If you are a Kenyan and moreso a football fan then no doubt you have heard this name“Sportpesa" several times.
Now, do you happen to have a slight idea of the workforce behind this multi-million making company? For any company to register good performance then there must be good brains working in it.
Now Ronald Karauri is the CEO of Sportpesa a betting company that was incorporated as a Limited Liability Company on the 23rd of January, 2012. He is also a former Airline Captain at Kenya Airways.
He did his primary education at Harambee Primary school in Buruburu and later joined Mangu High school for his secondary education.
He finished his O level education in the year 1996, scoring an A- in KSCE, a grade that earned him a slot at the University of Nairobi to pursue mechanical engineering. In February 2015 he was appointed CEO of sportpesa.
“I’m a poker player who loves the Texas Hold’em (game). One day at a casino, a friend in the gaming industry came up with the idea and I said I was interested and would like to partner with him,”
To ignite the business into motion, Karauri placed a bet of Sh25 million, proceeds from a parcel of land he had purchased for Sh2 million — it appears he won his jackpot before he ever handed a check to a SportPesa jackpot winner.
“I own six percent of SportPesa. We have a number of local and foreign shareholders,” he confides.
At the helm of SportPesa, he has turned the company’s fortunes around. The firm is now mulling over being listed at the Nairobi bourse — the company having remitted to the taxman over Sh1.6 billion in taxes last year alone compared to Sh800million in the corresponding year.
SportPesa has over two million registered users and has employed over 250 staff, most of them youth.
“My passion is sports development, to achieve the goals we have set,” shares a confident Karauri. Karauri is married with two kids; a son and a daughter.
He is definitely making it in a great and special way.