Blog
Running a Business is Family Business
Elizabeth learned the bakery business from her father, Yesero Kizito. He was an amazing man. With only a third grade education, he became one of the most well-known businessmen of his generation in Uganda. He began his entrepreneurial career by selling dye to add color to the baskets and mats that women traditionally weave. Walking through villages, he was a natural born salesman! Soon he was riding a bike to enlarge his territory, then purchased a motorbike.
After marrying Yuliana Kizza, Yesero got a job working for a German Baker in the capital of Kampala. When the bakery owner moved back to Europe, Kizito purchased the bakery and grew it into a household name across the country. Bread was a novelty when he started, but soon Kizito Bakery had trucks delivering fresh baked bread all over the city. Kizito became famous! He used his new-found wealth to build a family of six wives and 36 children.
On top of his business success, Kizito helped efforts to bring the exiled Kabaka (King) of Buganda back home. He later invested in a concrete company and his bricks and cinder blocks helped build Kampala into a modern city in the 1950's. He also started a shipping company that carried goods all across East Africa from the port of Mombasa on the Indian Ocean to Kampala and everywhere in between.
Kizito's death at the age of only 45 was untimely and the chaos of Idi Amin's reign of terror left the family scattered and struggling, but Yesero Kizito left an incredible legacy of entrepreneurship that still lives on in our bakery today!