His work performance speaks for itself

Michelline Nawatises

Inamutila Kashanu was born at Oshilemba in the Omusati region. Being a farmer’s child, he was taught to do all the chores done by rural boys, such as herding cattle and ploughing fields. His primary education started at Kamanjab in the Kunene Region and he continued secondary school at Otjiwarongo High School.

Kashanu was fortunate to continue his education and completed his tertiary education at the Polytechnic of Namibia, now known as Namibia University of Science and Technology (NUST) where he attained a bachelor’s degree in business management.

After university, he landed a job at Sanlam in 2014 as a branch administrator and after proving himself as a committed, hardworking, fast learner willing to take on more responsibilities, he was promoted to a managerial position of broker consultant in 2015 at the tender age of 26.

“I am managing a broker code compliment of approximately 125 (people/brokers) in order to secure about 15% of the new business income into the entry-level market business unit,” he says.

His job is all about quality financial advice and providing support to brokers, acquiring new brokers, broker and client retention, relationship building and maintenance with brokers, securing business inflows and profitability.

One of the main challenges Kashanu faces is keeping his brokers motivated and positive during these difficult times of the Covid-19 pandemic.

“I try my best to continue building and maintaining healthy and trustworthy relationships with them in order to have their loyalty and be their company of choice when it comes to insurance,” he says.

He says one of the accomplishments he is proud of is meeting his business targets for four consecutive years, month after month. This has taught him to always aim to give his best and never accept that he can’t do better than the previous time.

“I was awarded as broker consultant of the year for 2016 and 2017 consecutively. Currently I am also proud to be one of the Sanlam SMAT (Sanlam Millennial Team) members,” Kashanu says proudly.

His typical day always starts with a workout session before office hours. He then makes sure to always finalise every day’s work and thus start on a clean slate with a new to-do list every day where he meets and/or schedules meetings with brokers, checking and approving new business received.

He says the best phase in his life was when he was promoted from branch administrator to management level in 2015. Another one that comes to mind was when he was in boarding school; whenever he would visit his parents, his father made them wake up early in the morning to do work around the village. Only when he left would he give Kashanu money for the rest of the school year. “This has really instilled a great sense of responsibility and pride in who I am,” he says.

He says if he had an opportunity to change anything in the world, he would ensure that boys are raised to be the protectors of women and not their destroyers. “Any GBV action would have very stiff punishment as a consequence in order to rule out the behaviour,” he says.