Rina Karina - Hicks is the Operations & HR Director at Faida Investment Bank in Nairobi. She formerly served as a Board Member of the Youth Enterprise Development Fund and Enablis East Africa. Rina who is married and is a mother, passionately believes in the entrepreneurial development of African youth, and abhors apathy. In her view the youth and middleclass MUST engage in order to experience change in this country and on this continent.  Rina is involved in assisting investors to find viable investment opportunities

How can I become a cheetah chick as well?
For girls and women who have big dreams, I would suggest and recommend that you don’t think lower than you are. 
As women and girls we have a problem. We have a tendency of looking down on ourselves and thinking I can’t handle this, there are better people than me who can do this. I think it’s important to see yourself as how God sees you. 
Everybody was born with a WOW-factor. And it’s important that you find that WOW-factor. And don’t compare yourself with anybody else. That’s what we girls do a lot.

Just know what your WOW factor is. You learn it from people always commenting on things that you do always really easily and really well. Put yourself into it and don’t be ashamed about it. Just be excited about it, even if its not something that is IN. Do it because you’re passionate about it. 
If it is in a field that is male dominated, similar to mine, I think you need to be who you are.
One of the things I would disencourage women to do is to act like men. Or trying to do things the way men do them. We have a specific purpose as women to serve in whatever capacity that we’re in. So don’t try and be like a man to be able to fit in, or to try and accomplish it the way men have done it. Do it the way you want to do it, with your motherly, naturally nature that you have. 

I have a great idea, can you invest in it please?
No it doesn’t work that way. It you have a good idea you come and sit and we talk what the idea is about. Do you understand what kind of idea you have? How do you expect to implement it? In a sense that how will it work? Who are your clientele? Understand what your businessplan is, really. And see if it’s viable. Because you have to look at it from an investors point of view. Is this something an investor would want to invest in at all or not?
And if it does have potential then we can advice on the best way to go about it.

What advice would you like to share with me?
As far as career development is concerned, one thing a mentor asked me to do is, start from when you’re 28 and draw a timeline with 7 years apart.  Think about where exactly you want to be every 7 years. So at 28 where do you want to be, at 35, at 42. Until I am 84. 
One of the things that really shocked me was that the timeline was really short, between 28 and 84. So it got me thinking, O my goodness. If I want a baby, a house, a husband, a mortgage and a career, I don’t have time. 
So I would advice for somebody to sit down and think about what they want. What is the ideal career, or ideal thing they want to accomplish? And then draw the timeline. Cause that will actually put things in perspective. How much time do I have and what can I realistically accomplish?

What steps do I take if I have a great idea?
If you have an idea, write it down. That’s the first tip I would give you. Cause when you write something down there’s a tendency of actually thinking more about it. You will then start to think okay, who will I sell this to, how is it going to work, how is it going to make money? And so forth. When it’s in your mind there’s a tendency to just dream and not be real in terms of how will it work in reality. When you write it down, there’s a sense of responsibility that you take.