Jayne Mhono
Jayne Mhono says that, as a young adult, mentorship was hard to come by.
Growing up in a small village in Kenya, Mhono didn’t have anyone to help her navigate the education system. “Yes, I had parents who mentored me to become a good person,” she said. “But [not] when it came to having a person guide me through, like, ‘Hey, you finished high school. This is how you can go about going to college.’ Here, there are so many resources, grants. We don’t have the same over there.”
So Mhono had to figure things out for herself. “When you don’t have that guide, it becomes a challenge,” she said. “But those challenges shaped me as a person. It taught me how to not give up. Every day I woke up and I told myself, ‘I have to be better than I was yesterday.’”
Since then, Mhono has held a variety of roles: a public relations assistant for the Ministry of Livestock Development, a corporate communications officer for the Kenya Leather Development Council, an operations coordinator at Pro Sports MVP. Today, she is the member engagement manager at the Colorado Springs Chamber & EDC.
Where did you grow up?
I’m originally from Kenya. I grew up in a very small village, close to the Kenya-Tanzania border in Western Kenya. I went to boarding school from age 13 until 17, and I moved to the city when I was 17. I went to college eventually, and it took a bit of time for me to get my degree — because I couldn’t afford to pay for that, and I didn’t have anyone guiding me. I had to figure things out on my own.
I finished my degree in journalism and media studies with a focus in public relations in 2013 [at the University of Nairobi]. But before that, I did a two-year degree, and that allowed me to find a job with the Kenya Department of Agriculture. I served as an assistant to the public relations officer. After three years of being there, I was pulled into a newly established agency called the Kenya Leather Development Council. They brought me in to set up the public relations unit. It was a great job. I got to put together investor forums that brought investors from all over the world. And I got to be part of the Kenyan branding team for the 2012 London Olympics. Working at the Kenya Leather Development Council gave me an opportunity to take up some assignments that were above my paygrade but prepared me for my future job opportunities.
I moved to the United States in September of 2015. I couldn’t work for two years because I was going through the immigration process. It wasn’t easy to find a job here. Because for hiring managers, you’re a wild card, no matter who you are. But I kept pushing into myself, ‘Someone is going to believe in me and give me an opportunity.’ I started working with a sports marketing company. We worked with celebrities and sportspersons, and we worked on special programs for the U.S. military and sent celebrities to U.S. bases all over the world. The pandemic hit, and I lost my job. I came to the chamber through a staffing agency. I started at reception. Then the member engagement role opened up in the chamber, and they hired me. I’ve done that for one year now.
Tell us more about your job as member engagement manager.
The member engagement role is attached to the membership department. My role is to work with new members for the first 12 months of their membership, and my goal is to connect them with resources and programs so that their businesses can move to the next level of growth. This includes having conversations with them, identifying their needs, and looking at what we provide as a chamber in terms of events and programming and trying to match them to those resources. I also do
ribbon cuttings and grand openings for companies. So we celebrate those milestones, and we work to maximize the publicity that comes with those events to be able to create visibility for their brands.
What motivates you?
The need to be better, to inspire people, and to be able to empower people and connect them with resources that can help them have a fighting chance. Because when you have someone that you look up to, you always dream to be like that person, and I want to be that person for every little girl and little boy who is on the verge of giving up, who has no idea what they’re going to do tomorrow. I want to be in a position [for example] to be able to help that mom who has no idea where they’re going to get the next meal for their kids. What we do here — helping their businesses grow — is one way of doing that. So that’s what makes me wake up every day and go to work.
What are your goals moving forward?
When I moved from Kenya, I came directly to Colorado Springs. I didn’t know my purpose or how I would fit into this community. But now, I think I’ve found my purpose: to serve the community, to give back to this community that has embraced me in a very good way. I have had an opportunity to really get into the community and meet business owners and listen to them, and also have this conversation, like ‘What keeps them awake at night? And how can we help?’ Currently, I do as much as I can as a member engagement manager, but I look at myself as maybe being in a position of influence in the future, to be able to come up with solutions that can impact this community in a big way.
What are some of the biggest challenges facing the community?
There’s the element of financing, especially for small businesses. Banking institutions tend to shy away from small businesses because they’re high risk. I know there are all kinds of programs. But I know there are [more] things that can be done (I hope, because we have smart people in this world who can make things work). Small businesses need support. They form the biggest percentage of our business community, and empowering them really helps uplift families and the community at large.