The life of Dr Habil Olaka in retirement in Kitale

The name of Dr Habil Olaka returned briefly in the public square over his application and shortlisting for the position of Deputy Governor. The former Kenya Bankers Association CEO who had retired to Kitale threw in his hat for a role as a regulator which would have crowned his journey that started off in his father’s footsteps, then veered off.

Dr Olaka was actually born in Kakamega, his ancestral home where he grew up a third born in a family of six with his father, a Canon of ACK Diocese of Butere.

Read Also: Don’t use pension to buy Kondele mowuok

The old Canon had a great impact on young Habil. He describes his mother as loving but firm, and the power which cultivated his self-confidence even as his father shaped who he would grow up to be.

Habil the doctor

Dr Olaka is in a pensive mood today as he stops to take stock of life away from the executive suites. He is smiling even as he furrows his brow to remember the highlights of his life.

He displays admiration as he gives an account of his father, who according to Dr Olaka, played a critical role in his career choice as a child.

“My late mother was always eager to see that I topped my class. This gave me a sense of self confidence,” Dr Olaka said  “But I wanted to do medicine because my father encouraged me to be one.”

Dr Olaka describes his father as a visionary man who as early as 1967 started buying shares and participating in capital markets- something that was unheard of in his locality. He speaks admirably about how he admired and respected the man that he became a canon, to a great extent due to the influence of his father, who was also a clergyman.

 “He bought shares, now we are inheriting those shares as part of his estate,” Dr Olaka said.

Habil the engineer

But he did not follow through with his career choice. His journey to becoming a doctor would be sacrificed to his other passion, the love for language. Besides topping his classes, he had quite the ability of learning languages, and had quickly mastered luo, luhya and Swahili before he took up the challenge of French.

This meant he had to drop science in high school and he sacrificed biology for physics, and with it his father’s dream for a doctor. But good grades and a new dream to become an engineer was born and encouraged by the old canon.

But that would not be the final destination for Dr Olaka, while the new pursuit provided interesting theories and concepts, it did not satisfy his restless spirit in practice. He looks back on the one time he practiced as an engineer. It was the fourth term, this is when they had gone for industrial attachment and for one month he said he practiced as an electrical engineer.

Looking back, Dr. Olaka says he had no time to think about engineering as he got spotted by PricewaterhouseCoopers an accounting firm, an opportunity that would finally settle his choice of career.

“I remember despite ditching my first class in engineering, my father was very accommodating of my career shifts,” Dr Olaka says adding that it is one of the decisions he has no regrets about.

Habil the accountant

Partly because he had no background in accounting, the young PWC accountant took his job too seriously. He moved from not knowing anything about balance sheets to a master of financials, adding that he tapped the skills he picked up as an engineer to become a better accountant and banker, because it gave him a unique way of approaching things.

“When I joined PricewaterhouseCoopers, I could not tell the difference between a balance sheet, profit and Loss or Cash flow. At PwC, I was enrolled to a Crush program at Strathmore, I began enjoying accountancy,” he said.

This role would open young Olaka to the banking industry which he would rise to head the sector's lobby for 14 years driving policy for the entire banking sector in Kenya.

But even here, it was about taking the challenge of a big institution without capacity and building it to be an influential player in the market that drove him. He says there were only three employees when he came in; a Personal Assistant an accountant and a messenger.

“One of the challenges I faced when I came in, was that the mandate had been widened and I therefore had to put in place a staff structure that could help me deliver on the mandate of the association,” he said.

Habil the Ceo of bankers

He got to work and built what he considers the most fruitful 14 years of his career. The lobby managed to wade the Kenyan Banking sector through the interest rate capping period, supported the industry during Covid-19 pandemic challenges and supported the industry through the foreign exchange challenges. Dr. Olaka says that the association prides itself in bringing in sustainable financing initiative for the banking sector.

He said there is so much to be celebrated about his years at the Kenya Bankers Association, however, one achievement surpasses all else.

“I am most proud of the cheque truncation system. cheques were initially manual, the cheque truncation project automated cheque systems to same-day effects. This was one of the very first projects we brought on, the impact was quite clear in terms of time saved and safety introduced into the system. This system cut down frauds significantly, hence a project we are very proud to have delivered at KBA,” Dr Olaka remembered.

He would also pursue academia even though he held a top role, ensuring that he got to carry the title Dr just as his father had imagined him as a child, albeit not a medical one. He holds a Doctorate of Business Administration with a dissertation on Strategic Leadership and Implementation of Strategy in Commercial Banks in Kenya. To him, this represented a break from filial expectations which he promised not to carry to his children and impose a career on them.

“My upbringing instilled a sense of accomplishment that we can achieve whatever we want to,” he said acknowledging that he missed this most about his parents, and is instilling the same in his two children.

Habil the life coach

His own life has been multifaceted, besides his role as KBA CEO, Dr Olaka took up several roles as a board member in several organizations and is also a farmer in Kitale.

“I have got coffee that I do, avocado, beekeeping, and some macadamia. Initially, I was doing telephone farming, but now I have got time to be hands-on. I spend a bit of time on farming whenever I am free,” Dr Olaka says as he laughs it away.

He also took up life coaching to inspire future leaders in the banking sector. He says as he retires from the Bankers Association, there has been more time in his diary to do executive coaching.

“Away from banking, I have things that excite me like being an executive coach,”

Regrets

But even in victory, his rearview mirrors harbor regrets, options unexplored. Like many people, he feels there are things he should have possibly and never gave myself an opportunity to learn.

“I can only speak only two Kenyan languages; Luhya and Dholuo, however, I spent 6 years in Kikuyu, but never learnt Kikuyu language, I used to have the capability of learning different languages,” he said reflecting that had he put more effort, he would take pride in speaking several Kenyan languages.

He also reckons that overlooking the possibility of the interest capping law going through in the year 2016 is the one thing he mostly regrets and one with far-reaching consequences.

Its passing caught most of the industry flatfooted and many paid over the next few years with reduced profits from reduced lending. But in his estimation, it is the market that suffered the most from reduced credit supply.

In hindsight, Dr Olaka, says, “I think we could have been more proactive and try to ensure that we do a bit more to try to dissuade the MPs with facts and reasoning from the fact that going that route would have generated the challenges that we finally met”.

Looking back, he says, the banking association was not very aggressive as it ought to have been in trying to reach out to Members of parliament and persuade them that that was not the right way to go. 

Forewarning

Even today as he looks at the banking sector he feels regulators ought to be more versatile in anticipating unforeseen externalities that have outsized impact on outcomes.

Kenya’s economy has been hard hit in recent days with high cost of energy, unpredictable taxes and weakening of the shilling consequently driving up the cost of living.

According to Dr Olaka, most of the shocks that have hit the Kenyan economy are externally driven and authorities need to build defensive mechanisms to take in these shocks.

“I think that the critical thing will be for the managers of our economy to be more alert to the fact that it is not just the domestic factors that are within your control, but there are factors that will come as shocks,” he said adding that there Is need for development of buffers against those shocks, failure to which, Kenya may lack the right tools when the shocks come.

How to retire as a farmer

He would have had a chance at implementing such policies had he been selected for a role as regulator, but he had missed the chance. President William Ruto picked the current CBK head of banking supervision, Gerald Nyaoma, as the second deputy governor instead.

But Dr Olaka has no regrets, in fact, he reveals that he had applied for the job before he tasted retirement.

“I applied for the CBK deputy governor’s position while still at KBA about one and half years ago,” he said.

With 2 homes, Olaka has settled in Kitale, away from his ancestral home in Kakamega. He says Kitale is his retirement home and they are doing some investments there. He is planning to devote more time to his 16 acres of coffee bushes in Kitale, and says he will get into proper control of the coffee to ensure they get 90 percent of their coffee through direct sales. This has meant being directly involved, ensuring he puts processes in place that will guarantee the quality, and hopefully inspire his children to become the second generation of coffee farmers.

He said he did not actually consider himself entirely retired since he only changed clients He said as he sat today, there are a number of boards that have expressed interest for him to join their boards. Incidentally, he is the one picking and rejecting some, so that he has enough and not too much on his plate.

Him being a professional canon, means he works for the church in terms of leadership and financial management. I use my skills to support our diocese. As a canon I provide support to the bishop in terms of being the advisory body,” he said.

“I also try to devote a bit of time to church, I have got my church in Nairobi, Butere, Kitale where I stay and a church where I was born.”

Too much time for leisure

For Dr. Olaka, having a clear picture of what to do at retirement is, “at least for me I had a picture of the things I wanted to do. I am driving myself to ensure that those things are within my box”.

As he transitions to retirement, Dr Olaka says he is proud to have exposed himself to so many different things.

While juggling many roles in different capacities, Dr Olaka finds some spare time to spend on the fairway.

“I spent my free time playing golf, not only to keep fit but also to challenge myself; Golf is a very interesting game, each round is never the same, you are actually competing against yourself, and that is what life is all about”.

As he reflects on his retirement bucket list, Dr. Olaka says, he does not dislike traveling, however, “the problem is that I get bored really quickly, especially if it is the same routine”.