One sunny December afternoon, Collins Kibet, one of Eldoret’s most prominent businessmen is sitted in his office alongside his two daughters waxing lyrical about an upcoming event.
Diesel Power, a brainchild of Kibet just opened a new branch along Uganda Road in Eldoret Town bringing the number of his petrol stations to nine (9).
“This is a major step for us as we move to stamp our authority in the petroleum sector in Western and North Rift regions,” says the 44-year old business mogul.
In less than a decade, the younger founder and proprietor of Diesel Power Energy has built his company into a multi-million integrated energy solutions provider, and he is not resting yet.
Diesel Power which Kibet founded in 1996 with only two petroleum drums in Kaptagat, is today one of Kenya’s fastest-growing petroleum conglomerates.
The company is now one of the largest petroleum companies with operations in Uasin Gishu, Baringo, and Bungoma counties among others.
Kibet was born in 1976 to a family of successful entrepreneurs.
His father whom he considers his biggest inspiration built a considerable fortune trading petroleum products in Eldoret Town in the 90s and 20s.
“The history also comes from my father, who taught me the business and that is why we have another internal competing brand called Simba. And so we have a healthy competition in terms of branding,” said Mr Kibet.
He is a graduate of Catholic University of Eastern Africa (Cuea), where he did his undergraduate in Marketing Management and is currently undertaking his Masters in the same field.
“My biggest motivation is that I went back to school in 2016 at 39 years of age and that is where I gained much knowledge especially in the area of planning and then we continued to develop our brand of Diesel Power which with time now we've continued branding our stations which we had not branded before the knowledge.
“Am currently working on my thesis of which am hoping to graduate next year,” says Kibet.
The father of three daughters says that his business has greatly transformed his way of thinking and also his way of life.
He says that one of the major challenges in the petroleum sector is the startup capital which most people are not able to afford.
“Generally in this industry, there are a lot of challenges. The first one being the startup capital which many banks cannot accept to finance a startup. But with time after we have grown, we have managed to get support from banks like KCB and DTB,” he said.
He highlighted other challenges as competition.
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