Part 2: Bernard Wambugu: From Kenya to Small-Town America to Top of The World

Welcome to Part 2 of the profile of Bernard Wambugu—serial entrepreneur, innovative business owner, and unabashed promoter of a new positive image of Africa. See our post yesterday for Part 1 of this profile.

Over the past 13 years Bernard has started four different technology companies providing a wide variety of IT solutions and services to multiple clients including fortune 100 companies, non-profit organizations, small businesses and US government agencies. His experience includes business consulting where he has been involved in helping several startup companies implement their ideas from paper to full thriving businesses. Currently he is the founder and CEO of Lantel Systems, a company that provides server and application hosting mainly to financial and accounting firms. Lantel Systems has offices in 4 cities in the US and India and hosts two data centers that house several corporate technology solutions.

As a man who has started several successful businesses, I asked him what specific tips he has for entrepreneurs. His response, “You have to have a passion for what you are doing, such great passion that you would work for free”. Sounds clichéd but from his experience, it worked for him. He was underpaid at the Wharton IT department and was willing to stay there because of the tremendous amount of knowledge he was accumulating. He could have focused on mowing lawns, after all he made more money doing that, but he had a passion for IT.

He also recommends that your try out your entrepreneurial ideas while still working. It’s easier to leave the safety of your job once your idea is off the ground. Don’t do foolish things like quit your job. Be realistic especially when you have to provide for your family. Bernard learned this the hard way because he did exactly that and was out of work for about 7 months. When Wharton IT would not give him a raise despite the recommendation of his supervisor, he gave his 2 weeks’ notice and quit. He figured that with all his skills and experience he would easily find another job. His wife thought he was crazy to quit without another job waiting.

During this period, she took a second job and worked long hours to support them. They both agreed that this was one of the rockiest times in their marriage but like all their other ups and downs, they stuck together. Another piece of advice: Make sure you have a unique selling proposition. Your idea has to naturally generate income; it has to be something that people want to spend money on. Finally don’t get stuck on your initial idea. Allow your ideas to evolve based on your experiences. Learn your market and adapt. The company he runs today is very different from the company he set out to create years ago. By being adaptable the company has flourished where other less flexible companies have closed their doors. He urges everyone to remember the story of the wood cutter, “It’s not the last chop that fells the tree. It is a series of consistent continuous little chops that felled the tree”.

As the sun set, we talked at length about the experiences that have shaped his life. He explained that having lost his father at 9 years of age, his mother was the central figure in his life, playing the role of both mother and father. He credits her with infecting him with the entrepreneurial bug. As he was growing up, she was a banker and real estate developer and she always insisted that he should focus on a career choice that would allow him to start something of his own. Many of us are shaped less by what we have had than by what we have lost—Bernard is no exception, and the loss of his father at such an early age is to him a constant reminder of the fragility of life. Though he has good memories of his father, he does not recall anything profound that his father taught him. Now, with 3 children, N’eema (10), Amani (8) and Mwangi (4), he constantly asks himself, “What legacy am I leaving for my children? If I am not here tomorrow, what will they remember about me, what will they have learnt from me?”

His solution is to be extremely proactive in building a personal relationship with each one of them as individuals. He spends 1 on 1 time with his daughters (his son not yet old enough for this bonding exercise) doing an activity of their choice. Neema is activity-oriented. She always selects an active pursuit e.g. soccer or bike riding. Amani likes to sit down and talk and asks very deep questions. I chuckle when Bernard tells me that on Amani’s day, he has to remind himself all day not to say much so that he can save all his talking energy for her. He also goes to their school once a week to have lunch with them and their friends in the school cafeteria. When his kids join us later that evening, I can see that the kids are very comfortable and playful with their father.

It’s interesting how Bernard incorporates time tested business principles in his personal life. Spending effective one-on-one time with employees is one of the hallmarks of a good manager, to touch base on projects; discuss concerns, delays and setbacks; to recognize achievements and progress, and identify areas of improvement. That’s pretty much what he is doing with his daughters. He creatively tries to use this one-on- one time to teach them the lessons he wants them to learn.

Most important of all, he wants his children to develop strong characters so he rewards character more than good grades. He also seeks to help them develop a strong, deep relationship with God, by praying as a family and by one-on-one prayer with each child. He teaches them the value of having compassion for others and being willing to sacrifice to do the right thing. They often discuss issues such as bullying, e.g. how to respond when bullied or what they did when they saw someone else being bullied. For the record, he wants them to step in and stand up for the other person even though it might mean they get punched in the face. Wow, not many parents would encourage their child to take a punch for someone else!

He also wants them to learn how to handle failure, rejection and discrimination. If they face rejection, he will allow them to feel the pain, manage it and understand what it’s about so they can frame the experience positively and learn from it. While Mabel is quick to jump to the kids’ defense he wants them to learn how to fight their own battles and more importantly to learn which battles are worth fighting. Now is the time when he can walk them through these challenges so they can grow up to be strong, confident adults able to take care of themselves.

I asked him what he attributed his success to, and he hesitated a little bit. “I wouldn’t call it success”, he says, “I still have a lot to do”. I press on. “How about the person you have become?” That, he was quick to answer. “Two things: watching and learning from others and spending time proactively thinking and planning for the future”. Bernard has the utmost respect and gratitude for the people who have served as his mentors. From Reverend Sanford, his boss at the Wharton IT department, he learnt not only the IT craft but also reclaimed his Christian faith. Talk about watching and learning—he even copied his style of dressing and talking to clients, driving the Reverend crazy in the process. But he was desperate to learn how to navigate this American life and though he is now comfortable with himself and can make his own sartorial choices, in the early days he felt very lost and was grateful that Reverend Sanford took him under his wing. Today, he continues to seek mentors for all areas of his life and he strongly recommends that others do the same.

He also spends a lot of time “thinking and planning for the future”. Once a quarter he takes off for a weekend, solo, to think, to analyze the past and to plan for the future. This reminded me of one of my favorite quotes from Socrates, “An unexamined life is not worth living”. Few of us can spend this much time in contemplation of who we are and who we are becoming without going crazy. But Bernard says that it is during these periods of intense solitude that he comes up with some of his best ideas, all of which he records on his phone. It was during one of these trips that he came up with the idea to “date his wife every week”. For the last 7 years, Friday night is date night and it has made their marriage stronger because it is easy to grow apart unless you take an active role in ensuring that you grow together.

As might be expected from a CEO of an IT company he relies on his tech toys to ensure he is productive at all times. He currently uses an iPad and a Samsung Epic Android. It’s amazing what he gets done on his Android. Apart from all the usual uses (phone, email, camera, internet), he uses his Android daily for more than 15 other functions such as banking, stock trading, audio books including his bible, podcasts, Spanish lessons, note taking, video conferencing and health tracking. Listening to him wax poetic about the Android, I am ready to head straight for the phone store and replace my Blackberry. Sounds like exactly what I need to become more efficient.

I wanted to know, what’s next for Bernard, where is Bernard going? He has set himself some pretty aggressive goals. He wants to run an IT company that will help solve humanity’s challenges by providing opportunities to enable and empower people to solve their own problems. He is passionate about the “work without walls” concept, which would help people achieve more life work balance by taking work outside of the office. With the use of technology we can change how and where people work. Thanks to technology, he spent a month last summer camping with the family and working every single day. His clients did not even know he was gone.

Bernard’s personal passion is “Rebranding Africa” through film and technology. He is a movie producer with one film, Leo, slated for release later this year and two other films in the pipeline. He wants to give voice to African directors so they have a platform to tell their story of Africa.

He is also a strong proponent of the idea that “Africa needs trade not aid”. We have to end the cycle of aid, and especially government-to-government aid, before Africa can stand on its own. If there are good government policies, then entrepreneurs will survive and flourish. Tech tools can help bridge the development gap, for example phone apps that link farmers to local and foreign markets. He is working on mobile technology to develop a mature commodities market in Africa. Technology also reduces corruption by creating transparency. As part of his rebranding mission he has an upcoming trip planned to Kenya with a group of 4 investors from different industries. The trip will allow them to see Africa in a different light and to see the opportunities available. Africa is the next frontier and Bernard wants as many people as possible to know that.

Last, but certainly not least on his list of priorities, is the Lantel Foundation. Ten percent of annual profits from Lantel Systems are dedicated to supporting the foundation. This organization focuses on computer training for orphan kids in Kenya and in urban churches in Houston. He notes that there is a great need in Kenya for home grown programmers and that children need to learn to work with computers from an early age so they can develop interest in such careers. By working with local agencies in Kenya his goal is that Lantel Foundation can spearhead these efforts. Bernard is deeply committed to philanthropy and is inspired by the Gates/Buffett pledge to give away most of their wealth. His ultimate goal is to live on 10% of what he earns and give the rest away.

As we wound up our conversation, I asked him if there was anything that kept him awake at night. He shared that he sometimes wonders if his work is worth all the effort. He constantly asks himself, “Am I making a tangible difference not just for my family but for others? Not just today and tomorrow but two hundred years from now?” His answer is to focus his efforts on work that has a positive, long lasting impact on society. And so he lives each day trusting that one day, perhaps even when he is long gone, his work will make a difference to someone else.

Before he left to join his family at the movies, I asked him to sum up his life’s philosophy and he quoted Benjamin Franklin:

"Be at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let every new year find you a better man."

In the coming weeks, Bernard Wambugu, will appear as a regular guest blogger in the Makuti Lounge. He will share with us in greater detail not only his experiences and current projects but also thought provoking topics that will challenge how we think about Africa and potential solutions to her challenges. Follow us on twitter and facebook to ensure that you do not miss his debut post.

Bernard Wambugu: From Kenya to Small-Town America to Top of The World

I am seated on the comfy lounge chairs on the patio of Straits Restaurant in Houston, Texas, waiting for Bernard Wambugu, CEO of Lantel Systems, to arrive. He is currently in meetings with clients and he is running very late. I don’t mind the wait; it gives me more time to think about our interview. I heard a lot about Bernard before I finally met him about 3 months ago. He has a reputation as an extremely hard worker, very disciplined, very focused but above all as a man of integrity with a strong faith and devoted to his wife and children. How does he do it? What motivates him? As an immigrant, his is a true success story and I can’t wait to hear it. After he arrived and offered several profuse apologies, we sat down to chat about work, family, faith, his passion for Africa and making a difference in the lives of others.

If it were not for the insistence and secretive planning of his mother, Bernard would never have come to the US. After he graduated high school in Kenya in 1993, he was recruited to play basketball and work for Barclays Bank in Nairobi. He had dreams of being a ball player and with a job as a banker he felt he had it made. He joined the local University, University of Nairobi, but his mother had other plans for him. She encouraged him to attend college in the US but he resisted and declared he had no intention to ever leave Kenya. In December 1996, his mother handed him admission papers to Wharton Community College in Texas plus a plane ticket. Unbeknownst to him, she had applied on his behalf to several colleges in the US. He was shocked and promptly refused the offer. And, why Wharton, anyway? She said she had selected the school for two main reasons—it was in a warm place and it was the only school where she could afford to pay his tuition for the first semester. She continued to try and persuade him and finally offered that if he did not like it he could come back home. With that caveat, Bernard agreed to make the trip.

Bernard’s introduction to the US was not a pleasant one. He spent his first night sleeping outdoors at his new college in the middle of the worst ice storm that the area had experienced. So much for the warm weather his mother had promised him. The school was closed because of the ice storm and the one security guy he found patrolling the school was unable to reach any of the school officials to let them know that Bernard had arrived. He had $200 in his pocket having already spent half of the $400 his mother had given him on the longest taxi ride of his life from Houston Bush Airport to the school. He did not know a single soul in the entire US let alone in Wharton. He was on his own, thousands of miles away from his hometown of Nairobi, Kenya.

The next day, a professor turned up on campus and was able to contact someone to open the dorm for him. Bernard learnt that the school would not open for another week because of the storm so he spent that week as the lone student on campus, living in the dorm, walking around Wharton town and eating at McDonalds. All he could think of was going back home. He tried to call his mother but could never get through. Later he learnt that he had not been using the phone booth correctly. When school finally opened, he showed up at the International Office and they immediately called his mother back in Kenya. She had been frantically calling the school for a whole week looking for him. Unable to reach anyone at the school and not having heard from him she feared the worst. When he finally spoke with his mother, she was so emotional with relief that he was safe that he decided to spare her the details of his ordeal since arriving in the US. He was worried that he was running out of money and all he could think about was going back home but he turned his attention to registering for his classes.

Fortunately, the school felt so badly that he had been on his own for the first week, that they offered him a room in the dorm and a cafeteria meal plan for the rest of the semester. But his heart was still set on returning to Kenya so a few weeks later he called his mother and told her that he had tried to make the best of it but that he really wanted to come home. Meanwhile his mother was undergoing some difficult challenges at home. The bank where she held her savings had collapsed and she had lost a significant amount of money. She was very honest with him, telling him that she could either spend the little money she had to buy him a ticket to come back home or she could use the money to pay tuition fees for his siblings who were still in Kenya. Bernard agreed to stay in the US a little longer.

As winter turned to spring, he knew he had to start earning money for his continued living expenses but his ultimate plan was to earn enough to buy his own ticket home. He started mowing lawns. That summer he worked long hours, 12 hours a day sometimes, outside in the Texas heat. He was mowing lawns, fencing, baling hay, building roads. Any work he could get, he took it. Again he spared his mother the details of his struggles. He told her he was a “landscape technician” and she bragged to her family and friends about his “good job”. Little did she know he was a “grass cutter”—a far cry from his job as a banker back home.

I asked him, what he thought of those early days and how far he has come. He expressed his gratitude for the opportunity and told me that he has never worked harder than he did that summer. His early experience developed an indomitable work ethic in him. Every time he thinks something is too difficult, he remembers those days—the heat, the fatigue, his blistered hands, and he knows that he can persevere. His other memory of that summer was the everyday Americans that he met. This was rural Texas; he worked on their yards and on their farms. “I got to see greatness", he recalls “in decent, hardworking people, devoted to their families and their communities”.

Bernard focused on working hard with the singular goal of saving enough to buy his ticket home. However, something unexpected happened along the way, and that “something” was his wife Mabel. His version of the story was that they met in college; she thought he was cute and seven weeks later they were married! Seriously? I needed to wait until Mabel joined us later so that I could get the full scoop.

Mabel took up the story when she joined us later that evening, laughing as she recounted those days. They were introduced by a mutual friend. Bernard soon became her math tutor. During one of their tutoring sessions, he was dismayed by her “poor math skills” and so she challenged him, “Wow, you think you are so smart, let me see your grades”. He obliged. She took one look at his transcript, saw an 18 credit load and straight As and said to him, “Wow, you are really smart, we should get married”. He laughed since marriage was the farthest thing from his mind—he could barely survive, had only two pairs of jeans (one for school and one for work), so how was he going to fulfill the dreams of any girl? Mabel egged him on and told him to meet her at the courthouse the following Friday. He thought she was joking but she was dead serious.

She showed up in her best dress and her hair freshly styled, the groom was nowhere to be found. She tracked him down to his room, where she found him in his pajamas. She was as shocked to find him there as he was to learn that she had actually gone to the courthouse. They had a long chat as to why they should get married and the next Tuesday, with a few witnesses present, they said their vows. And that afternoon they went right back to their classes. When I asked her why she proposed to him she said, “I wasn’t in love with him, but I did think he was cute and he was smart but most of all he was very kind hearted and I gravitated towards that.”

Later in the conversation, she shared that she had lost her mother at a very early age and had been raised by her grandmother. When she met Bernard, she was 19 and for all intent and purposes an orphan, while he was 23 and thousands of miles away from the home he grew up in. Mabel said to me, “We recognized that we needed each other”. But, it was not easy. The first few years were fraught with, among other things, great financial difficulties.

Bernard was torn between supporting his wife and staying in college to ensure a better future for both of them. He chose his studies, so they lived in a studio apartment in a condemned building, and both worked several jobs in between their classes to make ends meet. Their first joint tax return showed an annual income of $6500. On the day of our interview, they had celebrated their wedding anniversary 2 days before, on Wednesday April 20^th. They drove down to the Wharton County Courthouse and held each other under the gazebo where they were married 13 years ago, and in Mabel’s words “thanked God for having found each other”. Bernard smiled at the memory.

Tune in tomorrow for Part 2 of this amazing profile, as Bernard talks about the innovative ways he incorporates the various facets of his life: as business owner, as husband, as father to his three children, as philanthropist, and as an ambassador for his homeland.