Nairobi, Aug. 2 -- There are lessons Kieran Godden tells about his life. Don't go to a foreign country if you don't know exactly where you're going. Food at Cinque Terre in Italy is best served outdoors, in the heat, with the late-afternoon Mediterranean sunlight twirling through the stem of your wine glasses. Make only the promises you are willing to fulfil. That last one, especially, used to irritate him-the double speak, how people can say this and mean that, the exact opposite.

But as life goes, he got daughters, and they remind him, "Dad, it's not that deep." Now he labours away as the Group CEO of Liberty Kenya Holdings Plc, but he doesn't take himself too seriously. "The job will still be there when you come back to the office," h...