Absa Bank Kenya has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Gen Z Connect by Executive Connect, pairing one of Kenya’s largest commercial banks with a fast growing youth network to put financial skills and business opportunities directly in front of young Kenyans.
The MoU was signed at an Executive Connect Leadership Forum in Nairobi. It runs for one year and sits within Absa’s NextGen offering under its Consumer Banking business, a product line the bank built specifically for young professionals and entrepreneurs.
What the Partnership Actually Delivers
The core commitment is a series of monthly sessions, co-created by both organisations, designed to give young professionals and entrepreneurs direct access to knowledge they can use immediately. Each session rotates through a distinct theme: personal leadership and mindset, financial literacy, entrepreneurship, career readiness, the future of work, digital finance and problem solving.
Co-branded activations and events launch in Nairobi first, with a planned expansion to Kisumu, Mombasa, Nakuru, Eldoret and Nyeri as the programme scales.
Mwihaki Wachira, Director of Marketing and Corporate Affairs at Absa Bank Kenya, connected the partnership to the bank’s broader purpose. “At Absa, we believe that empowering young people is not just an investment in individuals, but in the future of our economies. Through our collaboration with Gen Z Connect, we are creating pathways for the next generation of leaders, entrepreneurs, and financially savvy citizens to thrive.”
She was direct about what the bank wants young people to become. “By equipping them with the right skills, mindset, and access to financial tools, we are shaping a more inclusive and innovative banking ecosystem, one where young people are not just consumers, but active participants and drivers of change.”
What Gen Z Connect Brings to the Table
Gen Z Connect has built a network of over 300 young professionals and entrepreneurs, alongside a LinkedIn community of more than 2,000 followers. It runs mentorship programmes, leadership forums, networking events and entrepreneurship development sessions through Executive Connect, which convenes leadership gatherings for young Kenyans navigating the early stages of their careers and businesses.
Byron Osiro, a patron of Executive Connect, described the partnership as a meeting of shared purpose rather than a transactional arrangement. “At Gen Z Connect, we are deeply committed to unlocking the potential of young people by equipping them with practical skills, access to opportunities, and the confidence to lead.”
He set out the ambition clearly: “By working together, we are combining our strengths to deliver a programme that not only empowers youth and entrepreneurs but also prepares them to actively shape the future of financial services and drive sustainable economic growth across our communities.”
The Groundwork Absa Already Laid
The Gen Z Connect partnership lands on top of a decade of structured work. Absa’s ReadytoWork programme, launched in 2015, delivers eight free online modules covering work readiness, money management, entrepreneurship and digital literacy to young people between 16 and 35. In 2025, the programme trained 37,930 young people, bringing the total since inception to approximately 250,000.
In 2021, Absa partnered with the Kenya Private Sector Alliance to extend that reach further, committing to equip one million Kenyans with digital skills through the Ajira Digital and ReadytoWork platforms. In 2018, it launched a work exposure programme placing ReadytoWork graduates inside Absa branches and with SME clients, giving young people a foot in the door that training alone cannot open.
The bank also runs a university scholarship programme covering tuition, accommodation, meals and a laptop, worth up to Ksh 150,000 per academic year, for financially constrained undergraduates. Scholarship holders connect directly into the ReadytoWork internship programme, allowing students to move from financial support into work experience before they graduate.
In 2024, Absa brought the full scope of this work under the Absa Kenya Foundation, seeded with Ksh 500 million and funded at 1.5 percent of annual earnings going forward. The Foundation targets one million youth through ReadytoWork, 50,000 young people through the Absa Fellowship Program and 500 STEM scholarships, representing the most consolidated commitment to youth development the bank has made to date.
Why This Moment Matters
Youth unemployment and underbanking do not stop at the Nairobi city boundary. They run through Kisumu, Mombasa, Nakuru, Eldoret and Nyeri, and the young people in those cities face the same gap: knowledge, networks and capital remain out of reach at exactly the moment they are needed most.
Absa has positioned itself consistently on one side of that argument. Youth development, in the bank’s own framing, is a business strategy rather than a social obligation. The Gen Z Connect partnership adds something the ReadytoWork platform cannot fully replicate: a room, a conversation, a network, and a reason to come back next month.
