Kenneth Mbae

Managing Director, Centum Real Estate

enneth Mbae is the Managing Director of Centum Real Estate, a real estate growth company that develops mixed use urban nodes in strategic locations where families, individuals, and businesses are positioned to thrive. Over the years, Kenneth who begun his career in 2010 as an intern at Centum has obtained hands on experience on every aspect of real estate development, investment, and business value chain through the various leadership roles that he has held at Centum Re.

In his role as Managing Director, Kenneth provides astute leadership to Centum Real Estate in its quest for growth and through its evolution journey to become the “homes developer brand of choice” in Sub-Saharan Africa. He is responsible for the company’s overall vision and strategy, investment priorities, ESG agenda, financial objectives as well as operations. Under Kenneth’s leadership, Centum Re has become one of the largest real estate developers in East Africa. The Company has delivered record sales and profitable growth by expanding into new diaspora markets in the US, Europe, Australia, Middle East and the Rest of Africa.

Kenneth is a trailblazer and result oriented leader with a proven track record in the real estate industry. He has been at the helm of providing oversight to multiple operations, marketing and strategic roles covering multiple large-scale projects in East Africa.

Centum Re under his leadership successfully completed and handed over 1,200 homes with a further 2,100 homes under construction. Most recently, Kenneth retired a KES 3B Centum RE listed Real Estate bond from internally generated funds, monetised the existing land bank and pioneered the installation of the largest sea water desalination plant in Sub-Saharan Africa with a daily capacity of 3 million litres of water. Under his leadership, Centum RE established a Scholarship scheme that provides full high school educational support to brilliant students from underprivileged background and so far, 400 student students have been beneficiaries.

Prior to assuming the Managing Director role, Kenneth held positions of significant responsibility within Centum RE such as the Chief Operating Officer and founding Managing Director of Vipingo Development PLC.

He holds a BSC. Biochemistry from Kenyatta University and an Advanced Management Certificate in Business Management from the Kenya Institute of Management. He is a Harvard GSD Alumni (AMDP XVIII), University of Cambridge Judge Business School SMP 8 Alumni, and a member of the Project Management Institute as well as the Institute of Directors (Kenya). Kenneth is also a Certified RBA Trustee.

Kenneth has been named and recognized as one of top 40 under 40 Men during 2021 Business Daily Annual awards.