Terry Mungai

Barely two decades after winning the Miss Kenya title, Terry Mungai is bent on helping change the East African beauty pageants from a meat market and bar-man’s show to serious business, Bobastles Owino Nondih has the story.

Terry Mungai, the 1982 Miss Kenya beauty queen, is busy adding more feathers to her crown. Director of Ashleys Hair and Beauty Academy, 44-year-old Mungai is franchise owner of Miss World Kenya, and Miss Teens World Kenya. The career marketer who rose through the ranks in various companies only to quit as sales manager and head of finance unit at Diners Club, knows the value of professional grooming. When she got wind that Queens Salon on Standard Street, Nairobi, was being sold, she bought it and embarked on innovations that would inject professionalism into the beauty business.

She later sold Queens Salon to pave the way for a new outfit, Ashleys Hair & Beauty Salon & Executive Barbershop, now occupying third and fourth floors of Kenwood House on Kimathi Street in the heart of Nairobi. She entered into a deal with Kenya School of Hairdressing and Hair Care Academy where two and four top candidates from both institutions respectively joined Ashleys Salon. These were again taken methodically through practical hair and beauty treatment, finally having an almost faultless team of hairdressers and beauticians. Barely two months after commencing operations, Ashleys won Revlon International Award in Hair Design. Ashleys not only serves cabinet ministers and three quarters of the current 9th Parliament, but has also groomed musicians like Koffi Olomide, Wenge Musica, Le General Defao, Kool & the Gang, and South African international film star of Sarafina fame, Leleti Khumalo. In 1998, Ashleys became the assisting salon for the M-Net Face of Africa and was the official hairdressers for Miss World Kenya in 1999 and 2001

Three years ago, Mungai launched Ashleys Hair & Beauty Academy to supply the expanding beauty market with experts. It has since churned out 300 grandaunts with 90% of them working in reputable salons and hotels all over Kenya. The academy now offers City & Guilds Diploma courses in Beauty Therapy, Hairdressing, Modelling and Salon Management. Having set the pace, many colleges have come up creating a fresh demand for tutors. Instead of seeing this as competition, Ashleys has now started a tutorial course for students who would not want to work in salons and/or hotels, equipping them with teaching skills to meet these demands. The year 2003 saw Mrs Mungai become the franchise holder of Miss World Kenya. This, however, turned out to be Mrs Mungai’s most expensive business venture and the lowest point in her enterprise.

“Beauty pageant in Kenya were in the gutters and people had a very negative attitude about it. Merging it with a school of integrity was bound to cause a stir with our esteemed customers, students and their guardians,” Mungai says. “It was just a couple of months to the finals of Miss Kenya and getting sponsors was not easy. At the end of it the company was down KSh4.5 million (about US$56250),” she says. Mrs Mungai says her aim is to turn beauty pageants into a serious business loved and supported by families “unlike the days when it was a meat market and a bar-man’s show.” In 1982, Mungai was one of the many girls handpicked from the audience to make up for a shoddily organised Miss Nakuru contest that had witnessed poor registration of contestants.

She was to beat all the girls through to national finals and, to her surprise, clinched the Kenya crown. Mungai’s time appears to be planned to detail. “I wake up at about five to help prepare my children Chiru, 7, and Brian, 11, both who go to Rusinga School. Then I prepare myself and leave for work at about quarter to seven to be in the office by about quarter to eight. By eight sharp I have ensured that all is well at the salon and barbershop across the street, and the academy and administration before joining the entire staff for morning glory.” It is after the 40-minute morning prayers that she embarks on reports, sponsorships, programmes for the reigning queen and other publicity, marketing and administration work, with a typical office day ending at 6 pm.

Third in a family of four children, Mungai was born in Thika. She says her towers of strength are her mother—Beth Wangari Njoroge—who brought them up with earnings from butchery business following the death of their father when she was only three—and her husband. What has Terry Mungai learnt through her progressive journey? “I have learnt that there is no challenge bigger than our ability. Once you have a goal, just go for it. God makes our dreams come true,” she says.

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