Managing a Business Unit in East Africa: Leadership and Cultural Mediation

After a few years at the German head office, the position of director of Healthcare & Scientific demanded a permanent move to Kenya to further expand the project business while being closer to the key markets. The position included managing the East African sales teams and the back-office team in Germany remotely. The challenges in this constellation were in the realms of communication, mediation and in bridging gaps between different understandings, approaches to doing business and cultural backgrounds. The leadership style had to be adapted to a multicultural environment and to cooperation across two continents. Besides the dos and don’ts of leadership in East Africa, I learned a lot about different approaches, different perspectives, and especially about cultural diversity. The experiences shared in this report refer to the business unit Healthcare & Scientific in the time between 2013 and 2020.