25 years is enough time to build an illustrious legal career, raise a family, lead a successful law firm and become one of Kenya’s most recognisable lawyers. For Kethi Kilonzo, it was also the time it took to achieve all that while pursuing a dream she refused to abandon: earning the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) qualification.

An advocate of the High Court of Kenya, Kethi has built a distinguished career in law. Yet behind the courtroom battles and political engagements was another, quieter journey that began more than two decades ago and culminates this year when she graduates with ACCA from Strathmore University. “When I started, my parents were paying my fees,” she recalls with a smile. “Now I’m graduating alongside students who are the same age I was when I first started.”

Kethi began her ACCA journey at a very different stage of life. She was not yet running her family’s law firm, nor was she juggling the responsibilities of parenthood and leadership. In fact, she was still doing her pupillage. After the death of her father, the late renowned politician Mutula Kilonzo, and the subsequent entry into politics of her brother, Governor Mutula Kilonzo Jr, she found herself leading the firm while raising her son. “I wasn’t running the firm when I started ACCA. After my dad passed away and my brother joined politics, I found myself running the firm while parenting at the same time,” she says.

The journey was therefore anything but linear. Yet every time life interrupted her studies, Kethi returned to the classroom with the same determination. Her commitment to excellence was evident even early on. In 2006, she emerged as the top student in Kenya in the ACCA Audit examination.

20 years later, she demonstrated that excellence does not have an expiry date when, in March 2025, she topped Kenya and ranked 23rd worldwide in the ACCA elective Advanced Taxation (ATX-UK) examination. In December 2025, she ranked as the second ACCA Top Affiliate in Kenya and 68th globally. In the same sitting, she placed first in Kenya and 20th worldwide in Advanced Financial Management (AFM). For Kethi, however, these achievements have never been about competing with others. “Excellence is a habit. It’s not a result. It’s a process. Just getting up every day and just keep going,” she says.

That mindset has also shaped how she has applied ACCA to her legal career. While completing the qualification alongside running a demanding law practice and raising a child was challenging, Kethi says the knowledge she gained has become one of her greatest professional assets. From cash-flow management and financial reporting to human resources, inventory control and long-term strategy, ACCA has changed how she approaches decisions as a business leader.

“If I hadn’t done ACCA, managing the firm would have been much harder, if not impossible,” she says. “The most important thing is cash flow, not profit. It’s the things you learn in ACCA that help you in day-to-day and long-term decision-making.”

For a lawyer, accounting and taxation may seem like unlikely areas of specialisation. When I point this out, Kethi laughs at the irony. “Lawyers don’t like mathematics. Very few lawyers like accounts. Very few lawyers like tax.” Yet that is precisely what has made the qualification valuable to her. ACCA has allowed her to approach legal and business matters from a broader commercial perspective and make more informed financial decisions.

She recalls a recent investment decision involving a local bank seeking a share buyback from its investors. Rather than simply accepting the immediate cash payout, she tells me that she assessed the company’s intrinsic value before deciding. It was a practical demonstration of how the accounting knowledge she had acquired had expanded her thinking beyond the law.

Her relationship with Strathmore has also been central to the journey. Having started her journey long before the STC and STMB buildings became landmarks of the campus, Kethi maintains that the standards, both for top-tier education and values, have remained constant. Despite her public profile, she was treated like every other student and was expected to attend classes, complete assignments, adhere to the dress code and meet the same academic requirements.

“I’ve been thrown out of class because I didn’t do my homework,” she says with a laugh. “The lecturers turn up. They give you assignments. They expect you to attend class. They mark your work. The standards never change.”

Among the people who made that journey possible was Mr Roger Gitonga, a lecturer who encouraged Kethi through some of her most difficult moments. She vividly remembers him helping prepare for an examination in August 2019. She tells me that he took a whole day to prepare her for the exam, and when she scored 38 marks in the mock exam he administered, she feared she would fail. She called Roger, expecting perhaps to accept defeat. Instead, he encouraged her to keep going and dedicated his time to helping her prepare. “There should be an award for him,” she says. “He literally walked this journey with me.”

For Kethi, the story does not end with the certificate. Her ACCA journey reflects a philosophy she has carried throughout her career: that when you stop learning, you start dying because you stop living. Reflected in the University’s values as Lifelong Learning, she believes professionals must continually find ways to add value, regardless of how established they become.  “If you’re a doctor in a room full of doctors, what makes you different? If you’re a journalist, what do you offer that others don’t? It’s about adding value,” she challenges me.

As she prepares to walk across the graduation stage, Kethi is relieved to finally put examinations behind her. But the emotion goes beyond completing a qualification. It is about looking back at a dream that survived a busy litigation career, family responsibilities, leadership demands and years of interruptions.

“It was worth all the effort and all the tears,” she says. Although she is finally graduating, she tells me that perhaps the most powerful lesson from her journey is not the certificate, the rankings or the titles she has accumulated along the way. It is the reminder that a dream does not expire simply because life gets busy.

Article written by: Maurine Kirambia