Helen Gichohi

Helen Wanjiru Gichohi is a Kenyan ecologist who was President of the African Wildlife Foundation (AWF) from 2007 to 2013.

Education

Helen Gichohi was born into an agricultural community in central Kenya. She earned a Bachelor of Science degree in zoology from Kenyatta University and a Master of Science degree in biology of Conservation from University of Nairobi. She went on to the University of Leicester, where she gained a PhD degree in ecology. She has said that she drifted into ecology, partly because she much preferred to work outdoors than inside in a laboratory. She became Director of the African Conservation Centre (ACC), supported by Wildlife Conservation Society. As of 2011 she was a member of the Local Advisory Committee in Kenya of the Global Give Back Circle. She was a member of board of trustees of the Kenya Land Conservation Trust and of Beads for Education, a non-profit organisation that helps mothers earn money to send their daughters to school. She was a board member of the Equity Bank Kenya, which started as a building society, later becoming a microfinance institution and then a full-fledged commercial bank.