The leading Kenya Industrialist was born in 2 January 1951,
Nairobi County. He’s behind the successful Sameer Group of Companies (SGC), a
conglomerate of companies with huge investments in all sectors of the economy.
The company engages in agriculture (Sasini Tea and Coffee Ltd), energy,
construction, transport (Sameer Africa Ltd), financial services (Commercial
Bank of Africa), Export Processing Zone (EPZ), and information technology
(Kenya Data Networks).
He attended Highway Secondary School for his high school and currently serves as the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Sameer Group of
Companies. He is also the Director of Sasini Ltd. He founded the Kenyan Mobile
service provider Kencell (a big rival of Safaricom in its inception) in 2000,
along with the French media company Vivendi. He also has a 5% stake of Bharti
Airtel’s Kenyan wireless phone operations.
He will be remembered for the boardroom events of 2004,
where his business acumen earned him a whooping $20 million profit in an hour.
This was after he convinced Vivendi to sell its 60% stake in the company for
$230 million and an hour later, he had Celtel buying it for $250 million.
He has previously served as the:
Chairman of the Board and Director of Eveready East Africa
Ltd.
Director of Ryce Motors
Director of Celtel International B.V
Director of Zain Africa B.V
He is a member of the:
Kenya Export
Promotion Council
The National Investment Council
The World Economic Forum (WEF), Switzerland
The Conference Board, New York
The International Who’s Who of Professionals
He has had the following presidential appointments:
Part of the Committee to review Terms & Conditions of
Service for Civil Servants
Member of the National Poverty Eradication Commission
Member of the Presidential Committee on Employment
He has been criticized to have benefitted from contract
secured under Moi’s regime in which he supplied Daihatsu vehicles to state
corporations.
Merali is a philanthropic man committing himself through the
Zarina and Naushad Merali Foundation. In March 2012 his foundation extended Ksh
100 million donation to the Kenyatta National Hospital Day Care Centre. The
foundation also pays bursaries for orphans and needy students notably the
Starehe Boys Centre. He is also part of the Asian Foundation Kenya. His wife
Mrs. Zarin Merali, who is in the Director Advisory Board of Kenya Paraplegic
Organisation is the co-founder of their foundation.
He was awarded with the “Chief of the Order of the Burning
Spear (CBS).”
In 2011, he was among the ‘10 African Millionaires To
Watch’, according to Forbes Magazine.
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