Caroline Jemeli bears a warm, ready smile and a bubbly energy that makes conversation feel effortless. As the Regional Head of Marketing for Network International's Acquiring Business in Africa, she sits in boardrooms making decisions that shape the future of payments across the continent.

But if you ask her where you are most likely to find her when she is not in those boardrooms, she'll give you two contrasting, yet equally telling answers: experimenting with fruit trees on her farm, or doing housework, finding empowerment in the control of her personal space.

This blend of high-level corporate strategy and grounded, personal authenticity is the essence of Caroline's story, a narrative of profound resilience, a steadfast belief in the power of community, and the quiet triumph of choosing to simply "be you."

Her journey begins not with a meticulously laid plan, but with a courageous pivot. Born in Nakuru and raised in Eldoret, she attended Hill School and later Kabarak High School, excelling in the sciences. Naturally following a path often set for high-achievers, she found herself in medical school at the University of Nairobi (UoN), but deep down she felt that something was not aligning.

"I realised I did not have the passion for it and acknowledged within myself that I was only doing it because that is what society expected of me," she recalls with refreshing honesty.

This realisation coincided with a period of significant personal upheaval. At just 19, she was pregnant with her daughter. The intense, long-hours career of a doctor felt increasingly incompatible with the future she now envisioned for herself and her child.

In a move that required immense personal mental strength, Caroline made a life-altering decision without consulting anyone. She dropped out of medical school.

"I was headstrong and determined and thankfully backed by good grades," she says, acknowledging that while she did not have all the answers, she knew she needed a change. Good grades opened the door to Kenyatta University (KU), where she enrolled in a Bachelor of Commerce degree.

The drive behind all this was survival. "What could put me in a space that I could quickly start to earn a living? I think that was one of the bigger motivators for me," she explains.

Knowing she would likely be a single mother, her focus was on landing on her feet. As she experimented with different courses from economics to finance, she found her home in marketing. "I found that to be more interesting, allowing me to express myself creatively. I love to interact with people, I like to create stuff, and so marketing became the natural space."

Her career began early, securing a role at Kenya Power & Lighting Company (KPLC) in her second year of university. It was here that she first encountered James Ngomeli, a senior leader at KPLC, who would become a pivotal mentor. Working on the rural electrification project, she was thrust into market activations, interacting with teachers, farmers, and communities.

This firsthand experience ignited a passion she would carry forward, developing communication and marketing programmes that truly spoke to people's needs. "I developed that passion to develop marketing programmes that speak to them."

This passion led her to the world of below-the-line advertising, where intimate, on-ground consumer engagement is key. For 15 years, she weaved through various facets of advertising and marketing, including a stint at Nielsen working on a Coca-Cola project. She rose through the ranks to hold senior leadership roles, including general manager and group director.

The power of the village
It was during this time that she honed a leadership philosophy that remains central to her today: the power of the village. She terms herself a "mentor kind of leader," whose job is to enable.

"If I am able to marshal resources for you, create spaces for you, open a path for the other one, then I have accomplished my job. I am lucky enough to be in a space that allows me to simply orchestrate," she says as her face lights up.

Network International Regional Head of Marketing Caroline Jemeli.

Photo credit: Lucy Wanjiru | Nation Media Group
This philosophy was put to the ultimate test not long after she joined Network International. She was handed a project to launch the Network brand across Africa, targeting 10-12 markets within three months.

The catch? "I had an absolutely lean team, mostly sitting in different countries, no resources, no plans, nothing." She was new to the organisation, had new products to launch, and a new team to build. This project, requiring a launch in just two months, felt like "suicide," she recounts.

Instead of retreating, Caroline tapped into her village. She brought together a group of professionals, including Zahida Suleiman, Founder & CEO of The Be Experience Company Ltd, Samantha Kipuri, CEO of Dentsu, and Biko Chacha, Chief Operations Officer at Apex Porter Novelli, through a network of trusted contacts. "It was a village of people that knew each other, and we brought ourselves together." We looked at the seemingly impossible task and told ourselves, "Let's jump. We'll fly."

And they did. In two months, they successfully landed the project. This accomplishment stands out as a major career highlight for Caroline, not just for its scale, but for how it was achieved: through collaboration, trust, and a shared belief that they could defy the odds. It is a testament to her ability to inspire and mobilise people around a common goal.

Just as her career was soaring, the COVID-19 pandemic struck. The world of in-person marketing engagements evaporated overnight, and Caroline, like many in her industry, lost her job. For a year, she was out of work, which was in 2020. "I was absolutely scared," she admits. "I did not know whether I was going to move back to the village or be able to survive in Nairobi."

This period was a harsh but vital teacher. "I quickly learned that I am not immune to failure. It is something that can happen anytime to anyone." It forced her to think about insulation. She explored her passion projects in farming, restaurant business, and real estate, understanding that these were necessities that would always be in demand, regardless of global upheavals.

When an opportunity arose at Equity Bank, she took it, even though it meant taking several steps back in her seniority. This humility opened a new world. Moving from a consulting perspective to owning and building products for a major brand was a revelation. At Equity, she led marketing for the fintech division, working on mobile money, e-commerce payments, and a Telco solution. This experience ignited a new passion for financial inclusion.

"What does financial inclusion mean to you? What does giving you this financial solution or technology solution mean to your life?" she ponders. She saw firsthand how these solutions could open pathways for economic empowerment, changing someone's access to opportunity, business, and education.

This new purpose guided her next move. In January 2024, she joined Network International as Regional Head of Marketing with two clear goals: to learn how to build products that impact economic inclusion, and to learn how to scale them globally.

In simple terms, Caroline explains that Network International "simplifies payments for businesses." In a typical Kenyan business, you might see an Airtel Money till, an M-Pesa till, and a separate card machine (PDQ). Our organisation provides an "omni-channel solution" that consolidates all these payment methods---mobile money, card payments---into one platform.

"So we simplify this by just giving them one solution that can accept all these payments in one device, or one engine," she says.

Whether a business has a physical store, an e-commerce site, or 15 locations, it can view all its transactions in one place. This seamless integration is crucial for business growth and efficiency across Africa.

When Caroline joined, the brand (then known as DPO Group) was in a smaller niche. It has since scaled to become a major player in the point-of-sale and e-commerce space across the continent, with offices in South Africa, Kenya, Nigeria, and Egypt, and a service footprint in most African countries. Her "suicidal" project laid the foundation for the brand's growth.

Personal success

For all her professional success, Caroline's most profound sense of accomplishment is deeply personal: being a mother to her daughter.

She comes from a lineage of very strong, highly accomplished women, a background that instilled in her a formidable resilience and an unwavering determination to succeed against the odds.

Within this family context, being a young single mother could have been seen as a failure, as they "do not hold space for such circumstances." But she reached into the strength inherited from the women before her, started earning a salary by 21, and raised her daughter almost single-handedly. "So for me, that is something I'd call a personal success."

This ties into her core philosophy on life, which she illustrates with an analogy. She sees all the facets of life as rubber balls: career, friendships, and all social spheres of life, that you can drop and they will bounce back. But there is one glass ball: yourself. "If you lose yourself, that's the glass; it is gone." For her, putting self-first, mental health, personal health, and her inner circle is non-negotiable.

This focus on essence over ego is what now guides her thoughts about the future. What keeps this bubbly, accomplished leader awake at night? Surprisingly, it's her retirement. "What's keeping me awake is looking at how I am going to continue to drive impact even when I have retired. How am I going to continue to be able to empower those around me as I am doing right now?"

She is already figuring it out, through her farming passions and her dedication to mentorship, especially for young women. She repays the mentorship she received from leaders such as James Ngomeli, who helped her navigate male-dominated spaces without compromising her integrity. Her one enduring lesson from a 20-year career is that you are not able to do everything on your own; you are stronger with a village.

If she had one message to put on a billboard for the world to see, it would be a simple, powerful mantra that encapsulates her journey: "Be you." She clarifies, "Just be you. The world does not need to adjust to you."

And with the hindsight of a life lived on her own terms, through medical school drop-out, single motherhood, career highs, a global pandemic, and triumphant comebacks, she affirms without a hint of doubt that she would change nothing. Every challenge has contributed to the resilient, authentic leader she is today.