Most who know Aly Khan Satchu, or Aly Khan as he is popularly known, know that he is one of the best minds on Kenya’s financial markets and trading floors. Having established his skills early in life, he relocated back to Kenya, and he has made a significant difference in the business world. And he’s not yet 50!
Seemingly quiet and reserved, he sometimes does crack a smile and laughs. We speak to him about his transition to Kenya, his life here, and the financial markets that might seem comfounding to many Kenyans – child’s play to him.
Tell us, in your own words, who is Aly Khan? We know of the financial guru and market pundit..
Oh goodness. I think I’m still finding that out.
Why is that?
I think life’s a journey and you’re always growing and finding out more. I’ve had several journeys in my life. Well, I’m from Mombasa, my starting point was there. And then I went to London, where I was based for my schooling and for most of my working life. And then I came back home five years ago and that was another journey. Within one single journey I’ve had several parts.
Who am I? I’m a Kenyan Indian who was educated in Britain – I’d like to think I’m a citizen of the world.
Why did you choose to move back to Kenya?
For many reasons – from a personal point of view. I was very close to my mother and she passed away and in some deep way was looking for closure in that relationship. That was a driver which maybe I didn’t recognize then but I recognize now. And then I was working in the city, from the time I had started working, for many years. I was reaching 40 and I wanted something different to what I had many years; which I’m entirely grateful for- which allowed me to earn enough money to keep myself in a good situation. I was very senior early on, at 28, managing billions of dollars – much more than the treasury would be handling here. And I had a lot of responsibility, and I had this sort of incredible life. Initially I came back not because of any dominant African theory, but because I knew I could be connected from anywhere in the world and it might as well be in Mombasa.
You can finally do that here…
Well, I couldn’t do it initially you couldn’t get the internet – to get connected I had to build a 150ft tower. And this guy who came to me asked me if I was drilling oil and I told him as long as I can trade oil otherwise I’ll never know what’s happening! I also had a strong belief that Africa was going to take off. Many people have waited for this to happen including generations of families. I knew it was going to happen and it wasn’t going to stop. I would say I was probably the biggest Afro Optimist in between 1 billion but that’s because I believe in the future of Africa. And I’m glad I’m back.
I had to change my outlook – I had worked for big organizations before, with a different overview and different mindset; I had to think differently, I had to acclimatize myself back to working for myself and working in Africa and get out of my comfort zone.
So it was part fate and part luck?
I believe it’s a dual thing and a positive force we can all plug in to. My mom gave me some advice – first you have to visualize what you want. And I believe that; you shape your environment with your behavior and force your personality and yourself to make an impact. If you’re depressed or unhappy it doesn’t work cause it feeds into other people. I believe in serendipity and that you can shape your life.
The law of attraction – you attract what you put out.
Yes, I believe in that. I think the universe is complex and we only know a part of it. For example there are times I’ve been in the room with great minds – Bill Gates, King Hussein of Jordan, and it seemed like fate had brought me there. And they’ve been right there because I’ve been waiting for something. The fact is that it was an opportunity for me to do something that I was waiting for – 9 out of 10 times I will do it.
When I look back, I think it’s part luck, it’s part how you react, and part what vibes you put out. This is what I love about social media: it’s so fast, it’s so quick with reflex responses, and they show their character quickly. That’s because they don’t stop and think, and they’re saying it in a very personal way.
Were you always into finance and money?
Yes I think I was. My dad used to buy the Sunday times and the Economist. I read those from a very young age. And one of the things I used to love is to read the back with the stock markets and projections of growths and currencies. I would play with myself and think that this is going to happen, then I would go back and check it – without realizing exactly what I was doing would be what I would be doing now.
And I enjoyed that – I always did. Even though I did law in university, I loved banking and investment trading. I think the world is like a competition and you can test your thoughts over something that is real. Over time you get pretty good at it. I was doing it without knowing it.
When I did law in university, I was doing it because my dad told me not to do it. And that was the last time I did that, it was a childish gesture. I was glad I did do it later on though because it gave me a way of thinking in business especially since you often have to deal with lawyers.
Where did you start your career from?
I started off in the back office of the back office at Credit Suisse. I was down there, started off pretty low, and it helped me understand the workings of the bank. Obviously I wasn’t interested in remaining there, and one day I had to get the Vice Chairman to sign a document, his name was Johan…. 6’3, European, extremely good looking, smoked cigars, and smelled like 20 million dollars – he looked the exact part of a banking boss. So when I got him to sign the document I asked him for 5 minutes and he listened to my story. I thought nothing would happen and I went back to my back office. A week later he wrote this letter to 7 people, and soon enough I was called by this guy called Bob Diamond – who even back then was quite a character. He was the head of Barclays Bank, globally. Everyone had looked me up and researched me wondering why Johan had written this glowing letter. And I said to Bob, ‘how much does this guy cost you – more than a million bucks. And if I can’t make it work in this position, it’s going to cost you what, less than 4 pounds an hour. Basically nothing.’ And that made sense to him, he took me on, and really my career started off there on the trading floor. Within 3 months someone had quit their job, and he offered me the position in Emerging Markets. Back then they didn’t know exactly what to do with it. In a few months I had turned it around into a multimillion dollar business from areas like Latin America. We did things like lend countries money – like the central bank of Argentina needed 300 million dollars. We made that kind of business possible.
From there I took a group to Sumi Tomo bank, a team of the best. Looking back, the environment at Credit Suisse was the best, they had global reach, and they had capital and capacity for growth. I had just gotten married – 1995. We had an interesting time at Sumi Tomo. First week we had more than 5million dollar growth. And in the next month, we were down 5 again. I fought to keep going and made the right gambles, hanging on and not selling off. Lucky the markets rebounded and we made great profits. Anyway, I worked there, and it was successful. From there I went to Dresden bank.
By then I had been in banking and trading for more than 20 years. I wanted a change and I came back to Mombasa to kind of gather my thoughts. I traded markets for a living, from Mombasa at the NSE, and it was kind of not working. Given the costs of travel all the time via air, and the time I had to spend here. I opted to then move to Nairobi, because the traders would not do what you asked them, they wouldn’t give you the right information, and it was frustrating and not efficient for me.
So when I moved here, I asked myself how I would meet the great business minds, and I opted to write a book. I called up everyone I could think of, and some of them gave me some time. Others who didn’t got upset later on because I didn’t have them in the book, but they had refused to give me time.
Nairobi had changed somewhat – I had grown up here, at Kenton School back then. Initially I wanted to trade in the stock exchange, but I ended up doing much more. Someone asked me to create a website with data, and I ended up trading data. For the overseas market this was great because no one then traded market data. I was fortunate enough to know what to do – anyone back then would have probably seen it as a black hole and wouldn’t have invested in it. The internet hadn’t really taken off and I had to fund all of it. It was a portal to the world to me as well.
How did Mindspeak start?
Well, Nu Metro asked me to talk about my book at their book club. We just did it once, and after that we decided to start a business club. It’s now been on for 4 years, from the Junction, to Westgate, and now to the Michael Joseph Center. We had to keep it going – I was funding it and finding the persons to come and talk. It’s a great forum and we have great business minds being accessible to the public like they never would be.
And then taking Mindspeak on Social Media – Twitter has really driven the numbers and the interest.
You kind of tweet a lot…
You know if I don’t tweet I miss more than 1200 people to redirect to my website, and to pass information to. I’m not relying on traditional media or a third party to get my business out. It’s given me ownership. I’ve been on twitter for a long time – 18 months. It’s an extension of my business and it has great impact for me. It’s not the same as Facebook – that’s more like a personal storyboard, and it didn’t blow up for business like Twitter did. I found it a bit more intrusive too. On Twitter I can share more stuff and control what I put out. I also had to pick and choose one forum, and I preferred to use Twitter.
What’s your normal work day like? Do you ever stop working?
From the time I worked in the city I worked hard, and I used to be at work at 6.30, half 7. I like being busy. There’s a place where one is busy and I like it, and when I’m not busy I hate it. I get up at around 5.30am, at my desk by 7am. I sort of crank up my systems and find out what’s going on in the market – depending on what I’m trading. If I’m trading heavily I’ll be checking in all night, 2am, 4am, and I can be a nightmare. I then basically put together this email which goes out to a readership of about 4,000 – and it’s interesting who reads. It’s kind of gone viral.
It must contain good information for all those people to want it?
Well yes, I try and mix it up and I think it’s been useful for them. I try to connect stuff up – the business and what’s happening on the ground – the price of crude oil, the stock market figures, Gadhafi…
Well if I’ve got stuff to do on the market I do that till around noon. Then do things like check my Twitter account and other connectors. Then sometimes I have meetings and interviews, and work to do about the business. Then finish about 6pm or 6.30pm and go home. From there I’m attached to my laptop – my wife calls it my ‘lovetop’ [laughs] and says I have an ongoing affair with it.
We have this perception that a great business trader like you would have an office filled with 10 screens with glittering numbers running up and downs and phones ringing off the hook… your office is quite small and simple!
You don’t need them now. Well, I keep it all on one computer, but with lots of tabs open on the internet. But yes, technology has made things a lot easier. From here I’m plugged in to a lot of networks and stuff.
Do you have kids?
I have 3 daughters, 13, 12 and 5. Two were born in London and one in Mombasa – I love them and they have quite different personalities. I found that moving here meant that I have more time with my family, and moving to Kenya was the right thing for us. The lifestyle change is really great.
When you’re not working, do you ever relax?
Does he ever relax? [Redirecting question to his wife Nishet, who has been quietly working in the room all this time]
Nishet: Not really. [laughs]. We socialize, get out, find places to go and hang out with our friends.
Aly Khan: I like to get out, I like the scenery, and I drive around a lot. I find it relaxing to get out of Nairobi. The most relaxing time for me is to jump into the car over the weekend with the family and go somewhere. Then there’s the social scene in Nairobi, we get around and about a little bit. I read a lot, yeah.
Your Mindspeak Event with Museveni… what were your thoughts about bringing him here? And the coincidence with what happened with Besigye, what do you think about that?
Purely from a business platform, I knew it would put Mindspeak on the map. I had a few thoughts about it – I was looking at it from a dialoguing aspect, which is essentially what Mindspeak is about. I remember being in Turkey many years ago, and there’s this famous Sufi fellow called Rumi. And when you enter this temple, there’s a saying on it “We’re a caravan of hope, not a caravan of despair. Come. Come, whoever you are”. This thing struck me. My theory is that I’m not one to stop people from coming, it’s more allowing them to come and share their view and everything is better when everyone speaks in a civilized manner. Plus it allows people to get up close to the real deal – whether it’s Bob Collymore or Museveni – I’m going to produce them.
Also my audience is wonderful. What really flatters me is when the speakers come up and say ‘wow, I really didn’t expect an audience like that’. We’ve had really intelligent people in the crowd and they challenge the speakers.
With Museveni, I had written a lucky letter to him among several people. And initially when he said yes, I was surprised. And I didn’t think he would come. Really. I got this phone call about 12 days before – I still wasn’t advertising about it as such, and I was getting this kind of backlash from twitter that was kind of depressing. And downstairs was this protocol team. And for the next 6 days or so, it was a whirlwind. I couldn’t get onto the phone to update what was happening, or on Twitter. From that Tuesday to Saturday when Mindspeak happened, I was busy – negotiating space, checking security, checking protocol – I didn’t get a chance to think about it really. And I was watching anxiously because he might not show up. It was a tipping point for me, and I was very happy with how it turned out. I’ve got my own views on Besigye, but he’s a head of state, and it’s not my place to shout out my questions and observations to him. I just wanted it to work out, and I had great audience – You guys, the CEOs, Ambassadors and even my dad!
When you came back to Kenya, I guess it helps that you knew your niche and you had the skills and knowledge?
Yes, that’s right. I had the right tools and experience. I’ve met others who’ve done it but not quite successfully. I think also people hadn’t worked out that there was a demand for an analysis of what was happening here. We’ve entered an information age and it is key in business. Wherever you go, and you buy a newspaper, there’s a group of people hanging by the newsstand – we’re consumers of information, and part of that is demanding business information. Now people are more willing to look at the financial markets
Back then it was kind of a blurred area
Yes, its’ the same thing from the shop keeper to the CEO to the stock broker. It’s essentially the same for all of us, just different trading platforms.
What do you see as the future for Kenya’s financial markets?
I think it’s about how we make it work for us. We’ve missed a few chances, big opportunities. But we have a really good chance and we need to grab it. We need to think as a team. If there are 30 people in a room, and he can get out if he leaves 5 minutes before that, if in a Kenyan situation, he goes out immediately he can. A bit like how we drive – watch how people behave at a roundabout! We need to get on board the same team and move together – no one should be left behind. Otherwise it’s not going to succeed. It can be sometimes frustrating; when doing business the situation on the ground is not what you think it is, and it kind of throws you off. But we need to deal with it and make business easier. We have this wonderful stock market that boomed and was bringing in all these new investors. But it was badly handled – people were left nursing losses, brokerages collapsed. And I hope we learned our lessons.
Long story short, Africa’s story is positive. There’s huge possibilities for us. I feel fortunate that I came back to Kenya at the time I did. It’s allowed to position me in a way that surprises even me. It’s more difficult to establish yourself by just coming back here.
Adopted from the Vibeweekly