QNET appoints regional chief as Kenya's informal economy attracts global wellness firms

Jared Thwaits has just taken on a sprawling assignment. As QNET's newly appointed Regional General Manager for East and Southern Africa, he now oversees the direct-selling company's operations across a region where informal work dominates the economic landscape—and where the company sees its next major opportunity.

The timing reflects a shift in Kenya's labor market that has accelerated over the past year. According to the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics, 18.1 million of the 21.6 million people counted as employed in 2025 worked in the informal sector, accounting for 83.8 percent of all employment. More striking still: of the 822,100 new jobs created that same year, 87.2 percent emerged from informal work—street vending, small-scale trading, gig work, and self-employment. The formal job market, by contrast, barely moved. This is the terrain QNET is moving into, and it is vast.

QNET operates at the intersection of e-commerce and direct selling. The model works like this: customers purchase lifestyle and wellness products through the company's online platform, while Independent Distributors build their own sales businesses around those same products. What makes this model viable in Kenya is the infrastructure that has already taken root. Mobile money systems, WhatsApp, social media, and online marketplaces have collapsed the barriers that once separated formal retail from informal trade. A person can now discover a customer on Instagram, negotiate through WhatsApp, receive payment via M-Pesa, and manage the entire transaction from a phone. No storefront required. No formal registration necessary. The technology has already rewired how small business works in Kenya.

Thwaits acknowledged this shift in his remarks about the appointment. He noted that Kenya possesses "one of Africa's most dynamic entrepreneurial populations and a highly developed digital economy," but he also attached a condition to that optimism: growth, he said, must be accompanied by responsibility, transparency, and education. That last word—education—appears to be central to QNET's strategy as it expands. Thwaits will oversee distributor education, customer experience, compliance, and stakeholder engagement across the two regions. The company plans to modernize how it onboards and trains distributors, to strengthen compliance mechanisms, and to explore artificial intelligence and data analytics to improve both customer experience and business efficiency.

The broader economic context makes this push toward formalization within an informal space particularly relevant. Kenya's micro, small, and medium enterprises contributed 33.8 percent of the country's total economic output in 2015—equivalent to 3.37 trillion Kenyan shillings—and employed 14.9 million people. The economy as a whole grew 4.6 percent in 2025, with wholesale and retail trade expanding 3.6 percent and information and communication growing 4.8 percent. These are the sectors where QNET's distributors operate and where the company sees room to scale.

The appointment is part of a broader restructuring of QNET's global leadership. Mattias Mildenborn serves as chief executive officer, Elena Khoo as chief marketing officer, Peter Luk as chief financial officer, and Ben Bredenkamp as group chief information officer. Kuna Senathirajah, Group Managing Director of QI Group (QNET's parent company), framed the changes as an effort to merge direct-selling expertise with technology and consumer-focused knowledge. In Kenya specifically, the company says it will concentrate on digital services, distributor education, compliance, product development, and governance.

For Thwaits, however, the real measure of success will not be measured in appointments or restructuring announcements. It will be measured in whether Kenyans—entrepreneurs working from phones, selling through social media, managing cash flows through mobile money—decide to trust QNET with their time and their business. "We want to build for the long term in Kenya," he said. That commitment will be tested against the skepticism that often greets direct-selling models, against the regulatory scrutiny they face, and against the simple question of whether the company can deliver on its promise to educate and support the distributors it recruits from Kenya's vast informal economy.