Man on a wealth creating mission: Mr Mathenge records monthly sales of between Sh14, 000,000 to Sh20 million Photo | file
By Griffins Omwenga
In Summary
Mr Mathenge, 30, is the founder and chief executive
of Fashion Sprout, an online fashion store that features trendy items
from indie brands and local boutiques. His entity specialises in women
shoes and handbags.
James Wachira Mathenge loves fashion. His
insatiable appetite for things trendy saw him quit plum jobs in blue
chip tech firms where he worked as a software engineer.
Mr Mathenge, 30, is the founder and chief
executive of Fashion Sprout, an online fashion store that features
trendy items from indie brands and local boutiques. His entity
specialises in women shoes and handbags.
The outlet hand-picks select women shoes and
handbags from independent brands and designers from all over the world,
he told Money.
Doing what he loves
Before going private, Mr Mathenge used to earn
over Sh3 million in salary per year, but Fashion Sprout makes almost
five times that amount in profits per annum.
In 2007, he joined IBM as a software test engineer
for the firm’s research centre in San Jose, California. A year later he
moved to Nokia in the same capacity at Sunnyvale, California, before
Barracuda networks welcomed him in 2009 as a systems engineer.
“I just wanted to get into something more satisfying and that is why I ventured into fashion because it’s what I love,” he says.
The value of networking
And in 2010, armed with a soft loan from his
former employer Jim Jorgesen, he opened his first shop in San Fransisco:
“I used to work for him as an intern at his firms, OIVMAIL and
Discovery Zone, and later I went back to him with my concept and he
advanced me a loan of over Sh20 million which I used to open Fashion
Sprout branches together with other friends.”
Jim Jorgensen is a US billionaire entrepreneur and
venture capitalist who practices in the areas of labour, employment,
banking and business law.
Expanded business
Today, Mr Mathenge’s business has presence in
Mexico, Nicaragua, Brazil, Portugal, Canada and Australia. These country
arms are run by his partners. Regularly, the team meets to plan how to
face the competition posed by other well established brands in the
fashion industry.
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