'I traded a glorious career in aviation to make sanitary pads'
Binti Pads co-Founder and CEO Lorna Wanjiku at her office on May 23, 2024.
What you need to know:
- Born and brought up in Nairobi, Lorna’s dream was to become a flight attendant.
- Eventually, she achieved her childhood dream, but was not prepared for the journey.
Lorna Joyce Wanjiku wears many hats. She is an agripreneur, a flight cabin crew leader with over 11 years of experience, and co-founder and CEO of Binti Marvel, a sanitary pads company.
“I founded Binti Marvel in May 2021, and we manufacture Binti Pads and panty liners. We started with four employees – a warehouse manager, three sales people, and myself. I used to be the driver, the accountant, social media manager, and the call centre for customer support," she says.
"That helped me understand the business from all aspects. We now have 25 employees working in various departments and we always include more women because this company is made by women for women.”
Born and brought up in Nairobi, Lorna’s dream was to become a flight attendant.
“This came after we went on a school trip to the airport. I saw the cabin crew looking beautiful, neat and organised as they pulled their suitcases, and I made up my mind to be like them when I grow up,” she remembers.
The firstborn in a home of two achieved her childhood dream, but she was not prepared for the journey.
“My dad was a police officer and my mother was a stay-at-home mum. I had one young brother. Life was great! We lived in a seven-room house provided by the government.
“When I joined Form One in 2006, my brother was admitted to the Kenyatta National Hospital (KNH). One day, as my dad was going to visit him and pay his hospital bill, he was attacked by thugs and killed. Two weeks later, my brother succumbed to the illness,” she says amid tears.
“We were kicked out of the government house. We did not have any possessions, and we soon found ourselves living with my mother’s sister in Mukuru kwa Reuben slums. Life there was difficult.
"All of a sudden I started lacking bus fare to go to school. My mother also struggled to pay my school fees. I resorted to doing my schoolmates’ hair and laundry to stay in school,” she says.
She loved being in school, as this gave her an escape from life in the slums. Lorna’s mother soon slipped into depression and turned to alcohol, and Lorna found herself taking care of her depressed mother as she juggled her studies.
“After completing high school, my dad’s pension was processed, and my mother told me to choose what I wanted to do with the money. I still dreamed of becoming a cabin crew, so I decided to enroll at Nairobi Aviation for the course.
“I commuted from Mukuru to the school, but my mother kept telling me that Mukuru was not the place for me. She urged me to work hard in school. Her condition was not getting any better, and I remember she called me in August 2010, right after I had joined the aviation school, and asked me what I would want her to do for me as she did not have much time left.
“I didn’t really understand what that meant, but I told her that because I had never celebrated a birthday since my dad’s demise, I wanted her to have a birthday party. She organised an extravagant 17th birthday celebration for me in October that year. Unfortunately, she died a few days later.
Left with no one to turn to, Lorna had to grow up fast. She moved from Mukuru to Umoja and rented a single room.
She would take up any available job to sustain herself, while updating her resume and taking it to Wilson Airport.
“One day I got a call from one of the airlines at Wilson and the person on the other end said they were tired of seeing my CV every other month. They called me for an interview, I got the job and that is how my aviation career began.
“But life with this airline wasn’t so glamorous. We weren’t flying to London or to the US like I had imagined, we were going to Somalia, Congo and other poor African countries where I met the harsh reality of the world.
"My first flights were to Dadaab and Kakuma refugee camps. Our job was to help refugees flee from war-torn areas. I learnt that life is very hard for many people out there. I enjoyed making a difference in people’s lives.”
With time Lorna grew in rank and became the head of in-flight.
“I had done so many courses and became a trainer. I was earning good money, but I wasn’t investing at all. One of my pilot friends, a farmer, told me to consider farming. Without much thought, I leased a huge piece of land in Nyeri. I suffered huge losses from that.”
As if that was not enough, in 2020, during Covid, she invested in planting cabbages. The prices dropped so sharply. She decided to donate the produce to slums instead of losing it all.
“This was a very fulfilling period. I would give people cabbage, and they would ask me, what more do you have to give us? This question always left me wanting to do more.
"A light-bulb moment happened in January 2021 when my friend and I watched a clip on social media of a woman from Machakos who was being molested by her father in exchange for sanitary pads.
“I partnered with my friend Beth Karagu who is in the USA, and together we developed the idea of making quality but affordable sanitary towels. We did our research and found out that most of the pads sold in Kenya were imported, so we are never sure of the quality.
“We also found out that the sanitary pad industry is male-dominated, which is ironic because men do not exactly know the discomfort that substandard pads can cause. Even at the research level, we faced challenges as people were not quite open to our local brand.”
Binti pads are available in Nairobi, Kiambu, Kajiado, Machakos and Mombasa. Their regular pads cost Sh75 and extra-long ones go for Sh95. Panty liners cost Sh190. They also donate and offer menstrual hygiene education to young girls.
In October 2023, Lorna resigned from her aviation job where she was Head of In-Flight with Air Traffic Airlines.
“Initially, we made 100,000 packets in 10 months but currently we are producing 100,000 packets a month,” she says.
