writer
Years active1978–present
Relatives Judi Wakhungu (sister)
Anne Shongwe (sister-in-law)
Moody Awori (uncle)
Aggrey Awori (uncle)

Susan Wakhungu-Githuku (born 1960) is a Kenyan business executive, writer, and publishing house founder, who in her youth was ranked as Kenya's top women's tennis player. She was born in Bungoma in British Kenya and around the age of 11 moved to Nairobi. While attending Loreto Convent Valley Road High School, she began to play tennis. In 1978, she qualified to play in the Junior girls' singles at the Wimbledon Championships. According to the sports journalist Ross McLean, she was the first Kenyan to play in a Junior Grand Slam tournament and until 2022 was the only Kenyan to have qualified for and played in a Junior Grand Slam event at Wimbledon. [1] At the 1978 All-Africa Games she won the gold medal in women's doubles and the silver medal for the women's singles. While studying at St. Lawrence University in Canton, New York, she played in the college circuit. After winning a women's singles title at the World University Games in Mexico City in 1979, she became Kenya's top women's player. She was the 1983 women's champion at the Robbialac Classic Tournament and won the tournament's women's doubles title with her sister Judi Wakhungu the following year. In 1984, she was the winner of the women's matches at the Kenya Closed Championships and in 1987 won the bronze medal in ladies' doubles at the All-Africa Games, before retiring from tennis.

Contents

Wakhungu-Githuku began her professional career working for the Kenyan government as an economist. She then spent a decade working for various non-governmental agencies including the United States Agency for International Development, the Africa Economic Research Consortium, and Care International as a programme director. During this time, she returned to her studies, obtaining a master's degree in research and development planning from the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, Scotland. At the beginning of the 21st century, she began working at The Coca-Cola Company as human resources director for the Africa Division in London. She later transferred to Johannesburg, South Africa, and was responsible for learning and development for 90 countries. Thereafter she served as the director of Coca-Cola University for Africa and Eurasia, but left the company in 2009 to found Human Performance Dynamics in Nairobi, a business and human resources consultancy. Aspiring to write about successful contemporary Kenyans, but unable to find a publisher for her works, she founded the publishing house Footprints Press in 2010. She has published books on Kenya's development since independence and about notable Kenyan writers, photographers and runners, both men and women. In 2021, she was honoured by the government of Kenya, as a Moran of the Order of the Burning Spear.

Early life, sports, education, and family

Susan Nakhanu Wakhungu was born in 1960, [2] [3] in Bungoma, British Kenya, [4] to Grace (née Awori) and Mathew Sarapayi Wakhungu. [5] [6] Her mother was a teacher and later a businesswoman, who was the sister to Moody Awori, the ninth Deputy President of Kenya, [7] and Aggrey Awori, a former Olympic hurdler and a Member of Parliament in Uganda. [5] Her father was a medic Bungoma. [6] [7] Wakhungu was one of five siblings, including her sister Judi, [7] and brother Ben. [5] She lived briefly at Siriba Teacher's Training College in Maseno, while her parents were abroad and then when she was eleven, moved with her family to Nairobi. She also lived briefly in Kampala, Uganda, and frequently spent time in London, where her father later lived. She attended Loreto Convent Valley Road High School and while there began to play tennis. [8] In 1978, she qualified for the Wimbledon Championships in the Junior girls' singles. Although she lost her match, [9] she was the first Kenyan to play in a Junior Grand Slam tournament. According to Ross McLean, a writer for the International Tennis Federation, she was the only Kenyan to qualify and play in a Junior Grand Slam event at Wimbledon until Angella Okutoyi played in 2022. [1] Many Kenyan newspapers state that she was the first Black African woman to have played in the Junior Wimbledon championships. [7] [8] [10] She competed in the 1978 All-Africa Games in Algiers, Algeria, where she met Tony Githuku, a fellow-Kenyan athlete who competed in swimming and rugby. [11] Wakhungu won the silver medal in the women's singles and along with Jane Davies Doxzon won the gold medal in women's doubles. [12] [13] [14]

Wakhungu attended university at St. Lawrence University in Canton, New York. [15] While she was studying for her degree in economics and psychology, she wrote articles about tennis for the Kenya Times , [11] and played in the college tennis circuit. [16] On winning the women's singles title at the World University Games in Mexico City in 1979, she became Kenya's number one women's player. [17] She graduated in 1982, [18] and that year, she and Githuku began dating. [11] Continuing to play tennis after she graduated, she became the reigning women's champion of the 1983 Robbialac Classic Tournament. [19] She lost the singles title in 1984, but she and her sister Judi went on to win the Robbialac women's doubles. [20] She also won the ladies' singles at the 1984 Kenya Closed Championships. [21] In 1986, she and Githuku married and subsequently had two children. [11] Wakhungu-Githuku took the bronze medal in ladies' doubles with Davies Doxzon at the 1987 All-Africa Games in Nairobi, [22] but after her marriage, she curtailed her tennis activities. [23]

Career

Wakhungu-Githuku began her career as an economist for the government of Kenya with a plan to work in the public and private sectors to gain enough experience to run a successful business of her own. [24] By 1990, she was working as a programme assistant for the United States Agency for International Development. [25] [26] Returning to her studies, she earned a master's degree in research and development planning from the Business School of Strathclyde University in Glasgow, Scotland in 1994, [25] [27] and then worked as a programme manager for the Africa Economic Research Consortium in Nairobi. [25] [28] She completed a decade of working in management in international non-governmental agencies, working at Care International, before shifting to the private sector to work at The Coca-Cola Company. [25] She worked as human resources director for Coca-Cola's Africa division in London before transferring to Johannesburg, South Africa. [24] [29] Working her way up the ladder, she became responsible for learning and development in 90 countries across Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Middle East, and then ended her career in 2009 as the director of Coca-Cola University for Africa and Eurasia. [8] [24]

After leaving Coca-Cola, Wakhungu-Githuku opened a business consultancy, Human Performance Dynamics, in Nairobi, [8] focusing on building human resources. [24] She conceived writing a book, Life Journeys: Seeking Destiny, which would tell the stories of successful contemporary Kenyan women, [8] [11] such as the actress Lupita Nyong'o, the banker Mary Okelo  [ fr ], the educator Eddah Gachukia, the nurse Wairimu Nyoike, and the scientist Norah Olembo, to counter the stereotypical imaging of Africa as poor and starving. [8] In speaking with publishers, Wakhungu-Githuku found that they wanted her to write the stories in a certain way. Rather than agreeing, in 2010 she opened the publishing house Footprints Press and published the book herself. [11] Over the next seven years, she authored and published nine books. [4] The second, Life Journeys: Scaling Heights, focused on successful Kenyan men including her uncle, Moody Awori, and then 50 Years since Independence: Where Is Kenya? brought together fifty-one authors who shared their thoughts on the socio-economic and political development of Kenya since its independence. [8] By 2020, Wakhungu-Githuku had written, compiled, and published over eleven books, including two 2-volume series. One, Nairobi: 5453ft, [30] written with her daughter Natalie, features illustrations by some of Kenya's most noted photographers, including Osborne Macharia, Thandiwe Muriu, and Bobby Pall and the artist Elias Mong'ora, presenting the musings of thirty-five authors about the city. [30] [31] Titled, Mothers and Daughters, the other series includes A Letter to My Daughter from Your Mother and A Letter to My Mother from Your Daughter, [32] both of which explore the complex relationships of mothers and daughters. [30] She has also written Visual Voices (2017), a work about Kenyan artists, and Going the Distance (2020), which focuses on Kenyan runners. [31] [33] In 2021, she was honoured as a Moran of the Order of the Burning Spear by the government of Kenya. [3]

Selected works

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anna Kournikova</span> Russian tennis player and model (born 1981)

Anna Sergeyevna Kournikova is a Russian model and television personality, and former professional tennis player. Her appearance and celebrity status made her one of the best known tennis stars worldwide. At the peak of her fame, fans looking for images of Kournikova made her name one of the most common search strings on Google Search.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Billie Jean King</span> American tennis player (born 1943)

Billie Jean King, also known as BJK, is an American former world No. 1 tennis player. King won 39 Grand Slam titles: 12 in singles, 16 in women's doubles, and 11 in mixed doubles. King was a member of the victorious United States team in seven Federation Cups and nine Wightman Cups. For three years, she was the U.S. captain in the Federation Cup.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Serena Williams</span> American tennis player (born 1981)

Serena Jameka Williams is an American former professional tennis player. Widely regarded as one of the greatest tennis players of all time, she was ranked world No. 1 in singles by the Women's Tennis Association (WTA) for 319 weeks, including a joint-record 186 consecutive weeks, and finished as the year-end No. 1 five times. She won 23 Grand Slam women's singles titles, the most in the Open Era, and the second-most of all time. She is the only player to accomplish a Career Golden Slam in both singles and doubles.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Venus Williams</span> American tennis player (born 1980)

Venus Ebony Starr Williams is an American inactive professional tennis player. A former world No. 1 in both singles and doubles, Williams has won seven Grand Slam singles titles, five at Wimbledon and two at the U.S. Open. She is widely regarded as one of the greatest tennis players of all time.

Sarah Virginia Wade is a British former professional tennis player. She won three major tennis singles championships and four major doubles championships, and is the only British woman in history to have won titles at all four majors. She was ranked as high as No. 2 in the world in singles, and No. 1 in the world in doubles.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Zina Garrison</span> American tennis player

Zina Lynna Garrison is an American former professional tennis player. Garrison was the runner-up in singles at the 1990 Wimbledon Championships, a three-time major mixed doubles champion, and an Olympic gold and bronze medalist from the women's doubles and singles events, respectively, at the 1988 Seoul Olympics. She reached a career-high singles ranking of world No. 4, on 20 November 1989.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Barbora Strýcová</span> Czech tennis player (born 1986)

Barbora Strýcová, formerly known as Barbora Záhlavová-Strýcová, is a Czech former professional tennis player who was ranked world No. 1 in doubles.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Angela Buxton</span> British tennis player (1934–2020)

Angela Buxton was a British tennis player. She won the women's doubles title at both the French Championships and Wimbledon in 1956 with her playing partner, Althea Gibson.

Paul Wekesa is a former professional tennis player from Kenya. He won 3 doubles titles, achieved a career-high singles ranking of World No. 100 and reached two tour-level quarterfinals at Auckland in 1989 and Seoul in 1995.

Christiane Mercelis was a Belgian tennis player. She was active from 1947 to 1969 and won 47 career singles titles. Mercelis died on 14 June 2024, at the age of 92.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ons Jabeur</span> Tunisian tennis player (born 1994)

Ons Jabeur is a Tunisian professional tennis player. She has a career-high ranking by the Women's Tennis Association (WTA) of world No. 2, achieved on 27 June 2022. Jabeur is the current Tunisian number one, and the highest-ranked African and Arab tennis player in WTA and ATP rankings history. She has won five singles titles on the WTA Tour, as well as eleven singles titles and one doubles title on the ITF Circuit. Jabeur was the runner-up at Wimbledon in 2022 and 2023 and at the US Open in 2022, becoming the first African and Arab woman to contest a major singles final.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Judi Wakhungu</span> Kenyan politician

Judi Wangalwa Wakhungu is a Kenyan politician, diplomat, and geologist who was appointed by President Uhuru Kenyatta as ambassador to France on 26 January 2018. Immediately prior to her present position, she served as the cabinet secretary for environment and regional development authorities from 25 April 2013 until 17 January 2018.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Barbora Krejčíková</span> Czech tennis player (born 1995)

Barbora Krejčíková is a Czech professional tennis player. She has a career-high singles ranking of world No. 2, achieved on 28 February 2022, and became World No. 1 in doubles on 22 October 2018. She is known for her aggressive playing style and her smooth, powerful groundstrokes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Susan Mboya</span> Kenyan businesswoman

Susan Mboya is a corporate executive and philanthropist who is the Principal and International Advisor for Navigators Global, a Washington DC–based consulting firm. Susan has been a corporate executive for over 25 years and has held a number of senior executive positions at global multinational firms. Susan was the Global Director for Oral B Oral Care at Procter and Gamble for five years and was the General Manager of Coca-Cola South Africa from 2008 to 2011. Susan is the immediate former President of the Coca-Cola Africa Foundation and the group director of the Eurasia Africa Group (EAG) for women’s economic empowerment at Coca-Cola. and is the daughter of the late Tom Mboya, a Kenyan nationalist leader, and one of the founding fathers of the Republic of Kenya and the late Pamela Mboya, a renowned diplomat who was Kenya’s representative to UN Habitat. Tom Mboya was a well-known trade unionist, educationist, Pan Africanist, author, and a Cabinet Minister in Kenyas first post-independence Government. She is also the former First Lady of Nairobi County, Kenya's largest county and the capital city and economic centre of Kenya. Susan holds a number of board positions including the Chair of Liberty Group, a publicly traded company in the nairobi stock exchange. Susan is the Founder of the Zawadi Africa Educational Fund, a 501(c)3 non-profit organization that provides scholarships and leadership development training to academically gifted, marginalized African girls to enable them to attend top colleges and universities around the world with the objective of creating a pipeline of African female leaders. The Zawadi Africa program is based on the Africa Student Airlifts program launched by her father and President John F. Kennedy in 1959 that enabled several participants including Barack Obama Sr, father of President Barack Obama, and Professor Wangari Mathaai to study in the U.S.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pamela Mboya</span> Kenyan political activist

Pamela Mboya was a Kenyan political activist and diplomat, the wife of Tom Mboya the Kenyan trade unionist, educationist, Pan Africanist, author, independence activist, Cabinet Minister and one of the founding fathers of the Republic of Kenya.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Diede de Groot</span> Dutch wheelchair tennis player (born 1996)

Diede de Groot is a Dutch professional wheelchair tennis player who is the current world No. 1 in both singles and doubles.

Emily Waita Macharia is a Kenyan government affairs and sustainability officer who serves as the Senior Director of Public Affairs at The Coca-Cola Company, for Africa based in Nairobi, Kenya's capital city. In that capacity, she overseas public affairs matters for her employer, across 54 countries African countries.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Angella Okutoyi</span> Kenyan tennis player

Angella Okutoyi is a Kenyan professional tennis player.

Rose Marie Nijkamp is a Dutch tennis player. She has a career high ITF junior combined ranking of No. 31, achieved on 10 June 2024.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anne Shongwe</span> Kenyan entrepreneur and UN civil servant (born 1964)

Anne Shongwe is a Kenyan international civil servant and entrepreneur, who has lived for three decades in South Africa. Since 2022, she has been the director of the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) for Southern Africa. She was born in Kenya and then completed a bachelor's degree at St. Lawrence University in Canton, New York, and a master's degree at American University in Washington, D.C. She spent fifteen years working with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and then launched a digital gaming development business to create a learning platform for teaching life skills to youth through mobile phones. Using sponsorships from various corporations and NGOs, Shongwe was able to distribute games as free downloads with a focus on Africa. Her games were designed to teach youth about human rights and social responsibilities. She aimed through the games to have youth question their beliefs in regard to topics such as sexual consent, exploitation and violence; environmental protection; and conflict resolution.

References

Citations

  1. 1 2 McLean 2022.
  2. ↑ Companies House 2020.
  3. 1 2 Kenyatta 2021, p. 6849.
  4. 1 2 Of Africa Magazine 2017.
  5. 1 2 3 Kimani 2021.
  6. 1 2 The Standard 2022.
  7. 1 2 3 4 The Standard 2020.
  8. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Business Daily 2014.
  9. ↑ Wimbledon 1978.
  10. ↑ The Daily Nation 2022.
  11. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Genga 2016.
  12. ↑ The Daily Nation 2003.
  13. ↑ Njuguna 2024.
  14. ↑ The EastAfrican 2011.
  15. ↑ St. Lawrence University Magazine 2014, pp. 48–49.
  16. ↑ Democrat and Chronicle 1979, p. 6D.
  17. ↑ The Daily Press 1979, p. 14.
  18. ↑ St. Lawrence University Magazine 2014, p. 49.
  19. ↑ The Weekly Review 1983, pp. 29–30.
  20. ↑ The Weekly Review 1984a, p. 37.
  21. ↑ The Weekly Review 1984b, p. 53.
  22. ↑ The Weekly Review 1987b, p. 4.
  23. ↑ The Weekly Review 1987a, p. 55.
  24. 1 2 3 4 BBC News 2011.
  25. 1 2 3 4 Annual Report 2014, p. 8.
  26. ↑ Akong'a et al. 1990, p. 27.
  27. ↑ The Herald 1994.
  28. ↑ Annual Report 1998, p. 46.
  29. ↑ Ray 2007.
  30. 1 2 3 wa Gacheru 2020.
  31. 1 2 wa Gacheru 2017.
  32. 1 2 Lomer 2022, p. 53.
  33. 1 2 Lomer 2022, p. 52.
  34. ↑ Lomer 2022, p. 104.
  35. ↑ Lomer 2022, p. 26.

Bibliography

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.