LIMRA AIAM — Africa First

In May 2016, I became the first person on the African continent to qualify as a LIMRA Associate Insurance Agency Manager.

I want to explain why that matters — because LIMRA is not a certificate you frame and forget.

LIMRA is the Life Insurance Marketing and Research Association — a global body that has spent over a century researching what actually makes insurance agency forces succeed. The AIAM designation covers the disciplines that most sales leaders learn through trial and error over decades:

— How to recruit agents who will last, not just agents who will start — How to structure training that changes behaviour, not just knowledge — How to build performance frameworks that motivate rather than punish — How to develop Unit Managers into leaders, not just supervisors — How to make an agency channel profitable and sustainable over time

When I sat for that qualification, I was already Head of Direct Sales Force at APA Insurance. I was not doing it for a promotion. I was doing it because I wanted to test everything I thought I knew against the best global research available.

It changed how I lead.

The systems and people-development frameworks built on those LIMRA principles contributed directly to what followed: AKI Company of the Year in 2018. Again in 2021. Again in 2023. And again in 2024.

Four national titles. No other general insurer in Kenya has done that.

Africa has some of the most talented insurance professionals in the world. We deserve access to the best global thinking. I hope being first opens the door for others across the continent to follow.