Meet the African Brand Warrior- Fatima
"My name is Fatima Abdullatif Alimohamed and to many, I am
known as the ‘Queen of Africa.’ When people ask me whether
I was born in Kenya, my answer is always premised on
Kwame Nkrumah’s view about Africa, but with a little twist- ‘I
was not born in Kenya, Kenya was born me!’ I was born into
life, bred into morals, nurtured into values and fed with the
water and the food from the motherland Kenya. Currently I am
based in Accra, Ghana.
I take it as a blessing that I was born in Kenya, for there would
be no better land to have grown up in. I grew up in a liberal
Muslim family made up of various ethnic cultures and shades
of relatives. As a result, I was brought up in an all-inclusive
and open minded environment. I remember how living on
Forest Road, where the Oshwal Jain Bhavan stands today, how
we used to cross the road and go and play in City Park, fish
for tadpoles in the stream and look forward to weekends where
we had cookouts with my dad, and friends coming over home.
Despite being born in a liberal family, we also had our values
and morals cut out for us. I would fast and attend religious
classes daily and this kept me grounded to appreciate that
there is somebody bigger than us in the Universe whom we
must bow down our heads to. I also remember eating mangoes
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on the street with some salt and chilli powder, gulping the red
Schweppes whilst also dining in restaurants like Stavros and
Golden Candle, and never did I imagine or even dream that I
would go to live and work in Diaspora. Let’s put it this way- I
do not dream, I envision what I want and I go for it. However,
growing up, it never crossed my mind that one day I would
work in Diaspora. This is despite the fact that I had already
been overseas to represent Kenya in sports and thereafter, to
study in India and in Britain.
My first assignment outside of Kenya was in Bahrain for a
year and thereafter I worked for Gulf Air, which was another
experience all-together. I returned to Kenya when my mother
took ill, and joined an advertising agency by the name CCL
and thereafter Ayton Young & Rubicam, part of a global
agency. In one of my roles as the Regional Account Director
with Ayton Young & Rubicam, I got the chance and exposure
to work across the region handling various clients and portfolios. The same trend continued when I joined Bidco Oil
Refineries and Bidco Uganda, and this meant travelling to
South Sudan, Tanzania, Burundi, Rwanda, and Congo It was
an amazing experience living in tents in South Sudan and
learning new habits and languages, while at the same time
discovering the similarity in our differences.