Hasmukh Dawda

Hasmukh Dawda is a businessman, entrepreneur, industrialist and philanthropist in Uganda and Kenya.

Background and education He was born in 1950 to a family of modest means, with ten other siblings, in Ndere Village, Siaya County, Kenya. He attended Ndere Primary School, but dropped out of school at age 13 because of an inability to pay school fees.

Career Forced to drop out of school, he went into business for himself, beginning with hawking confectionery. An Indian shopkeeper offered him a job at Sh150 per month. He was able to save and raise about KSh2,000, by the age of 19. He put that money as a down-payment on a KSh5,000 pickup truck, paying the balance in installments. He also opened a retail shop in his home village of Ndere. He has since established other companies in both Kenya and Uganda. In 2002, he used some of his assets in Uganda to buy House of Manji, a confectionery maker in Kenya that had failed. He pumped in money and revived the business.