For those who know Maryanne Kitany well, they will tell you she is a woman of means and could be among the richest women in Kenya.
Kitany hit the headlines in 2019 during a public hearing of her ugly divorce with Meru Senator Mithika Linturi. It is then her wealthy lifestyle came to light.
A former Chief of Staff at Deputy President William Ruto’s Office, Kitany at the time told the court that she had paid for a Sh5 million trip to Australia for Linturi and his children as well as her children for “bonding purposes”.
Besides, she had also bought a brand new SUV for her in-law in Meru. This left many Kenyans wondering, how rich is Kitany?
The right answer is that she is a little-known billionaire businesswoman who has invested massively in among other things, the real estate sector.
She traces her journey to the millionaires club back in the day. Kitany would land a job as a clerk at the Kenya Commercial Bank (KCB) in 1994 immediately after clearing high school, the prestigious Alliance Girls’ High School.
With good pay, she bought a house in Komarock with financing from the bank and for two years she lived a very good life but then came her admission letter to Kenyatta University (KU) and she has a tough decision to make; leave her job or keep it and forget university but she chose to further her studies.
She resigned from KCB and went to campus which is when she sold her house in Komarock at a profit; Ksh600,000 which she invested wisely given that she was a student at the time.
“I got some profit, actually some Ksh600,000 I was a rich lady, a very rich lady at that time. So what did I do with the money? Of course, like every other young person, I bought a car and some of the money, I also bought shares – KQ shares,” she explains in a past interview with ViuSasa.
After a while, the shares dropped in prices and she found herself stuck since she could not sell them. With a car that needed to be maintained as well as other bills to pay, Kitany started her egg selling business.
She sourced for the eggs in Ruiru and used the car to supply them to make ends meet.
“My four years lapsed and made a lot of money out of eggs. But I also had a stack shop at the university and since I had a car, I used to live off campus. I would make chapatis in the evening and queen cakes with the balance of the eggs that were not taken to go and supply to the school.
“By the time I was done with campus, I had a lot of money. I bought a new car and enough money to pay deposit for a new house in Nyayo Estate Embakasi,” she adds.
Kitany says that making the first million is always the hardest thing but several others follow when the first one comes.