Hany Zuhudi
Builder · Operator · NairobiNairobi, Kenya

Hany Zuhudi

/ˈhʌ.ni/said like honey

ten years of field notes, one map

Chief Innovation OfficerProduct StrategistVenture Builder

I build Africa's next operating systems, anchored in digital health and femtech. The map below is drawn from the work itself.

startup ecosystemsDEMO Africa · enpactux designAykana · Catapultresearchdigital healthAfyaRekodexponential techSingularityUpolicyKICTANetfintechwritingstrategyventure buildingDaya · Tuliz · Bamba Swap

Every room, the same job:
turning complexity into systems that move.

the rooms changed; the job didn't
Chapter 01 · The map

Ten years inside African digital products, drawn as one map.

Digital health. Design. Fintech. Policy. Research. Every dot is a real role. Specialists go deep, and we need them. Someone also has to hold the map.

Chapter 01 · The rooms

Every room taught a different layer of the same problem.

What funds an idea, what regulates it, what makes people trust it enough to use it.

Chapter 01 · The patterns

Patterns travel between rooms.

What health taught about trust reappeared in fintech. What policy taught about timing reappeared everywhere.

Chapter 01 · The thread

One thread runs through all of it.

Different rooms, same craft: take a messy, high-stakes problem and give it an operating system.

Chapter 02 · The proof

AfyaRekod: one operating system, five markets.

General Manager, 2020 to 2023. The brief said scale. The actual work was an operating system: product, ops, and people designed so a 40-person team could ship coherently across five markets.

patients100K+ of themthey own the recordmyrekod portalweb and phoneussdno smartphone neededHMIS / EHRrecords · consentthe operating systemconsent-based sharingclinics · pharmacieshospitalsrunning in 5 countries
01 · The system

Built the product, ops, and people systems from first principles.

Patient-owned records with consent-based sharing; a facility suite spanning HMIS, EHR, pharmacy and diagnostics; USSD built in from day one for low-bandwidth contexts, not adapted as an afterthought.

02 · The scale

A small team became a multi-country operation.

Two raises closed totalling $2M+, with ministries and hospital networks as partners. The team grew from 5 to 40 without losing the plot.

5 → 40
Team scale
$2M+
Capital raised
100K+
Patient records
5
Country markets
03 · The lesson

The point was never the demo.

"Innovation without operations is hallucination. The point was the system that survived without me."

Read the full case study
Interlude · The claim

Building Africa's next operating systems. Not louder products; sturdier systems: health, money, and work that hold when someone leans on them.

Chapter 03 · The build

Now: three ventures, one thesis.

Everything I build serves one sentence: systems should carry the people they were built for, and too often they drop them. So: build the infrastructure women have been waiting for.

01 · Active

Daya Africa

Co-Founder & Head of Innovation

East Africa's first FemTech venture studio. Daya funds, builds, and operates alongside female founders rather than from a distance. The thesis: women's health is structural infrastructure, not a niche.

FemTech venturesEast AfricaPre-seed to seed
02 · Active

Tuliz

Founder

A burnout-detection ring for African women: physiological signals plus culturally grounded check-ins, private by design. The product I wish had existed when I needed it.

Wearable + appOn-device AIKenya DPA 2019
03 · Active

Bamba Swap

CSIO & Board Director

Board-level strategy for a growing team: shaping product direction and holding the line on the right trade-offs as they scale.

StrategyPart-time + board5% equity
research → strategy → write → design → buildEvery room, the same job: turning complexity into systems that move.ten years of field notes, one mapresearch → strategy → write → design → buildEvery room, the same job: turning complexity into systems that move.ten years of field notes, one map
Interlude · The craft

Identity systems, built to be used.

Not logo files in a folder. Each of these ships as a working system: tokens, type scale, usage and misuse rules, and the collateral the team actually needs on Monday morning.

All work Research, strategy, identity, design system, applied collateral.
Chapter 04 · How I work

Four principles I run by.

The defaults I reach for when a decision is hard, a deadline is tight, or the room can't agree.

01

Speed and trust are the same project.

Shipping fast is only valuable if the thing that ships is still trustworthy at the other end. Velocity without integrity is just attrition with a roadmap.

02

Data is the voice of the user.

Numbers earn their authority when they describe a person. I read metrics with people in the room, not in spreadsheets in isolation.

03

Scale means more value per user, not more users.

Anyone can grow a graph. The harder work is making each user matter more over time. That is the kind of scale that compounds quietly.

04

Innovation without operations is hallucination.

A great idea is a hypothesis. An operating system is what turns it into an organisation that survives without me. The unglamorous infrastructure is the work.

Chapter 06 · Work with me

Four ways in, each matched to where you actually are.

Product, operations, strategy, research, and narrative in one head, because complex problems don't stay in their lane. If the problem crosses lanes, it is probably mine.

Current availability
Q4 2026 onward · 1 to 2 slots open

You have a product and a vision. The operating system that makes it real is missing. I sit inside your team, run the rhythm, build the decision framework, own the roadmap process.

What you get
  • Weekly leadership syncs plus async support through the week
  • Roadmap design, prioritization frameworks, sprint rhythms
  • PM coaching and process documentation that survives me leaving

A deep diagnostic of your product and ops situation, then a documented operating system your team can actually run. Clean scope, high impact.

What you get
  • Discovery: stakeholder interviews, process audit, roadmap review
  • Operating system design: decision frameworks, rhythms, templates
  • Final delivery: The Product Ops Playbook, plus two weeks of support

Structured access to my thinking. A few standing hours a month, async input on the decisions that matter. For founders at the edge of a big move.

What you get
  • Two one-hour structured calls per month
  • Async review of key docs, decks, or decisions
  • One deep-dive question answered per week

A facilitated, high-density working session built around a specific challenge: roadmap prioritization, go-to-market clarity, team alignment.

What you get
  • Pre-session intake call and questionnaire
  • Custom facilitation using my operating method
  • Post-session action plan with owners and timelines
Epilogue · Where the thread ends up

If you are building something that has to work, let's talk.

Most of my best engagements started as a single honest conversation. Tell me where it hurts. I reply within 48 hours.