Alan Kang'ethe

On Episode 66 of The AfriCAN Do! Podcast, host Leonard Mudachi sits down with Alan Kang'ethe, Proprietor and CEO of Westlands Florists & Garden Centre, on one of Nairobi's most enduring family enterprises.

The story starts in the 1950s, when Alan's grandfather Gitunyu grew flowers and horticultural produce in Banana Hill, Kiambu, and sold them at the City Market from the family's first shop on Market Street. In 1969 the business passed to Alan's father, Thomas Kahara, and in time to Alan himself, who carries it forward today from the Sarit Centre in Westlands, with a presence built over decades of trust.

Alan grounded the family trade in formal knowledge, earning a degree in horticulture at Egerton University and adding years of hands-on experiment, research and trial and error. Facing stiff competition and a local market where the best blooms are exported, he made a bold move: growing his own flowers on a farm in Nyandarua. That secured supply, quality and better prices, freeing him from sellers focused only on export. On the farm he propagates cacti, anthuriums, begonias, streptocarpus, medinella, exotic orchids and species suited to the low-light offices of the city, and he split the operation into three competing units to push quality higher still.

From the notes for episode 66.