Jimnah Mbaru has been head of the Dyer & Blair investment bank, which today is highly prosperous, since 1983. He also has a substantial portfolio of shares in other flourishing companies. Born in 1947, he figures among the richest businessmen in Kenya and his success has earned him such nicknames as "the Warren Buffet of Africa" or "the godfather of investment banking".
He is very close to President Mwai Kibaki, who became head of state in 2002, and is part of the circle of businessmen, all Kikuyu like him, who act as advisers to the presidency. Until early 2012, he belonged, notably to the National Economic and Social Council (NESC), a think-tank responsible for formulating Kenyan economic policy alongside President Kibaki.
Among these men of influence figure the owners and managers of TransCentury, an investment company in which Jimnah Mbaru is one of the main investors. They are a group of businessmen, united by their common financial and political interests, who like to meet up at the Muthaiga Golf Club. They form part of the Kikuyu establishment and, as a result, TransCentury is suspected of serving as the financial arm of the Gikuyu, Embu, and Meru Association (GEMA), a body set up in the 1970s to protect the interests of the Kikuyu elite.
Jimnah Mbaru stands at the heart of this network, which is united by a web of business interests and which controls a substantial part of Kenya's financial activity through Equity Bank, in which he is a shareholder, and the British American Insurance Company (Britak), of which he is a director. His influence over the financial sector is further reinforced by the fact that he was head of the Nairobi Stock Exchange (NSE) from 1992 to 2001.
Jimnah Mbaru is already a business magnate in Kenya but does not intend to confine himself to business: he plans to stand for the seat of governor of Nairobi, a high-ranking and much sought after position, in the elections planned in 2013.