Alexander Kyokwijuka was born in the southwestern district of Kabale in Kigarama Maziba sub-county, In 1997 when he reached school-going age, he was registered at Kigarama Primary school for his primary education; later on in 2001, he went to St Joseph Primary school Kyabiruka in Isingiro district. For his O-level Kyokwijuka went to St Joseph Vocational school in Mbarara and St. Charles Lwanga Kasasa for his A-levels. After which he joined Makerere University and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Education. He later did a diploma in Human Resource Management at Management Training and Advisory Centre (MTAC) Nakawa, he is currently pursuing a Master’s Degree in Business Administration and Management focusing on Public sector Management.
Kwokwijuka was later employed by MTAC as a marketing and communications Manager. He also went to Kenyatta University in Nairobi Kenya for a leadership training course in transformative leadership, among other leadership programs including the Obama young African leaders’ initiative. He is a business consultant, market consultancy, writer, public speaking and community development initiatives. Kyokwijuka says he is better understood as a humble citizen with the tag line “a humble citizen from Kigarama.” “I appreciate my roots in Kigarama having been raised in a humble family, not that we did not know how to fight back if someone attacked us but our parents were not so well off,” he said. He added that losing his parents at a young age taught him to be humble which helped shape his opinion about life.
In 2018, Kyokwijuka founded a consultancy firm known as Brookings Institute, it analyzes people’s training needs and designs training packages that respond to their needs as a way of satisfying them. Having worked with many educational institutions, Kyokwijuka said that he realized that there were many educated people who lack life skills: “So I started the Brookings Institute to make sure that people get these customized services to help them in their work life.”
The Institute also offers assistance to people interested in starting businesses, whereby they teach them how to maintain and sustain a business so that they can be able to grow and manage them. He has written a book titled, “How to start a business in 10 days” this book he says will help people interested in starting up businesses.
He says, “I wrote this book because people find it challenging opening businesses because they start in a way that is not sustainable. Some people start businesses because they want to make and eat money, some others start a business because they have seen someone start a business, and some others do because they think they have money.” He explained that the reason why most Ugandan businesses do not live to see their fifth birthday is because of a lack of a good business plan. He also stated that not everyone can start a business because of different strengths and weaknesses.
Kyokwijuka further explained that for a business venture to be successful, it must have a blueprint and a business plan, and he says that the best way to start a business is by identifying a need in society and designing a product that responds to that need that is going to offer satisfaction to the customers.
He advised people with business ideas never to borrow money to start a business, but it is unhealthy in the business sense, as he added; “It is only advisable to borrow when expanding a business because borrowing comes with the responsibility of paying, and when you borrow when you don’t have the source of money to repay the loan, it can become challenging to repay the loan which will affect the business.”
“At the end of the day it is about you appreciating that people have needs, and you can only make money by making these goods and services available to them to satisfy their needs and they will pay you,” he said. Kyokwijuka has a favorite life quote that keeps him going and it is, “There is nothing that can beat a humble effort with great love, commitment and passion.”
By Moses Oketayot
