While we are used to common jobs such as accounting, sales, engineering and the likes, 21 year old Kevin Wacera found a career path many might never have heard of.
He is a wine connoisseur or in simpler terms, he tastes wines for a living.
In an interview with The Standard, he talks of how he landed in this path even without formal training.
“My foray into wine began when I was freshly out of high school,” he narrates of how he got his first job after high school as a bartender, “and it struck me that the staff did not seem to know much about the wine they served,” he says.
He says he seized an opportunity after realizing that clients wanted more than just a glass of wine. “I decided to take advantage of the situation and learn,” he tells the daily.
A senior bar tender offered to train him about everything wine, where’s it’s grown to how to pair wine with different recipes. The 21 year old reveals of how he took it upon himself to learn more by going online and reading books to savoir all about wine.
And his efforts did finally pay off.
Eight months later he found was he terms as his dream job as an on-trade accounts manager, a position which put him in direct contact with people who would pay anything from “Sh100, 000 to Sh500, 000.
And just like formal jobs do have duties and responsibilities, Kevin’s duty is to carefully select wines and offer invaluable advice to clients.
“I am able to advise clients to for example, a Merlot- re, medium boiled wine that goes well with food. If a client is hosting important guests for dinner, I offer tips on how to serve the wine and which glasses to use for what,” he tells The Standard.
The 21 year old is currently using the connections he has made in the past to create his own wine consultancy where he attributes his success to being able to surround himself with like minded people.
He also tells the daily that his guiding principal lies in serving in humility and learning something new at every opportunity.
For him to succeed in his niche, Kevin says before he can sell his company out there, he has to first sell himself as a person who is knowledgeable about wine.
“Don’t chase after money. If you are good at what you do, money will find you. The amount will perplex you,” he says.
As far as his career ambitions go, he tells The Standard that he is planning on going back to school I order to learn how manage his own business where he plans to be his own boss in the next five years.
