Interview with Mohamed Jaffer, interviewed by Tarun Khanna, Mombasa, Kenya

Mohamed Jaffer is Chairman of MJ Group, Kenya's largest provider of cargo handling services. MJ Group traces its history back to Haji Dewji Jamal, who opened a trading office in Zanzibar in 1860. The merchant family had a business spread over South Asia, the Middle East and East Africa. They opened a branch in Mombasa, the capital of Kenya in 1890. Five years later the British established a protectorate over Kenya, and the family established good relations with them, even at one time, according to company folklore, acting as bankers to King George V, the British king between 1910 and 1936. However, as this interview begins by noting, by the end of World War II in 1945, the family's business interests had fallen to a low point. "By the time I finished school," Jaffer observes, "I had to start from zero." In 1968, he joined his father in an insurance brokerage position but quickly changed his mind and proceeded to establish his first business, a car dealership, with a partner. Jaffer discusses his first major setback when, after giving his partner the power of attorney while traveling for Hajj and Ziyarat, he came back to find that his partner had taken everything. Jaffer started aga