Legal team size: 3

Major legal advisers/ external counsel: We do most of our work in-house. When clients seek our services, we generally require that a transaction lawyer be retained. In this respect, we deal mostly with firms such as ENSafrica, Kaplan & Stratton, Mboya Wangong’u & Waiyaki, Dentons, Walker Kontos and Bowmans, who represent clients on the other side of transactions.

What country you are based in? We are based in Kenya but, we offer trustee services across Africa.

Looking forward, what trends do you foresee in the legal landscape over the next 5–10 years that companies should prepare for?

The next decade will call for legal teams who can navigate seamlessly between traditional law, emerging technologies, and sophisticated stakeholder expectations. In my space of work, the legal function is a key interpreter of complexity, especially in areas such as digital assets, data privacy and capital markets regulation. For organisations in fiduciary roles, the convergence of law, compliance, governance, and innovation is no longer a future concern — it’s now and legal counsel must therefore evolve into architects of resilience and ensuring that ambition is matched with integrity.

There’s a quiet shift that happens when you move from being an advisor on the sidelines to becoming part of the machinery that brings a transaction to life. That’s what stood out most when I joined MTC.

Unlike any other role I’ve held, working at MTC meant stepping into the thick of execution. As trustees and fiduciaries, we aren’t just interpreting contracts; we live them. Each mandate pulls you into the centre of implementation. As trustees, we take on legal, regulatory, and execution risk — not in theory, but in practice.

MTC spans twelve different fiduciary roles: from tokenisation and securitisation to pension and collective investment scheme trusteeship. The diversity alone demands fluency not just in law, but also in tax, finance, and investment structuring. No two days are the same.

What surprises is how often we draft the core documents — not just for compliance, but also to make them work in real life. It’s law as practical architecture. The work is technical and fast-moving. It forces you to adapt, to think several steps ahead, and to hold your nerve. At times, it’s daunting. But it’s also deeply engaging to be so close to the engine of a transaction, to shape its form, and to be accountable for its delivery.

It has changed how I think about law. And about trust.

How does your team contribute to the overall business strategy of the company?

At MTC, legal is present from the first sketch of an idea to its full execution. We don’t just advise — we shape structures as they form, ensuring they are sound in law, aligned with regulation, and workable in practice. Whether it’s a fund, a trust, or a tokenised product, legal is woven through the entire process — not an add-on, but a constant thread.

How are you bringing the legal department closer to your business colleagues?

As indicated earlier, legal is woven into the fabric of the business. With nearly half of our work being legal in nature, our team is naturally part of every core function, from structuring to client delivery. We are part legal team, part fiduciary, part strategic adviser. We work alongside colleagues in business development, compliance, and administration, not as gatekeepers, but as co-builders. We ensure that legal remains close, relevant, and quietly indispensable.