Kendi Ntwiga’s meteoric ascension in global technological circles is a real grass-roots success tale.
Meta, which owns Facebook, Whatsapp, and other social media sites, appointed her as the Global Head of Misrepresentation in June 2022.
Ntwiga, who began her new post in May, is entrusted with directing the social media giant’s Misrepresentation team, which aims to scale its Meta’s enforcement of community standards across Facebook, Instagram and Whatsapp.
The post, which will be based in Ireland, places her among the most prominent women working in the technology business today.
Ntwiga’s path to success, however, has not been easy since she was a youngster on her parents’ farm in Embu, where her responsibilities included fetching firewood and water.
She explained that the decision to return to the village from Embu town was required since her father re-enrolled in school to study computer science, which stressed the family’s finances.
“She thought that the best idea, ‘Let’s get out of this town where we are struggling to make ends meet and go to the village,” she said.
After finishing high school, Ntwiga dreamed of relocating to the city to make a better life for herself; her tenacity and hard work paid off.
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Her father’s enrollment in the field and the joy he gained from completing his codes sparked her interest in technology.
“He spoke with so much admiration and he made me love it. At that point, in my teenage years I knew there and then I wanted to study computer science,” she stated.
Since then, Ntwiga has held key positions in a variety of multinational corporations, including Oracle and Microsoft.
Microsoft hired her as the Country Manager for the company’s operations in Kenya in January 2020, citing her discipline and IT expertise.
She has also worked for major technology companies like Hewlett Packard (HP), Oracle, Check Point Software Technologies and Intel.
Ntwiga’s work is so exceptional that she received the Oracle Excellence Award while at Oracle, which is given to the top 2% of the world’s finest performing employees.
She also developed She-Goes-Tech, a program that mentors young girls to pursue jobs in science and technology, with 3,100 participants as of 2019.
