Yukabeth Kidenda

Growing up in a middle-class Kenyan home, Yukabeth was greatly influenced by her grandfather and mother, both trained teachers. After a year spent in Honduras as a teacher, she was unable to find a job for over a year, which made her question her beliefs about quality education and led to a paradigm shift. Yukabeth realized that she didn’t just want to help people get access to education, she wanted to help them get access to quality education that would enable them to thrive in the 21st century. She became determined to start an organization that would afford young people like her the opportunity to launch a career of impact and purpose in their home country.

Teach for Kenya became that organization, and Yukabeth leads as CEO. She is determined to grow Teach for Kenya into a nationwide movement that will advocate for a positive Kenyan identity and free the country from negative historical narratives.

Yukabeth previously worked as a leadership facilitator at ALX. Prior to that, she served as the fellowship director at Metis, supporting Africans running high-quality education initiatives. Yukabeth worked as a skills program manager at Microsoft from 2015 to 2017, where she led adoption of the organization’s tools, curriculum, and certifications in over nine countries across East and Southern Africa. While working for Microsoft, she led a project to build capacity for 12,000 teachers across Kenya under the Presidential Digital Literacy Program.

She holds a bachelor’s degree in business administration and a minor in marketing from Strathmore University. Yukabeth was recognized by Avance Media as one of the 100 Most Influential Young Kenyans in 2019, Top 100 Kenyans by Kenyans.co.ke in 2021, and Business Daily’s Top 40 Under 40 Women in 2021.