Social Entrepreneurship Panel Participant
Wanja Michuki, The Highland Tea Company
Wanja Michuki is the CEO and co-founder of the Highland Tea Company, which imports, manufactures and wholesales Kenyan specialty teas in the United States. The company was co-founded by Wanja's mother, Watiri, who is a small-scale tea farmer in Kenya. Wanja created the business plan on which Highland Tea Company is founded. She has been responsible for Product Development, Sales and Marketing, and the current distribution of Highland Tea Company's products in the United States.
She obtained her BA in 1996 from Bryn Mawr College, where she majored in Economics and minored in Political Science. Following her graduation from Bryn Mawr, Wanja embarked on a career in financial services and worked for Barclays in Nairobi for over 3 years. During that time, Wanja participated in the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) program and was awarded her charter by the then Association of Investment Management & Research (AIMR) in October 2000. During the summer of 2000, Wanja enrolled at Columbia Business School, and was awarded her MBA in May 2002. Wanja spent her first summer at Columbia at Merrill Lynch, working as a Summer Associate with the Investment Banking group in New York. In 2004, Wanja launched The Highland Tea Company's line of Kenyan teas in the United States. In 2006, Highland Tea Co. was awarded 3rd place prize in the Global Social Ventures Competition out of 113 business plans submitted from around the world. The Highland Tea Co. has created "Redefining the Heart of Tea", a radio project that will deliver education to tea farming communities in Kenya via solar-powered wind up radios. Highland Tea Co. has been instrumental to the Fair Trade certification of the Kanyenya-ini Tea Factory in Central Kenya and is authorized to use the Fair Trade mark. Highland Tea Company is frequently mentioned in the press including features in Food & Wine Magazine and the New York Times.