EP 13: Kévine Kagirimpundu: On building UZURI K&Y- a household footwear brand, shaping the shoemaking industry in Rwanda, and expanding the business beyond borders.

In this week's episode, I sit down with entrepreneur extraordinaire, Kevine Kagirimpundu, to discuss her 10 year journey of building UZURI K&Y with her co-founder Ysolde Shimwe. We discuss the clarity she had to be in fashion early on even though she had scholarships to pursue other more socially acceptable paths. It has always been her mission to employ more women and create opportunities for those who might not naturally have many, and she now gets to live her mission through UZURI K&Y. UZURI K&Y is an eco-friendly footwear brand in Rwanda that employs 85 people and has physical and online stores and will be soon expanding to Nairobi, Kenya. Kévine obtained her degree in creative designs & environmental build from the University of Rwanda. She is also a graduate of Stanford Transformation Programme and INSEAD Executive Education. In 2022, Kévine was one of twelve graduates globally of the Milestone Makers is of the NASDAQ Entrepreneurship Center’s flagship program, providing individualized mentorship and executive coaching, as well as access to the Center’s vast network of industry experts.  In 2019, she emerged as a Top 10 finalist in the inaugural, Jack Ma Foundation's Africa's Business Heroes prize. This episode was a crash course in entrepreneurship covering topics such as co-founder relations, investment and expansion decisions, among others. I truly enjoyed this episode. I hope you do too and pass it on to a friend!