Radhika Lee is the director of Nairobi International School, offering kindergarten, preparatory, middle school and senior school academics.
Growing up, Lee had a dream of having an impact on others and worked as a teacher for several years before setting up the school.
Despite facing numerous challenges including a troubled marriage, she has steered Nairobi International School to greater heights.
The institution which is located in the plush Lavington Estate offers British system education to more than 600 students and employs tens of people in its three campuses.
Here is Lee’s story as told by EAFeed.
Lee moved to Kenya in 1986, armed with her academic papers hoping to secure a job for herself.
Prior to relocating to Kenya, she had been working as a private college in India.
After settling in, Lee secured a teaching job in Mombasa but she later quit her job claiming that the environment was not favourable to her.
She transferred to a school in Ongata Rongai.
While she hoped that the new school would be better, the environment proved to be much worse than her previous location forcing her to quit again.
Lee stayed without a job for months before she was hired as an English teacher at Arya Samaj Schools where she spent four years.
During her time at the school, she was appointed the head of department of English and participated in the school’s music festivals.
After leaving Arya Samaj, Lee was hired at St. Austins Academy where she worked for a decade and a half.
She then transferred to Jafferey Academy where she served for four years.
After working as a teacher for more than two decades, Lee felt that it was time she started her own school but she faced some challenges.
At the time, she was in a rocky marriage and her bank refused to give her a loan because they felt the venture was too risky.
Lee was later introduced to GroFin, a venture capital that helped small medium sized companies with capital.
However, for one to get funding from the company, they had to register a company and partner with someone.
In this case, Lee was also asked her to raise at least Ksh 65 million out of Ksh 130 million that she needed to set up the school.
She decided to partner with her son and went back to India to mortgage her home in order to partly raise the money.
Thanks to her network, a number of parents from schools she had taught came forward and helped her raise the remaining amount.
With this done, GroFin helped her with the remaining amount, but before she could finalize everything, she faced a hurdle after some powerful people began fighting the establishment of the school.
However, Lee managed to deal with the disapproval challenge and opened the school in September 2008.
She published her autobiography, Rainbows in my clouds, in the November of 2015.
Additionally, Lee is the recipient of the 2020 BETT award for Women in Technology.
