Robert Gichohi
Robert Gichohi, a Kenyan civil-engineer-turned-programme strategist, has spent his career proving that rigorous planning can turn megaproject budgets into lasting public value. Armed with a bachelor’s in civil engineering and a master’s in project planning and management, both from the University of Nairobi, he cut his teeth inspecting highways before joining global consultancy Turner & Townsend. Over the next decade he climbed from junior cost analyst to director, steering multidiscipline teams that now oversee more than US $2 billion in real-estate, energy and transport investments across East Africa. His hallmark is clarity: milestone dashboards that slash reporting cycles, stakeholder clinics that keep community voices in the loop, and sustainability scorecards that nudge contractors toward greener materials.
Named to Business Daily’s Top 40 Under 40 list in 2022, Gichohi channels equal energy into talent pipelines, lecturing part-time at local universities and pairing young engineers with chartered mentors inside the firm. He is currently piloting a digital twin for Nairobi’s commuter-rail upgrade and lobbying regulators to adopt lifecycle-costing standards that reward long-term performance over lowest bid. Driven by what he calls “the maths of social impact,” Gichohi’s next ambition is to launch a not-for-profit project-management academy; insisting that world-class infrastructure only matters if it lifts the communities that live beside it.