Exceptional minds.
One purpose.

Jennifer Kinyoe is the Chief Executive Officer of Ascend Africa Wealth Management and an executive coach with more than 25 years of experience leading businesses across financial services, investment management, healthcare financing, leasing, mobility and corporate strategy.

She is known for combining clear strategic thinking with a practical, people centred approach. Jennifer works with clients and leadership teams as they make important decisions, build stronger organisations and create lasting value.

At Ascend Africa Wealth Management, Jennifer leads the firm's strategy, operations and client experience. She works closely with high net worth individuals, families and business owners to shape tailored wealth management, investment advisory and wealth preservation solutions that reflect what matters most to them and their long term goals.

Throughout her career, Jennifer has mobilised and deployed more than USD 220 million in capital, helped establish and grow businesses, and led multidisciplinary teams through change and growth across East Africa. Her experience includes capital mobilisation, investment advisory, corporate governance, stakeholder engagement, operational transformation and business growth.

Jennifer's coaching is informed by her own experience as a CEO, managing director, board member and transformation leader. She works with senior executives, founders and emerging leaders who want to lead with greater confidence, manage transition well, strengthen their teams and turn strategy into meaningful action. Her style is supportive, candid and focused on accountability, helping clients make progress that lasts.

Before joining Ascend Africa Wealth Management, Jennifer served as Managing Director of Loxea Kenya, Country Director for GE Healthcare East Africa, Senior Vice President at GE Capital Healthcare Financial Services East Africa, and Managing Director at Zohari Leasing, Rivieres Finance and Clarkson Insurance Brokers. Earlier roles at Ernst and Young in East Africa and the United Kingdom, as well as Deloitte East Africa, gave her a strong grounding in finance, audit, governance and business advisory.

Jennifer holds an MBA in Strategic Management from the University of Nairobi, is a Certified Public Accountant of Kenya, and holds an ICF accredited Executive Diploma in Coaching from CDI Africa.

Johnah Munyiri is a Project Manager working with Ascend Africa Wealth, where he draws on over two decades of experience in project and change management in the context of wealth structuring and institution setup work. He has experience with wealth management institutions as his engagement with Optiva Capital Partners, Lagos, Nigeria, an organization dealing with Citizenship by Investment, Residency by Investment and Investment Management of Private Equity and Insurance Services as Team Leader, saw him contracted to develop their Policies, Processes and Procedures. He successfully completed the assignment in 2024.

Johnah has established a career in Project Management Consultancy since 2011, implementing end-to-end institutional set-up and regulatory projects on a consultative basis. His engagements include being the Project Manager of The Premiere in Lagos Nigeria, where he has helped in developing the regulatory framework covering the areas of business case development, policy and procedure manuals, premises and system acquisition, as well as recruitment and training. The project was launched in September 2025. He has been responsible for the end-to-end set up of Mayfair Bank Kenya Limited, which is a new commercial bank involving regulatory approval, systems set up, premises works and product and process development. He project managed the set up of Daraja Microfinance Bank, which involved system testing, staff training, procurement and regulatory follow through.

His consultancy engagements have also included bank set up projects in the region, which include developing all policies, procedures, process maps and risk profile of Bushra Business Bank in Somalia, supporting the set up of the Kenyan subsidiary of Dahabshiil Bank International and closing an assignment to develop policies and procedures for a new bank in Mogadishu, Somalia in 2021. He has also been engaged by Gargaara Company Limited to develop a policy manual on behalf of the German KfW Group for a digital upliftment project in Somalia. He provided Operational Excellence training to high potential employees in the Central Bank of Kenya.

Before his consultancy practice, Johnah worked for over ten years in senior positions in Barclays Bank including as Head of Performance, where he was responsible for performance improvement, process reengineering and budget control of the Operations Division, which accounted for more than 75% of the bank's budget. In his role as Senior Change Manager, he was involved in leading work streams in Barclays' Retail Expansion Programme, implemented ATM software upgrade projects, designed the debt recovery solution for Barclaycard, and was the Pan-African Project Manager of the Local Business initiative. He has also been Programme and Project Manager in Barclays Uganda and Barclays Botswana, where he implemented highly complex regulatory projects including Automated Clearing and Know Your Customer (KYC) compliance.

Vanessa Okwara serves as Head of Brand, Marketing and Communications at Ascend Africa Wealth Management in Nairobi, Kenya. She has played an instrumental role in building the company's brand from inception into a premium, structured market presence, shaping its voice, messaging and communications standards across key touchpoints.

With over 15 years of professional experience, Vanessa's career spans journalism, editorial leadership, digital media, public relations, brand management and corporate communications. Her experience combines strong editorial judgement with strategic brand thinking, enabling her to translate complex business propositions into clear, compelling narratives for clients, partners, media and other stakeholders.

At Ascend Africa Wealth Management, she owns and develops website content and research, co-creates brand guidelines, manages brand assets across digital and offline channels, directs social media and corporate content strategy, and drives visibility through targeted public relations and strategic media engagement. She also cultivates relationships with media, partners and external stakeholders, conceptualizes executive-level corporate events and oversees reputation and crisis communications when required.

A significant part of her work is focused on executive communications and positioning. She supports the CEO on local and international engagements, drafts speeches, presentations and talking points, manages executive social media and personal branding, prepares the CEO for media interviews and public appearances, and helps maintain consistent executive representation across public touchpoints. She also serves as a company spokesperson and official event host.

Before joining Ascend Africa Wealth Management, Vanessa served as Media & External Relations Manager at The Premiere in Lagos, where she was a member of the founding team and contributed to launching and positioning the company from inception. She authored and researched the company's website content, co-developed its brand manual, led media relations and PR initiatives, managed stakeholder relationships, developed corporate and social media content, and supported the CEO's public profile and engagements.

Previously, as Head of Media at Optiva Capital Partners, she led multimedia and social media teams, managed press relations, press conferences, events, sponsorships and marketing activations, oversaw internal and crisis communications, coordinated CSR projects and managed media engagements and strategic personal branding for the CEO. She also created The Optiva Chronicles, the company's journal designed to showcase thought leadership and leadership in the investment immigration industry across Africa.

Vanessa began her career in journalism and publishing, holding editorial and content roles at National Mirror Newspapers, New Telegraph Newspapers, Opera News and Power Woman International Magazine. At New Telegraph, she rose from correspondent to Assistant Editor and later served as Style and Entertainment Editor, coordinating the flagship Body and Soul magazine and managing correspondents, out-station reporters and interns. Her journalism background includes high-profile interviews, feature and news writing, copy editing, digital publishing, SEO and audience-focused content development.

Her core strengths include strategic planning, project and operations management, crisis management, leadership, creative writing, media relations and stakeholder engagement. She is recognized for strong written and oral communication, analytical thinking, teamwork and the ability to deliver brand and communications initiatives from concept through execution.

Caroline Ndungi is a Relationship Manager at Ascend Africa Wealth, where she partners with High Net Worth and Ultra High Net Worth individuals, families, and business owners to deliver bespoke wealth management solutions that preserve, grow, and transfer wealth across generations.

With over three decades of experience in the financial services industry, Caroline has built an accomplished career across banking, pension administration, insurance, and financial advisory. She spent 17 years at Barclays Bank (now Absa Bank Kenya), where she held several leadership positions in branch management, sales leadership, and relationship management. She subsequently served as a Regional Manager at the National Social Security Fund (NSSF), overseeing branch operations, business growth, compliance, and stakeholder engagement across multiple regions before transitioning into financial advisory and wealth management.

Caroline brings deep expertise in client relationship management, financial planning, retirement advisory, wealth protection, and business development. Throughout her career, she has successfully guided professionals, entrepreneurs, and corporate clients in making informed financial decisions by developing tailored strategies aligned with their personal, family, and business objectives.

She is recognized for building trusted long-term client relationships founded on integrity, professionalism, and a genuine understanding of each client's aspirations. Her consultative approach enables her to provide holistic solutions spanning wealth preservation, international investment opportunities, insurance planning, retirement planning, succession planning, and global wealth structuring.

An accomplished business leader and strategist, Caroline has consistently delivered outstanding commercial results while leading high-performing teams, implementing growth strategies, strengthening operational excellence, and fostering a culture of customer-centric service. Her broad experience across multiple financial disciplines allows her to appreciate the increasingly complex needs of affluent individuals and families seeking both local and international wealth solutions.

Caroline is passionate about financial literacy and empowering clients to make confident, well-informed financial decisions that create lasting family legacies. She is equally committed to mentoring professionals and contributing to the development of sustainable financial practices within the industry.

Letty Ohanya serves as Relationship Manager at Ascend Africa Wealth Management, where she works closely with high-net-worth individuals and families, providing personalised advisory services and supporting clients in achieving their global mobility, wealth preservation and investment objectives.

With over 15 years of professional experience, Letty's career spans relationship management, business development, commercial leadership, customer engagement and luxury real estate advisory. Her experience across diverse sectors enables her to identify strategic opportunities, build long-term partnerships and deliver tailored solutions that address the complex needs of sophisticated clients.

At Ascend Africa Wealth Management, she supports clients through every stage of their wealth and global access journey, helping them navigate investment opportunities, wealth preservation strategies and international mobility solutions. She is committed to building trusted relationships founded on integrity, discretion and exceptional service while ensuring that each client receives personalised guidance aligned with their aspirations.

Before joining Ascend Africa Wealth Management, Letty served as Property Consultant at Pam Golding Properties Kenya, where she advised high-net-worth investors and homeowners within Kenya's luxury property market. She managed high-value transactions, cultivated long-term client relationships and delivered bespoke investment recommendations aligned with clients' financial and lifestyle goals.

Earlier in her career, she held senior commercial and customer relationship roles with ATI Freight Kenya, Rift Valley Railways, Dawson Slater Limited and GA Outdoor. Across these positions, she led business development initiatives, negotiated strategic commercial partnerships, managed key corporate accounts and worked closely with government agencies and regional stakeholders across Kenya and Uganda.

Her core strengths include relationship management, business development, stakeholder engagement, strategic partnerships, commercial negotiations, client experience and market development. She is recognised for her consultative approach, strong interpersonal skills and ability to create lasting value for individuals, families and businesses.

Lear Mburu serves as a Relationship Manager, bringing over 13 years of corporate experience in managing high-value portfolios, driving market penetration, and building enduring institutional partnerships. Her multifaceted career spans key commercial sectors, where she has a documented track record of deploying sophisticated digital solutions, leading commercial expansion strategies, and managing extensive B2B accounts within the fintech, real estate, e-commerce, and tech ecosystems.

Beyond her corporate achievements, Lear is an accomplished wordsmith and a published columnist. Her writing leverages her extensive sector knowledge to unpack complex industry dynamics, establishing her as an active, recognized commentator in the professional space. This commercial and operational acumen is uniquely enhanced by a diverse academic foundation.

Lear holds professional training in International Relations and Diplomacy, Information Technology, French, and Development Studies; a broad, cross-disciplinary background that enables her to offer globally minded, data-driven, and highly adaptive advisory solutions to financially sophisticated clients.

At the core of Lear's professional philosophy is a conviction that revenue growth and structural innovation must intersect with long-term vision. She firmly believes that robust wealth management serves as the essential foundation through which sustainable development can occur. Furthermore, she recognizes that technology is the ultimate vehicle that will fundamentally reshape how wealth creation and preservation take shape globally.

Outside of managing high-level client accounts and operational workflow, Lear maintains an active, multi-faceted lifestyle. She prioritizes physical fitness through speed walking and weight lifting, keeps her global perspective sharp by actively following geopolitics and sports shows, and channels her focus into personal writing and giving back to the community.

Angela joins ASCEND Africa Wealth Management as a Relationship Manager, bringing over a decade of experience building and managing high-value clients across various sectors. As a seasoned and passionate marketer in the industry, she has previously represented globally renowned advertising agencies and managed market-leading brands across diverse segments. She prides herself in developing results-driven marketing and communications, leading integrated brand strategies, driving revenue, and delivering award-winning campaigns. She possesses expertise in digital marketing, PR, stakeholder engagement, brand activations, and strategic partnerships. Adept at managing multi-market mandates, aligning marketing with commercial targets, and elevating brand visibility in competitive landscapes.

Elphis Kathara serves as a Relationship Manager at Ascend Africa Wealth, a premier wealth advisory and investment firm.

With over eight years of experience in the real estate, construction management, and advisory sectors, Mr. Kathara has built a formidable career specializing in luxury property advisory, strategic investment marketing, and high-touch client relationship management.

His distinguished project portfolio includes the iconic GTC Executive Residences in Westlands, Nairobi, where he played a pivotal role in its development, marketing, and strategic market positioning. He has also served as a trusted Real Estate Advisor for premier developments such as Tatu City's Jabali Towers, demonstrating his deep, nuanced understanding of Nairobi's most prestigious neighborhoods and high-growth investment corridors.

Leveraging this extensive background, Mr. Kathara is regarded as a trusted advisor to both local and international clients seeking to build globally and locally diversified real estate and wealth portfolios. He is recognized for his ability to cultivate lasting, high-value client relationships, focusing on serving HNW individuals, families, and corporate entities. By collaborating closely with top-tier developers, financial institutions, and legal experts, he delivers premium, often exclusive opportunities tailored to multigenerational wealth strategies and optimal return on investment (ROI).

His core competencies include strategic stakeholder engagement, market innovation, and the development of sustainable, client-centric relationship models. Mr. Kathara is widely respected for his ability to craft and deliver compelling customer value propositions, ensuring seamless transactions, transparency, and unparalleled expertise in the investment market.

As a thought leader in the industry, he is frequently invited to share insightful knowledge on property investment trends and wealth creation, having presented at prominent industry platforms such as the GTC Agents Cocktail Events and various high-level real estate networking forums. He is deeply committed to empowering clients with the knowledge they need to make informed, strategic investment decisions that align with their long-term financial goals.

Lily Muriithi is a Relationship Manager specializing in High Net Worth and Ultra High Net Worth Individuals. She brings together a unique combination of international aviation experience, business leadership, legal training, and relationship management, enabling her to deliver exceptional client experiences and trusted advisory services to affluent individuals and families.

Her professional journey has provided extensive exposure to multicultural environments and international clientele, equipping her with exceptional communication, interpersonal, and stakeholder engagement skills. She is recognized for her professionalism, discretion, emotional intelligence, and ability to build long-term relationships founded on trust, integrity, and personalized service.

Lily has developed expertise in supporting clients with private wealth solutions, investment immigration, global mobility, international asset diversification, and cross-border financial planning. She works closely with clients to understand their long-term aspirations and collaborates with multidisciplinary teams to deliver tailored solutions that address their financial, lifestyle, and international residency objectives.

With a strong customer-centric philosophy, Lily is passionate about creating meaningful value through strategic relationship management and delivering seamless experiences for clients navigating increasingly global financial and investment opportunities. Her legal studies further strengthen her analytical thinking, governance awareness, and appreciation for regulatory frameworks within the financial services industry.

She is committed to continuous professional growth and believes that trust, excellence, integrity, and empathy form the foundation of lasting client relationships. Her ability to connect with people from diverse cultural backgrounds, combined with her executive presence and strategic mindset, positions her as a trusted advisor to discerning clients seeking personalized wealth and international advisory solutions.

Juliana Njoroge is an Administrative Associate at Ascend Africa where she offers support to the Head of Commercial Operations while ensuring that there is good coordination and administration at the commercial function. The job involves executive and departmental administrative assistance along with some commercial operations related responsibilities to manage meeting coordination, documents and trackers, follow up actions, reporting and proposals, onboarding coordination and client administration.

Being more than 15 years experienced in administration, operations and client services, Juliana has a strong background in the coordination of complex processes, scheduling, correspondence and report writing, tracking approvals and handling follow ups. Being very disciplined, having good judgement and handling sensitive issues professionally are the strong suits of Juliana.

Prior to Ascend Africa, Juliana worked as Team Leader – Administration & Operations at Loxea Limited, which is a subsidiary of CFAO Group and distributor of BYD electric vehicles in Kenya. Here she was responsible for management of daily operations and administration processes, optimization of processes, documentation and serving as a link between sales, finance, logistics and dealer networks. She has ensured smooth coordination of mobility services to the clients of the company.

Juliana has earlier been working at Tsusho Capital Kenya Limited where she has progressed from being Operations Officer to Sales and Marketing Executive. She was responsible for managing the stock of the fleet, coordination of the vehicle sales, client relationships and development of effective sales strategy. She has also been a Revenue Officer at The Nairobi Hospital where she used to manage billing, payments and insurance processes. She has started her career as a Front Office Clerk at ACK Guest House.

The core competencies of Juliana include administrative coordination, executive assistance, document and records management, CRM & pipeline assistance, cross functional teamwork, process improvement and stakeholder engagement. She has an impressive record of bringing efficiencies including automation of processes, reduction of administrative load and implementation of systems which have helped her save cost in previous roles.

Being proactive, detail oriented and very reliable, Juliana enjoys working in fast paced professional environment where structure and accuracy are very important. She loves assisting leadership teams to focus on strategic priorities.

Blessed Masai is a Business Analyst at Ascend Africa Wealth, where he supports the firm's global real estate and wealth structuring advisory services. His work includes configuring the firm's client advisory pipeline within its CRM system, developing client proposal documentation, and structuring the data and reporting processes that underpin client acquisition and advisory delivery.

He brings to this role a strong analytical foundation built at Gemba PMS, where he works as a Data Analyst designing dashboards to track performance and defect metrics, and building KPI reporting frameworks that give management real-time visibility into operations without manual report compilation. This experience in translating operational data into clear, decision-ready reporting directly informs his approach to client and advisory reporting at Ascend Africa Wealth.

Blessed's financial grounding was further shaped by his role as a Garage Accounts Clerk at Kenya Builders and Concrete Co. Ltd, where he tracked KPI reports such as turnaround time and cost per service, and as a Finance Attaché at the Privatization Authority, where he supported budget preparation, expenditure tracking, and verification of financial transactions for accuracy and compliance. Earlier, as a Business Analyst at Turing, he built an automated web analytics report on Looker Studio and contributed to a marketing campaign that increased web visits by 50% and user engagement time by 30%, giving him hands-on experience connecting data insight to client acquisition and growth.

He has completed a Data Science Programme with ALX Africa, gaining hands-on experience in Python, SQL, and data analysis, which he has applied in independent projects such as a dashboard analyzing the competitive AI landscape between China and the US, combining data cleaning, geospatial analysis, and interactive visualization.