The proverbial glass ceiling effect has nothing on Dr. Elizabeth Mary Okello. She shatters it unprovoked and every time her name is mentioned, brilliance and excellence come to mind.

She was born into one of the country’s most influential families dominating in politics, engineering, medicine as well as other trades. That notwithstanding, it is safe to say that she has grown to be a force to reckon with and is an excellent entrepreneur.

For the longest time, Mary has been a household name, having made history as the first female bank manager in Kenya in 1977 at Barclays Bank of Kenya, now Absa. It is then that she started a mentorship programme, then dubbed the Barclays Bank Women’s Association, whose aim was to mentor, empower, enlighten, and encourage women to show up and stand up for themselves.

The association laid the ground for her to later partner with other women to establish the Kenya Women’s Finance Trust (KWFT), which now has many affiliates with the aim of empowering women financially.

Later on in 1985, she became the first African regional representative to the Women’s World Banking Organization (WWB). Come 1987, she was appointed to the Africa Development Bank as a senior advisor to the bank’s president. “One of the things I was assigned to do was to prepare a policy that was to help the then 52 African countries make sure that women have access to capital as well as access to decision making which I’m glad to say they adopted,” she says.

Mary has always had a solid grasp on how the system works and all through her career, she has strived to help others understand the challenges they face especially at the workplace and how they can improve themselves. “I always say that I hold a ladder for other women to climb up and I say this with a lot of confidence because when I was the first woman bank manager in the country, at that time, other women were in the bank but as tea makers, clerks and cashiers. Today, I am very proud to say that there are very many women managers in banks, even on boards.”

In 1990, she was appointed the Vice-President of the Women’s World Banking based in New York, a role that is no mean feat and later took a sabbatical leave in 1992 to focus on Makini School which she and her husband, the late Pius Okello, founded in 1978.

Makini School, formerly known as Riara Gardens Academy, was the couple’s brainchild and over the years, the learning institution has grown into a reputable institution with a chain of schools including Makini Cambridge, Makini Ngong Road Campus (pre and primary school), Makini Ngong Road Campus – High School, Makini Junior Academy, State Avenue (pre and lower primary), Makini Junior School Migosi, Makini School Kibos and Makini School Kisumu.

After a resounding 40 years of successfully building and managing one of Kenya’s best learning institutions, she surrendered the management of Makini schools to UK-based investor Scholé Limited and South Africa’s Johannesburg Stock Exchange-listed Advtech in 2018 for close to Kshs1 billion from the sale of a 71% stake.

Mary has since retired and relocated to her home in Kisumu and could not be happier. “I am retired and I am very busy, I am busier than I was. I didn’t know retirement could be busy,” she says gleefully.

Mary, the gift that keeps on giving, is now a professional mediator. After her retirement, she enrolled for a short course in mediation and she’s currently putting those useful skills to work by spending a lot of time resolving issues amongst people in her community. She, however, leans more towards mediating for widows, owing to the fact that she is a widow herself.

“People call me to mediate at family level, and sometimes at business level, but my heart leans towards widows because I am a widow myself and sometimes they suffer in silence from the many things they go through when their husbands die. I like spending time encouraging them and to find ways in which I can make life better for them and to give them hope that they will also overcome,” she says.

For many retirees, the circumstances of retiring and how life looks like afterwards are very different. Comments like ‘you’ll go crazy’ in retirement are not hard to come by and this is mainly because people are not intentional about preparing for retirement or they are just ignorant.

For enlightened people like Mary and being the achiever that she is, she claims to have always been keen on financial stability, and started investing for her retirement early in her career days.

“There is no excuse now as there is a lot of information out there on how to invest, how to save, and how to create wealth. Start saving and investing now for your old age because that is the time you need money the most. You must have money in order to live,” she adds.

The Alliance Girls’ High School alumna also urges young people to remain focused and strive to acquire financial freedom by being intentional about preparing for retirement. “There is nothing as bad as retiring when you have no means of survival. When you retire, you have many needs because you need to buy food, your medicines and supplements,” she adds.

Parents planning to depend on their children in the future for financial support is also something that she frowns upon, saying that even those children have their own needs and their own children to look after.

Regardless, she has learned how to enjoy retirement. She grows her own food, rears her animals and takes a swim in her pool in the mornings. She is also proud and grateful to have been given a leadership position to serve in her church. “I go out spreading the word and I thank God for that opportunity.”

According to Mary, she hopes for a future with a system that supports women because they start off from a disadvantaged position in the society which is very patriarchal. “Women are now taking big risks in standing for elective positions. We need to support them, pray for them, and encourage them” she concludes.