20/04/2026
Twenty-five years ago, Dickson Masindano arrived in Nairobi with a mandate and a modest ambition — to plant a seed. What has grown since is a towering institution. Today, Buckner Kenya stands as one of the continent's more quietly formidable NGOs, a two-time winner of the NGO Awards' Best in Education category, and a case study in what principled leadership can accomplish across a quarter century.
Masindano, who previously worked at Buckner International in the United States, was sent back to Kenya in 2001 to establish a local office. He accepted the assignment. What followed was a masterclass not merely in organizational management, but in the art of leading by example — an art he still considers the bedrock of everything Buckner Kenya has become.
"The juniors are always watching what their leaders do," he says, leaning back in his office during a reflective sit-down to mark the organisation's silver jubilee. "It is completely out of place to demand habits from your team that you yourself don't embody."
https://ngoshub.com/leadership-lessons-how-dickson-masindano-built-a-25-year-institution-on-the-power-of-example/
