Funeral home director overcame cultural bias to succeed

Montezuma Monaliza Funeral Home chief executive Benjamin Kibiku during the interview in his office in Nairobi last week. Photo/Salaton Njau 

By SIMON CIURI, sciuri@ke.nationmedia.com

In Summary

• Entrepreneur overcomes obstacles to establish successful morgue that he sees as service to humanity.

 

Benjamin Kibiku has spent most of his life accumulating resources to set up a funeral home. Eventually, he quit his job as a marketer at AIG Insurance to fulfil this dream after he raised enough capital to venture into entrepreneurship.

The nature of his business has seen Mr Kibiku lose many friends, but this does not bother him. He says that he saw an opportunity to thrive where few dare to invest in.

The founder and CEO of Montezuma Monalisa Funeral Home on Mbagathi Way in Nairobi says it was not easy to start off. In 1988, while a marketer at AIG, Mr Kibiku dreamt of owning a morgue. He was broke and to realise his dream he approached a bank to secure a loan to start the venture. But he was not lucky.

“The banks were not willing to fund a funeral home venture. In fact, I remember one bank manager telling me that I had nothing they would repossess as a collateral in case they offered me a  loan and failed to repay,’’ he says.

“I reached for my Bible to console myself and the latter only offered patience. At that time, I needed action not prolonged waiting.’’

Undeterred, he approached a friend for a partnership but this did not bear fruit.

“If the morgue business is profitable, then doctors would have been the first people to invest in it,’’ he recalls the friend telling him.

However, he did not give up and more so after an experience at the City Mortuary.

“I lost a friend and when we sought services at the City Mortuary. We were disappointed by their way of handling things,’’ said Mr Kibiku.

Late 1988, he approached a co-operative society where he borrowed Sh70,000. He bought a second-hand pick-up that had been involved in an accident, repaired it and converted it into a hearse.

“Getting the driver and parking space were a big challenge. No one wanted to be associated with the job. I tried the space at my rented house but the landlord rejected the idea. Finally, I talked to a garage owner who agreed,’’ he said.

However, the hearse business did not pick up as expected despite advertising the service in classifieds section of the local dailies. He started marketing the business at burial meetings where he pretended to know the deceased.

During the meetings, he would “volunteer” to offer his hearse for free but ensured his driver and himself carried fliers to market the new company at the burial site.

“The idea worked out very well,’’ says Mr Kibiku with a grin. “Word started going round about our service and eventually we started receiving numerous calls now on invitations. We started by charging a small fee that helped us buy another second-hand van after few years. We also started making coffins.’’

However, he did not quit his job immediately because it supplemented his sizeable budget