PROFILE: Samantha Kipury’s secret to advertising, and the second chapter of her life

When she was just 25 years old, Samantha Siyieyio Kipury quit her job at one of the country’s then biggest advertising agencies to start out on her own.

She had only one client at the time, Nokia, and knew zilch about running a company; so she enrolled for a Master of Business Administration (MBA) and “learnt how to manage a business, on the business.”

“I looked around me and I was like, ‘what’s the worst that can happen? This thing falls apart and I end up where I started.’ So I just went for it,” she says.

For a full six months, she was the sole employee at the company - she walked through the doors in the morning alone, and locked up by herself on her way back home in the evening.

During this period, Samantha did everything by herself; she made presentations, pitched to clients, managed the money, paid taxes, probably even mopped the office floors (Okay, I added that last one, because wouldn’t it be fun if she did though?)

“It was hard. For the first five years I almost went to bed crying every night because no one was taking me seriously. I was like half the age of anyone who was anyone in this business,” she recalls.

She describes this period of her life as being best encapsulated in the Book of Zechariah 4:10, which says – “Do not despise small beginnings, for the Lord rejoices to see the work begin.”

And so the company started to pick up and she began hiring extra pairs of hands, starting with a finance guy because the accounting aspect of running the business was the most hectic part for her.

Eventually, she merged the company with a couple others to form Dentsu Kenya, in which she and her two partners now all have an equal ownership stake, with the rest held by their parent company in South Africa.

From starting her own company with just one client, Samantha and her partners – Joel Rao and Chris Madison - now manage an impressive portfolio of about 28 of the biggest local and international corporates.

Some of the interesting campaigns they have worked on include the rebranding of Barclays Bank to Absa Kenya; Safaricom’s ‘Bonga For Good’, which allowed customers to shop for food using Bonga points at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic; Guinness’ ‘Made of Black’; the NIC-CBA merger into NCBA Bank; the ‘Malaria No More’ global initiative; and the viral Netflix ‘Free The Whole Storo’ Ad.

Far from that 25-year-old girl who flew out of the nest uncertain, a little scared, and filled with nothing but ambition, Samantha has certainly come a long way.

She presently serves as Dentsu Kenya Group Head of Media, and when she’s not creating anything she’s most likely at her personal voice coach’s house singing her voice hoarse.

Samantha is now 36 years old, and only just walked down the aisle last year. She’s getting into another chapter of her life, starting a family, but is still very excited about her future in the advertising industry.

“I’m just getting started,” she says. Her secret to the business? “I pray a lot. I don’t think I could survive in this business if I didn’t, it’s not easy.”

Samantha, who in 2018 made it to the ‘Top 40 Under 40 List, sat down for a little chat with Citizen Digital’s Ian Omondi over a Dawa.

‘Siyieyio’ sounds like an indigenous name, does it have any meaning that you’re aware of?

‘Yieyio’ in Maasai means mother. But I don’t have children, so you even wonder why. I only got married last year, I was late on that boat.

Why do you think your parents named you ‘yieyio’?

I’ve never asked, but I think it’s because I’m the first child. So, you know, I’m kind of like another mother to my siblings. I come from a family of three; two girls, and a boy in the middle.

What do you remember about your childhood and how did it shape you?

My mother had to leave us to go to school, she got a scholarship in Canada. So, for the first four years of my life, I was raised by my father. This, I guess, really formed part of my personality, because I’m a bit more of a masculine energy.

And I don’t take rejection to heart. I’m one of those ‘Let’s go...let’s do it’ people. So that when somebody tells me I can’t do something it’s like a trigger, because why can’t I?

What pushes a 25-year-old girl to leave a stable job to go out and start afresh alone out there in this big bad world?

I think it’s that feeling of wanting more, and knowing that you can do more. In the big organization where I was working, for me to make a big difference, it would’ve taken me 20-30 years. But I felt like if I tried it out on my own, then I could do it.

A lot of us were created to create, and for me this is what I was always meant to create. Because if you look at the advertising industry then and now, it’s like night and day. Clients are more open-minded now, there are better ideas, there’s actual competition and you’re motivated to do more.

So at 25 years I just felt like I can do this, and if there is a ka-small door that’s open, then let me try. And, again, at the back of my mind I’m always thinking; what’s the worst that can happen? And if it’s not that I’m going to die, then I’ll be fine.

How did you manage to keep your head above water during all those months when you were literally the only one in the office?

Honestly, it was focusing on today, because if I thought about a month or two from then, I would’ve given up. So I would constantly just ask myself; what can I do today? Today, I can try and meet this client. Today, I can look at expenses and see what we can cut. It was just today…today…today.

That, and a lot of prayer. I would go on my knees and just say, ‘God bana, help a sister out, please.’ [Laughs]

It was in 2018 when I could say we were finally on everyone’s radar; that if there was an event or a pitch, we were definitely getting that call. And then you hear people say, ‘Gosh, you came out of nowhere!’ I’m usually like, ‘Boss, it’s been 8 years of grind!’

Do you consider yourself a religious person?

Not really. I just love God. It’s not about which church or which religion and whatnot…it’s just me and God, we ride and die together.

Are you a genuinely good person?

I think I try to be. Do I always succeed? Probably not. But I’m a work in progress.

Do you think you’ll go to heaven when your time down here is up?

I believe so. Because whether I succeed or fail, I do truly love God, and I do truly try to love my neighbor, even the most annoying ones. And I think that’s all you can do as a person; just try and do your best, and be the best you can be.

What do you think you’re so bad at?

I’m a very impatient person. And I prefer my own company, so to be in an industry where you meet people all the time, I get quite tired emotionally sometimes.

I also like to control things; whereby, so long as I know where we’re going, I’m the person in the room that usually says ‘Don’t worry, I’ll get us there.’

What do you find yourself chasing after the most, at this stage in your life?

I got married last year in December, so what’s very important to me right now is just starting and having a good family life. Because I think your parents start you off, so it would be a disservice to not go further and push the next generation further and further.

Forty is also coming up faster than I would like. [Laughs] Every year on my birthday I go and think, I take a trip somewhere alone for introspection and to just process the year ended and the year ahead. So, for me, this coming birthday is telling me; ‘We’re almost at 40 years, what are we doing with the next 40?’

How many kids do you want, if any?

I would really like three kids; because, with two they only have each other, but with a third at least they have someone to mediate and guide them whenever there’s an issue.

How do you think the way you were raised will influence the way you bring up your kids?

I was given the foundation of faith, which I’ll definitely pass along, because I think that without it then things can seem very meaningless. The earth is burning, there’s global warming, mass corruption and all these other madness…but if you have the faith that I was born for a time such as this for a reason, I think that helps ground you.

I also have a sense of fearlessness, which I credit to my father, because I’m like just do it, whatever it is, you know, if you don’t die you’re fine. I’ll tell my kids to just start, whatever it is. If there’s an idea sitting at the back of your head and you’re like ‘but how will I raise funds?’ Just start. Focus on each day, and you’ll get there.

I will also instill in them an independence of thought. Because, especially in our industry, there are too many influencers and a lot of noise; people telling you how you should be, how you should dress, when to be honest you came here alone so you’ll go alone.

If you look back at your childhood and early life against where you are now, do you think you turned out to be the woman you always wanted to become?

I’m definitely happy I took that step [to resign and start building from the ground up]. I’m proud of how far I’ve come, but I’m also very conscious that there’s a long way to go. There are quite a few things I still really want to do.

I don’t know if you saw this, but Nigeria recently passed this law that any adverts being produced in that country all have to be done by people from there. Why aren’t we doing that here? That’s the kind of stuff I would really want to get into.

Do you want to be the person that initiates that kind of growth in Kenya?

So then why don’t you?

Don’t plan, just start.

I saw what you did there, throwing my own advice back to me.

But it’s true. We’re working on our next 5-year plan, and that’s some of the stuff that’s in there.

Also, our agency is the only one in Kenya that has more women than men – about 52 per cent of our staff is female. I don’t think a business is safer than when it’s in the hands of capable women.

I want to help create solutions for African problems, so that we’re not always looking for outside help, and change people’s thinking. I want to show the world that we have everything we need. That’s what I’d like to do when I’m in this industry, before my time is up.

When do you feel like that could be? When enough is enough, I mean, and you retire to a small hut somewhere in Thailand.

Do Kenyans ever actually retire, really? [Laughs] I’ve never met a Kenyan who has fully retired. They stop working and start a farm or sit on boards and whatnot. That’s not retiring.

So I won’t exactly retire either, because I love this industry and what we’re doing, and I don’t know what would take me somewhere else. But at this stage in my life it has to be something more than just a salary, it has to be meaningful. If you’re lucky, you get 80 years on this earth, so I really just want to make it count.

At the lapse of those 80 years, how would you like the industry to remember you?

As someone who genuinely cared about the work; that if I was involved in something I definitely brought 100 per cent; that I helped mentor and nurture some of the biggest names in the business; and as more than just industry leader, but as someone who - besides the work – also cared about the people, and that their encounters with me left them better than they were.

As someone who was used to flying solo, what has changed in your life with the new marriage?

I like waking up with someone beside me in the morning and cooking together; just doing routine things together, those are nice.

Compromise is the one thing that caught me a little off guard. For instance, my husband enjoys going out, but my work involves talking to people the whole day, so the last thing I want to do in the evening is go to the bar and talk some more to some more people. I just want to sit and read and chill.

But then, you know, maybe on Monday you had promised that you would go out with him on Friday because it looked really far at the time, then it finally comes and now you have to keep that promise even when you don’t feel like it.