The National Infrastructure Fund (NIF) has appointed James Mworia as its founding Chief Executive Officer, effective September 7,2026, as the newly established fund begins work on what is billed as a Sh5 trillion investment vehicle for major infrastructure projects.
Mworia was first appointed to the Fund’s inaugural board in July on a three-year term, kickstarting the process that has now culminated in his appointment to lead the establishment of NIF.
He brings more than 25 years of professional experience in investment management, enterprise development and capital allocation, and will lead efforts to establish the fund’s organisation, systems and investment frameworks while developing a pipeline of projects capable of attracting private capital.
The fund was established under the National Infrastructure Fund Act, 2026, with a mandate to “scale up and accelerate national infrastructure development”, mobilise private capital and reduce reliance on public debt to finance commercially viable projects.
NIF will focus on transport and logistics, energy, ICT, water and agriculture.
Its board said the fund would seek to turn identified infrastructure needs into “financeable projects, investable assets and successful enterprises”, while working with domestic and international investors.
The fund will support projects throughout their development lifecycle, from turning national priorities into bankable projects to scaling them into investable infrastructure assets and eventually transitioning them to long-term ownership or the capital markets.
The board said successful asset realisations would allow NIF to deepen Kenya’s capital markets and “recycle capital to fund future generations of critical infrastructure”.
Mworia is currently Group Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director of Centum Investment Company Plc, a position he has held for 17 years.
During his tenure, the board said he helped build Centum into a professional investment, development and capital-allocation institution, growing shareholders’ funds to approximately 11 times their opening value without raising additional shareholder equity at the holding-company level.
His experience includes investment origination, evaluation, structuring and execution, portfolio management, financing and preparing enterprises for long-term ownership or exit.
He has also served on the boards of the Nairobi Securities Exchange and the Central Depository and Settlement Corporation, and has mobilised financing from commercial banks, development finance institutions, debt capital markets and institutional investors.
The board said his immediate priorities would include establishing NIF’s governance and risk-management frameworks, developing a “credible and investable project pipeline”, mobilising co-investment capital and progressing priority projects through appraisal, structuring and execution.
It said NIF would pursue its mandate with “commercial discipline, professionalism, integrity, transparency and accountability”.
Mworia holds a Bachelor of Laws degree from the University of Nairobi and is an Advocate of the High Court of Kenya. He is also a Certified Public Accountant, Chartered Global Management Accountant and CFA charterholder.