Jacaranda Health, a leading multinational healthcare provider has taken a major administrative restructuring to cope with her ever expanding presence in the African continent with at least 1300 facilities in three countries.
The move comes after the group appointed the country director Cynthia Kahumbura to the position of Executive Director, alongside colleagues Nick Pearson and Sathy Rajasekharan who four years ago joined the team as the Director of Operations during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Cynthia was instrumental in advancing the organization’s scale trajectory from barely 100 to over 1,300 facilities across 22 counties, and three countries in 2024.
Her promotion to Co-Executive Director reflects the new strategic positioning as a global organization, while affirming a continued emphasis on scaling nationally in Kenya.
In her acceptance speech following her appointment Cynthia explains that her new role was aligning with and driving forward the national Universal Health Coverage (UHC) agenda to ensure the programs were adopted within the wider health system for posterity.
She declared her resolve to advocate for the inclusion of women’s voices in matters health and guarantee that their feedback translates to action at the county level.
‘We have the privilege at Jacaranda of giving people who wouldn’t otherwise have a voice in the health system a channel to influence decisions right at the top.’ she says.
Cynthia observed that feedback system through the PROMPTS was a game-changer inreal-life improvements in a certain facility stories from our field team citing the mother’
‘Stories like a frontline nurse being trained on postpartum hemorrhage one week and then saving a life the next, or how a mother’s feedback via It inspires me every day as our team grew from 45 to more than 100 facilities but maintained a true on-the-ground presence” she said.
Currently at least 95% of Jacaranda’s staff are based in Kenya, with five new Ghanaian recruits to spearhead operations in the west African country where more than 70% of the management team are women.
By Wangari Ndirangu
