Eva Muraya Co-Founder & CEO Color Creations Group Limited Nairobi

Wharton Speaker >> Biography

Eva Muraya is a co-founder and CEO of Color Creations Group Ltd, the first (woman-owned) advertising and branding business to gain the global quality management systems standards ISO 9001:2001 Certification. Color Creations Group Limited also includes BSD Ltd, a leading regional brand, strategy and design agency and the Color Creations Trust, under which the Be. (Building Entrepreneurs) Campaign, a social multi-level retail merchandising business targeting skilled, unemployed Kenyan youth, operates. She has been recognized in both her community and internationally for her business innovation and leadership.

Her business leadership has earned her a variety of notable awards and appointments. In 2005, she was an award nominee at the International Finance Corporation (IFC) supported Pan African Invent and Innovate Conference in Accra-Ghana. Eva was also named Kenya’s Eve, Woman Entrepreneur of the Year, by a leading Kenyan women’s magazine that recognizes and honors the contribution of Kenyan women to the community. She is also an alumnus of the Legatum Pioneers of Prosperity in which out of 458 regional SME businesses her company, Color Creations Limited was a top finalist during the Africa Business Awards held in Kigali Rwanda, in 2006.

At the global level, Ms. Muraya’s remarkable entrepreneurship and business acumen saw her selected in 2006 by the US State Department to represent Kenya in a premier U.S. government-sponsored program. The program dubbed the Fortune/State Department International Women Leaders Mentoring Partnership, places emerging businesswomen in a mentoring program with Fortune’s most acclaimed women business leaders. Ms. Muraya is also a co-recipient of the premier Goldman Sachs Fortune Global Leaders Award, an award that clearly distinguished Eva’s outstanding business and community leadership both locally and internationally. Eva was also among 100 women nominated to receive The International Alliance for Women (TIAW) World of Difference 100 Award. The award was specially created to honor up to 100 women from around the world who have contributed to the economic empowerment of women in keeping with the TIAW mission.

Ms. Muraya is an internationally-known motivational speaker on topics such as business leadership, mentorship and small and medium woman-owned business development. She was a delegate at Essence- Women Who Are Shaping The World Leadership Summit in New York, in Oct 2006 and also addressed the 2006 Fortune’s Most Powerful Women’s Summit. She was also a speaker at the 2007 Pan-Africa’s Women Leadership Summit sponsored by Vital Voices, a global organization that invests in the development of leadership skills in women, in Cape Town. She is also the Chair of the Zawadi Africa Education Fund, an organization that provides premium university education, mentorship and leadership development to young, under privileged girls in Africa.

Ms. Muraya holds a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Journalism and Marketing (Magna Cum Laudae) from the United States International University (USIU) in Nairobi and a Diploma in Advanced Business Management from the IESE (University of Navarra) and Strathmore Business Schools.