Maxwell Okoth
Dr. Maxwell Okoth is a Kenyan physician-turned-health-care entrepreneur who has shown how clinical skill and business grit can bring quality care to the doorstep of low-income families. Fresh out of the University of Nairobi’s medical school and working his first internship in 2011, the 25-year-old borrowed KSh 300,000 and opened a four-bed outpatient clinic in Ruai on Nairobi’s eastern fringe. That modest start has grown into RFH Healthcare Group, a network of 12 hospitals, medical centres, and dialysis units that now treats more than 450,000 patients a year across Nairobi, Machakos, and Kiambu counties.
His model blends affordable pricing with technology: RFH offers NHIF-approved maternity packages, a 24-hour tele-consult line answered by in-house specialists, and mobile laboratories that reach peri-urban estates. During the COVID-19 pandemic he repurposed one facility into a high-dependency isolation ward, saving hundreds of lives and earning public praise from the Ministry of Health.
In 2021 the Kenya Medical Association honoured him with its Excellence in Medical Entrepreneurship Award, and in 2024 he secured a KSh 1.2 billion private-equity injection to build a 150-bed teaching and referral hospital slated to open in 2026. Beyond bricks and mortar, Dr. Okoth mentors young medics through the RFH Fellowship in Hospital Management, proving that world-class care can be born in the most overlooked places.