UB Around the Globe: Kenya Feel the Love?
Category: Alumni
Karita gets some face time with one of several giraffes at Nairobi’s popular Giraffe Centre as she feeds the animal a pellet from an elevated observation platform.
What does it take to be named among the Top 40 Women Under 40—in Nairobi, Kenya? Catherine Karita, MBA ’07, says one of the keys to the annual honor—bestowed by Kenya’s Business Daily newspaper in 2014—is a solid education.
After earning a bachelor’s degree in information systems at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, she came to UB for “its urban environment, student diversity and friendly teaching faculty,” she says, citing as standouts the classes she took with professors Joel Morse and Steven Isberg. “That knowledge [gained in those classes] opened up lots of opportunity for me in capital markets.”
She embarked on a post-graduation career at Bank of America, but her native Nairobi beckoned after nine years in the States, and she returned home in 2009.
Today, she is the general manager of NIC Bank Group’s brokerage business, and she sits on a local school board and mentors students in her free time. This is all in addition to studying law at the University of Nairobi.
Despite her demanding schedule, Karita still makes time to enjoy some of Kenya’s highlights, including the Giraffe Centre in Karen, a neighborhood in western Nairobi. “[You’re] allowed to feed the giraffes and take photos,” she says of the feeding platform inside the sanctuary, run by the African Fund for Endangered Wildlife, “and it has an area where one can learn more [about] giraffes and other animals.
“It’s a place of diversity in the suburbs of Karen,” she adds. “A nice environment with lots of green and breathtaking views of the city from the feeding deck.”
As happy as she is to be back in Kenya raising her 4-year-old son, Nathan, she admits to some nostalgia for her former life in Maryland. “I miss the aquarium and the Inner Harbor—and the Baltimore Ravens,” she says. “I loved football season and my football Sundays.”
Have you traveled abroad recently and snapped a photo of yourself wearing your UB gear? Send your photos to the UB Office of Alumni Relations, 1130 N. Charles St., Baltimore, MD 21201 or to alumni@ubalt.edu. (And next time you head overseas, don’t forget to wear your UB apparel.)
