How a Kenyan cowboy broke into safaris

After being forced off the family farm, Geoffrey Kent and his parents began with a solitary Land Rover showing tourists round Kenya's game parks. In 2004, he sold two thirds of his company for £133m.

Geoffrey Kent, now 66, shot his first elephant at 16; at the same age, he rode a motorbike 5,000 miles from Nairobi to Cape Town. With his background, it would be easy to dismiss him as just another feckless product of Kenya's high-living Happy Valley set. But that would be a mistake. "Do I do all those things? Yes," says the founder of luxury travel operator Abercrombie & Kent. "But I also work 12- to 13-hour days, seven days a week." And he's been working like that since 1962, when his family was forced off its 3,000-acre farm in the Aberdare Highlands of Kenya.

Despite being the son of a colonel in the King's African Rifles, "we had to leave the farm and go to Nairobi after independence. These days, everyone turns to the government for help. But back then we had no one to turn to but ourselves." So along with some safari veterans, he and his parents began driving tourists around the Serengeti and the Masai Mara in an old Land Rover. "I still remember the number: KBH482." Searching for a name that would be listed at the top of the Yellow Pages, they dismissed Aardvark "which dad said would have made a good logo" and came up with Abercrombie, "which sounded very posh". Hence, Abercrombie & Kent.

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Jody Clarke

Jody studied at the University of Limerick and was a senior writer for MoneyWeek. Jody is experienced in interviewing, for example digging into the lives of an ex-M15 agent and quirky business owners who have made millions. Jody’s other areas of expertise include advice on funds, stocks and house prices.