When Jemima Ngode, Radio Africa Group HR manager, was diagnosed with a condition that could have led to brain surgery, she chose a different path. By making deliberate changes to her daily routine and prioritising her health, she reversed the condition and changed the way she approaches leadership and work.
There is a detail about Jemima Ngode’s name that says everything about the world she was born into and the path she would eventually choose. Her father, a man who held people-centred values long before the profession had a polished name, came home one day to find his wife had already named their new-born daughter Alvin. He was not having it.
He had a different name in mind, and a reason behind it. At the time, the function now known as human resources was still called personnel management, and there was a woman at his workplace whose dedication had left a mark on him.
“My dad said she came in early and got things done with a consistency he admired. And he wanted me to be named after her. Her name was Jemima," she recalls.
That name stuck and, in ways her father could not have entirely planned, so did her profession. Jemima was born on the roadside after her mother went into labour too quickly on the way to a midwife’s home and she arrived before they got there.
"I was born in a bush, but I don't look like a bush," she says.
Career path
Jemima grew up and studied a BCom in human resource management at Kabarak University. By then, she had already decided that a degree alone was not enough. She went on to complete the higher national diploma in human resource management, later pursuing her MSc in human resource management, a process she admits took considerably longer than planned. She is currently working on a PhD in strategic management, with her thesis focused on employee well-being and organisational resilience.
“I later joined the certified human resource professional programme. It’s much tougher than a Bachelor’s or Master’s because it’s all practical, focused on the actual work you do in HR,” she explains.
Her career began at Oxfam international, where she interned as a job shadow to the regional HR adviser for South Sudan. She was paid thirty thousand shillings a month and, by her own admission, had no intention of leaving after three months.
“I juggled internship hours with Friday lectures, commuted between Nairobi and Nakuru, and graduated in November 2010 with a job contract already waiting,” she adds.
From there came World Vision Somalia, and the Coca-Cola bottling network, where she was promoted to a plant-level role in Kisii before returning to Nairobi. And later joined Radio Africa Group, as an HR manager.
In 2022, Jemima experienced unexpected health challenges. During what she describes as a routine check, she was diagnosed with idiopathic intracranial pressure.
"It's caused by pressure in the brain, and it triggers a lot of headaches and a lot of motion sickness, where you feel you want to fall, and sometimes even your speech becomes very weak," she says.
Her doctor at Aga Khan Hospital recommended brain surgery. For Jemima, the suggestion carried a particular weight.
“My dad had been diagnosed with brain cancer, and the image of what that illness had done to him was not one I could easily set aside. It was so scary, because given that my dad had gone through that, I was like, okay, it's an inheritance here," she says.
A turning point
She did not refuse the recommendation outright, asking instead whether there were alternatives.
“The surgeon had suggested I attempt to manage the condition through weight loss before committing to a surgical procedure. I had been sitting at 110 kilograms. The plan would require early gym sessions, a nutritionist, a personal trainer and a restructured working day,” Jemima notes.
Before changing her routine, Jemima wrote a business case. Rather than simply rearranging her schedule, she presented her case in writing it to her then group CEO, Patrick Quarcoo.
"I did a memo to him for approval to allow me to come at half past six in the morning and leave by three in the afternoon. And that was approved," she says.
The approval meant that by 4pm, she would be in the gym. By 5pm she was home with her son and husband. She cooked her own food, worked with a nutritionist and trained with a personal trainer.
"I had to get a trainer, just like when you are going to a destination you have never been to before, you need a driver, you need direction," she explains.
She was also connected to a professional in diet and exercise, through her pastor's wife. The two women worked together on what Jemima started treating as a structured programme rather than a vague lifestyle shift.
In the first three months, Jemima dropped from 110 kilograms to somewhere in the low nineties.
“The scale moved to 86, then 85, then 82. I didn't hit 70. But it's my dream. I don't know when though but I am working towards that," she says.
The physical results were measurable, but what she describes with more conviction is what the process did to everything else. The clarity in her thinking. The speed at which she could move through a working day. The confidence that, after two years of motherhood and a period of acute self-doubt, had quietly returned.
“I deal with so many things in a day. The gym is more of a way to decompress, and it's like a stress reliever for me,” she says. “And sometimes the food you eat affects your reasoning. If you take vegetable salad with less fatty content, it makes you very bright. Your thinking is clearer.”
Well-being first
She adds: “What it has done for me is, I am beautiful again, because it brings some beauty in you as well, because there's that self-conviction that comes within. The confidence also shows up,” she adds.
At her follow-up visit, the surgery was cancelled.
"By the time I was getting back to the surgeon, there was nothing on my brain. To date, I have never experienced such," she says.
Jemima tells this story as a lesson about slowing down before acting, about seeking alternatives and about the difference between having good medical insurance insurance and making a good decision.
"Once a procedure is done, it cannot be undone. I had good insurance, a good facility, a good doctor, they could have just rushed to do my brain or whatever. And I would not have come back the same. It costs time, money and the discipline to rebuild an entire daily rhythm from scratch. For you to be healthy, it's going to cost you to delete some things in your life," she reflects.
There is one more thing she carries from the experience, a changed relationship with the people she leads. Because she restructured her day around her health with full transparency, she now speaks about employee well-being not from a policy document but from the inside.
"No one will ever do it for you. You have to do it by yourself. And there's nothing as good as keeping healthy, because when you're healthy, you're able to be productive. I’m also a believer that you are the creator of your own results. In a world that constantly tells us our circumstances define us, his belief cuts through the noise with a different truth. Your results are not happening to you. They are happening through you. And the moment you accept that, everything changes," she says.
