Nairobi, July 8 -- Manish Sardana walked away from a lucrative corporate career at the height of the Covid-19 scourge, resigning from global advertising giant WPP after seven years in Kenya.

He had risen through the ranks of the WPP-Scangroup network to become managing director for Africa, earning what he describes as "expat-level salaries" at a time when millions around the world were clinging to their jobs.

"During Covid, I thought to myself, what am I doing with my life?" he recalls asking himself. "I had all this experience and talent, and I felt like I was wasting my time building marketing campaigns for large organisations."

So he quit, even without a business plan. "People kept asking me what I was going to do next. I told them ...