Ayisi Makatiani, the restless man who brought the internet to Africa, is yet to settle. When it comes to reading the signs and disrupting the market, he moves with an instinct sharpened by decades of navigating uncharted terrains.He sees opportunity before others notice the tremor and by the time the rest of the industry turns its head, he has already laid down the rails for the next frontier. To him, innovation is a rhythm—an unending beat that keeps him scanning horizons, connecting dots and challenging limits.He previously founded and led several groundbreaking ventures, including Africa Online, Fanisi Capital and Agencify.
Africa Online began humbly as an online mailing list for Kenyan friends in the US, before it eventually became Africa's largest and the first internet service provider for the continent.Now he has co-founded Caava Group—a bold new venture racing to prepare African economies for the artificial-intelligence (AI) era. He has always juggled many balls but hardly dropping any—except when he chooses to.“How do I balance everything? The truth is, I may seem like I am doing a lot at the same time, but I focus on one thing at a time. Right now, my attention is on the work we are doing in the insurance space,” said Mr Ayisi in an interview.“If you look at the other ventures I have undertaken, you will notice a pattern—they are either in technology or investments.
It is about applying my electrical engineering skills to create something meaningful. But I don’t do it just for fun. To me, the proof of success in what I do is whether they can actually make money and leave an impact.”Last week, he was appointed chairman of low-cost carrier Jambojet—marking a return to an airline he helped launch more than a decade ago as its founding chairman in April 2014, when it debuted as a subsidiary of Kenya Airways.Mr Makatiani is not afraid to dream big. He is already envisioning how Jambojet could triple its fleet over the next five years and expand its network to more domestic and international destinations, reaching as far as southern, western and northern Africa.He is well aware of Richard Branson’s quip: “If you want to be a millionaire, start with a billion dollars and launch a new airline.” Mr Makatiani is confident he can steer Jambojet into an airline so compelling that millionaire investors will line up for a slice, with the ambition of turning it into a billion-dollar success.“If we are able to know what we are good at and what we are not good at, and focus our energy on what we can do well, I think success will come. That is how I do my thing,” he said.An electrical and electronics engineering graduate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Mr Makatiani thrives on creating and engineering innovations that push boundaries.
All woven in passion and grit. He holds a private pilot licence—once in a while, he takes to the skies for a sense of relief and perspective.His appointment as Jambojet chairman coincided with the week Turnkey Africa, Agencify Limited, Caava AI and TurnQuest Solutions Nigeria— pioneers in the African insurtech space—announced the formation of their new parent company-Caava Group. Mr Makatiani is the co-founder and CEO of Caava Group and chairman of Turnkey Africa.“Unifying our brands under Caava Group marks a bold step toward the future of insurance in Africa — one that’s more intelligent, inclusive and interconnected. This ecosystem isn't just about efficiency; it’s about impact,” said Mr Makatiani.“It enables us to empower insurers to serve people better — faster, smarter and with deeper trust — while building a future where innovation leads to lasting, meaningful change.”Once again, Mr Makatiani is out to disrupt the market through an industry that has often dragged its feet on adopting new technology. The group already has more than 60 clients across Africa as it moves to accelerate the uptake of technology and AI across Africa’s financial sectors.He made a lot of strides in the private equity (PE)area through Fanisi Capital. He was the managing partner between September 2008 and July 2021, where he carried out multi-billion shillings deals spanning sectors such as education, agriculture and healthcare.“I did my thing there (in PE) for years but I will be honest. It was probably something I wasn’t totally cut out for. I eventually decided to give that up to my roots [technology].
You got to play to your strengths to succeed,” said Mr Makatiani.“PE to me became a little bit more of not playing to my strengths and things that excite me. It was much more about how to invest, grow and exit. After doing it for about 12 years, I started missing where I came from, which is using tech, creating something quickly and customers see value immediately and are willing to pay for it.”Even when his star was rising in Fanisi, he never divested from his technology ventures. For him, Caava is a moment to consolidate his journey in tech through Turnkey Africa—a company he founded in 1997.Passion, he says, is something that one should not trade for anything else—because it always finds its way back.“I always tell my team: if you’ve been putting in long hours consistently and don’t feel burnt out, you’re probably on the right path. But if every Friday evening you feel drained and come Sunday night you dread going back to work, you are not probably living your passion.”Reflecting on the Business Daily’s Top 40 Under 40 Men recognition, he laughs lightly and admits that he only got to know what he really needed to know after he turned 40.“Up to 40, it was just: go, try, experiment. Afterwards, I began to learn. If you have something you’re good at, something you’re passionate about—something that makes you happy and you believe in its destiny—whether it makes you money or not, go for it. Eventually, you become so good at it that people will pay you to do it for them,” he said.He has never believed in limiting ambition. “In high school, I decided I was going to MIT. It was a crazy idea. I remember going to the US Embassy and being told, ‘You can’t get into MIT—it’s too expensive.’ But I never stopped.”When he eventually went to the US, he co-founded Africa Online in Boston, then brought it back to Nairobi. When he ventured into the insurtech business, he knew exactly how to approach it.The first thing he did was attend the biggest insurance conference in the world, in Las Vegas. He went there two years in a row to see what competitors in America and Europe were doing and compared it with what was happening in Nairobi.“The first time I showed up at the conference, I thought: ‘Oh my God, why am I here?’ Those guys talk billions of dollars a month.”→palushula@ke.nationmedia.com Provided by zaianews. (
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