Your Happy Hour - Open to Doing Business

Episode Date: April 26, 2025

Welcome back to Your Happy Hour with Friday Feels!This week, we chatted to Kieno Kammies, a multifaceted entrepreneur and media personality from South Africa and someone who is in the business of doing business for - a purpose. Kieno dives into the importance of navigating life with trust and the openness to life presenting you the right opportunities, as well as the value of health, human connection, family and of course - storytelling in building businesses with impact.Who, or what, are you doing business for?Friday Feels is all about having those honest conversations, the power of community for personal growth and taking those actionable steps towards being our authentic selves.Thanks for tuning in! Keep it raw and real out there xYHH is produced by swartkat.co - captured via riverside.fm & shared via rss.com.

It's the Friday feels and we're back with your first sip of the weekend. You're now tuned in to this week's episode of your happy hour. I'm your host Nicole Carmine and it's amazing to have you here joining me this week as we uncover the truths about being a human and a working professional. What are you up to this Friday? Well whatever it is, this moment is just for you. Hello all you beautiful people out there tuning in today for this week's episode of Your Happy Hour. Brought to you by Friday Feels, a SWATCUT studios production and we are in the midst of a theme

that has been very insightful to unpack and that is doing business with. Now this week I have a very extreme privilege of having a guest on that is a very interesting founder and community leader and Also a big role player in making media pop in the South African scene So it's a topic close to home for me. So a very very big welcome to you Kino Kammies Thanks Nicole. The Friday for your space and your happy hour podcast It's a privilege to be here. Thank you very much for asking me Thanks Nicole. The Friday for your space and your happy hour podcast. It's a privilege to be here.

Thank you very much for asking me. It's such a pleasure to have you. Thank you. Thank you for making time for this. And for those people who don't know you out there, just a very quick intro. You are a founder of I know Kino Kami's Innovations which includes quite a lot of interesting things like Story Design Academy and something I'm a little bit more familiar with Innovation City which

is a cool co-working space in Cape Town and Innovate Africa, Cogtech Innovation Lab but you can tell us a little bit more about all the things you do. I do too many things I think I think KKI Holdings we're going to do a rebrand. I mean this Kino Kami's innovation thing was because I was too lazy to come up with anything creative but I'm going to be even more creative just calling KKI Holdings and the reason it's a holding company is because obviously I've got my shareholding in innovation city. So innovation is close to my heart. Innovate Africa is part of my KKI media portfolio where we host a show on Business Day TV, etc. So, you know, that's about building the media assets around innovation.

And then Cogtec Innovation Lab is a bit of a venture builder. There's one company we've just taken 40% stake in and it's around kids health and gamifying that and yeah but I do too many things and I think it's time for me to sort of just narrow it down so I can get a bit of peace and quiet in my own brain. We were talking about that going from kind of being yes woman and men to kind of making life simple and classy at that. So that's really cool.

I really have been following a little bit of what you do. And just a very quick story for you also and for the audience out there. Very finally, I came across you via an email that was sent to me a while back by a media company who reached out and said, do you want to be on the Keno Kami show, especially in relation to the bridge orphanage, which I'm a co-founder of. And I was like, what is going on? What is this? And then I started researching you and I came across you. And anyway, so that never obviously worked out, but maybe we can chat about the bridge at some point. But that's how I got

to know who you are via this random email which is amazing and it's such a privilege to chat to you today. So I'm curious to hear a little bit about what this topic means to you. Doing business with, being open to doing business. You've obviously walked quite an interesting road in doing business and what does that kind of mean for you? You know I mean everything I do, everything I do business, I mean everything I do is business at the moment but even my my media career which spanned around 30 years, centered around people right so when we talk about doing business with I sometimes like saying doing business for and it sort of takes you through to the purpose. Right. So sometimes and I

mean we go through the innovation city and through the throws of the other things that I'm doing. You end up getting caught in the boardroom and you end up sitting going, oh, what are we going to do? What is the strategy moving forward? And sometimes we lose sight of the fact that everything we do needs to be grounded in real people, real people's needs, real people's stories. And so when we talk about doing business with, I once again gravitate doing business for what's the reason. And so with Innovate Africa, for example, which is a pan-African show, it was all about doing business for the sake of showcasing the great talent out there. And that was, I think, certainly informed by my years on commercial radio, where all I heard was negative news.

And I used to fight with editors about the saying, why is it that we always feel mildly depressed whenever I get home? And I'm not bringing up the pom poms. Essentially what I am saying is there are lots of issues that people complain about, but their businesses fix those issues so it's relevant right. So for me that's doing business for for that particular reason to shine a light and a good work and to give us a balanced view as to

what's happening around us. Innovation City was same thing you know why do we do it we went to do bring together the most innovative people, big corporate. So we've got 400 billion Rand. I don't know how much that is in euro right now. But anyway, 400 billion Rand's with the corporates, four billion Rand's with the funding and some really interesting startups. But we started all of this in the middle of Covid. And once again, the purpose there was to not be defeated by Covid,

but rather to have our, you know, because we were highly focused by what it actually meant to go through COVID and what that meant for people in co-working spaces and the one thing that we settled on is that you can bring in all the AI in the world, but nothing will beat people coming together, speaking to each each other understanding each other's stories and collaborating to innovate and change other people's lives so for me when it just to answer your question when it comes to doing business it's all around what we can solve for I'm not about to start a line of earrings or anything like that. I, because I'm a newsman, I come from a news background. I'm grounded in, I'm not saying having earrings is not

important to some people, well-being, I respect that. But for me, it's about how do you impact people's lives positively so that they can go on to impact the lives of others. So that kind of, in a long nutshell, is what I do business for. I love that, I love that. Thank you for sharing all of that and for being so open about it. And yeah, I really appreciate that

because I stopped listening to the news a really long time ago in the radio and all of that because I was feeling as a sensitive soul, I was kind of taking all of this energy in yes where's all the good stuff like there's definitely good stuff out there so thank you for bringing that to the fore and I'm curious so how did you know that you wanted to go into all of this like ten years ago did you see yourself doing this or as a when you were growing up did you feel like this

was where your life was leading? I've loved my life generally not having a clue about what I wanted to do next. I matriculated, I did pretty badly in matric. I ended up sitting at home reading my father's Cape Times when it was still run by a decent owner. Not at the moment though. And I was kind of trying to figure life out. And so life happened to me, right?

My parents always taught me one thing. They said, aptitude and, I had no clue what they were talking about initially. I was a bit young. They said, aptitude and attitude is gonna get you far in life. And anyway, I was sitting there, living in Elsie's River up in the hood

and reading this newspaper. And I heard that there was gonna be a political rally close by. And I'm like, I'm bored. I'm gonna go check this thing out. We weren't a very political family. Anyway, I rock up there. Long story short, I meet a guy called Jimmy Matthews who was a producer for Reuters and I was so intrigued by this camera thing that I saw and he let me have a look through the lens and it was black and white and I said, ah, it's color on TV. What's going on here? He said, why don't you come and

check what we do? And I ended up, because I was really bored and really confused about what life was supposed to bring, I never ever have things totally figured out. And I actually prefer that state, by the way. I ended up going to the corner of Long and Rubik Street in town, Cape Town, and spending six months making coffee, then learning how cameras worked, how machine to machine video editing worked and and before all this fancy stuff that we now have where they do edits for you and I eventually ended up becoming a soundman cameraman I was there for the release of Nelson Mandela I was a tape runner the USS Halliburton arrived here

I was soundman for that got sick because I didn't like the slow rolling. Long story short, I cut my teeth in media at the age of about 17, 18. Not knowing that that's what I really wanted, but that's what I sort of progressed. And I ended up going to the SABC and a couple of other places for my sins and then built this media career. And I fell into good open as well. I was a cameraman at the SABC, went down to watch this guy do his music show on good open His name was Graham white the vanilla thriller

I put my foot in the door like my parents said aptitude and attitude did his mixes for him He taught me it loved Graham to go and smoke And then eventually they said hey once you tried for radio. I said with this with this voice nah anyway we did it and I got a weekend gig called Kid Kino Saturday Sensation anyway it was probably the worst show ever done on radio but I did the show and I ended up spending 30 years in the media as a result of that and I've been unemployed for at least three months in my whole life. So I've been blessed from that perspective. And then my journey where I'm at at the moment is once again, you get sick and tired of doing the same old same old and you ask yourself, well, at the age of, I was at the tender age

of 46, I'm 50 now, I said, okay, what am I going to do next? And I kind of told them I'm leaving. I knew that I'd get a payout because when you leave, if you've done a break for show, they don't want you to work at another break for show. So you get a bit of a payout and took a year sabbatical. Well, I thought it was going to be a year then ended up meeting some people I've interviewed before, UCT online high school. I was part of the founding team, startup team for that, and then met good friend of mine, Stefan Egberg, who's now my co-founder in Innovation City.

Once again, it happened to me. I didn't go, I didn't leave going, oh, I know exactly what I want. It happened and I opened myself up to that. I have a lot of trust in what the future brings. Wow, that's an incredible, incredible journey. And I really appreciate and love how open you are. Again, doing business for yourself,

for who you are in the world and for others, I think does that. It does make you open to opportunities. And I think a lot of people who are listening are probably gonna be really inspired by this because it's really daunting to do what you've done. I think for the way society structures us, it's very much like you have a plan,

you have to follow a certain route. But actually as spiritual beings, as open beings, as we have this way of life just finds a way. Yeah. You know, and I remember a guy on a train in Chicago, from Chicago, once told me over breakfast, life will always find a way. And that's always stuck with me. I'm a sheep farmer, Dave, I'll never forget him.

But yeah, thank you for being open and for doing all these amazing things in the world. And I want to know how, I mean, obviously it gets a lot. So how do you actually fill your cup? How do you make sure that you handle all of this stuff? You know, I drink lots of whiskey. No, I'm kidding. No, no, I'm just no. I think what I've managed to do now, I've got a 23 year old and a seven year old.

Right. It's not getting to the the details But because I own my own businesses and because I don't get in I've learned Long ago that getting into involved in operations is not my thing. I'm a strategist. I Connect dots I have I go to various meetings and the standard people need what they're looking for short medium long term and Then end up connecting dots. That's what I do. We've appointed an amazing team that actually knows how to get operations sorted at Innovation City. So we've got a management team that runs that.

Just, this is, by the way, just a demonstration of one of the problems I have is my ADHD. So don't edit this out. Because I think it's important, I've actually functioned at quite a reasonable level with ADHD. Just remind me of that question again. The question was that how do you fill your cup? How do you? I fill my cup.

Okay. Yeah. Okay. So how I fill my cup, generally Nicole is with whiskey. I'm just kidding. I think for me, it's doing the things that matter to me so family matters to me I've got a 23 year old I've got a seven year old and a lovely wife so spending time with them listen family life isn't easy I

know we all say things are rosy things aren't always rosy I mean you know life is life life is messy but you need to figure out the things that you really like doing I've probably spent more than 10 ten thousand rand on buying how to draw cartoon courses. Probably more than that, about twenty thousand rand. I haven't started any one of them effectively because of my ADHD. But I'm now finding time because there's something beautiful when it comes to sitting and producing something on a paper. I always thought for the longest time, I used to be envious of people who could

draw and I always said to myself, I can't draw. I'm useless at drawing. But you know, the guys like Shane Burke and a couple of other people that I follow, they've got phenomenal courses. So I actually don't have it with me at the moment, but I have a little notepad. It's a drawing book like notepad and I'm on TikTok all the time. If I look at these drawing lessons, I'm trying to mess around and doodle. So I'm getting into it. That is how I fill my cup. What else is there? Yeah, I think it's more actually being present for my family that matters. And I'm also not worrying too much about the trappings of life. You know, you say, oh, I have four homes and I want to drive this car and that car. I happen to drive a nice car, but it's not the beginning and end of my life.

If I lost it tomorrow and I sort of ended up in a lovely little item, which is what my wife drives, I'd be very happy in doing that as well. So I think the older you get. What you fill your cup with is very different from when you're younger, a little bit more, I wouldn't say stupid, but a little bit more naive. And you think this is what success is in life. If I may quickly share a story which encapsulates this.

So there's this professor from Harvard, and well done to Harvard for standing up. Am I allowed to say that, but I will? This professor from Harvard goes to this little Italian town and he sees these fishermen getting up in the morning, going out in a boat, doing their fishing, catching a little bit of fish, going home, having a siesta, coming back and you know, they follow this every day. And he goes up to the fisherman getting up, what are you guys doing? You know, why do you only catch like a handful of fish? And they said, well, we just need to eat.

He says, you know what? If you actually catch a hell of a lot of fish, you can sell that fish, you can buy another boat, and eventually you can have a fleet of boats. And the guy said to him, well, and then what? He says, well, once you have a fleet of boats, you can sell that fleet of boats, you can have millions, billions even. And he said, and then what? And he said, well, then you can retire at the ocean. And then the guy says, well, I'm

already at the ocean. That story resonates with me and I've bastardized the story. But we think we want certain things in life. But once you have this, I actually don't give a damn and I just want to be peaceful in my own skin and be who I am and be comfortable with that and not worry about what other people have to say to me and say about me or think about me, then it's such a beautiful space to be. I love being 50, by the way. I used to worry about so many things when I was younger. Now I'm like, if it's not gonna kill me, if it's not gonna kill my family,

if it's not gonna matter in three months from now, why am I worrying about it? If I can't control it, why am I trying to control it? Things just need to happen. So in terms of filling the cup, I think I've mentioned earlier, obviously, the things that I'm spending time with the family, but it's also that letting go

and being comfortable in it that I love. That is so important. Thank you for sharing that. And I love that story because I guess through my travels, I've also experienced that a lot, you know, it's like becoming more minimalistic, really realising that what is a luxury as human connection, it's not so much what you wear. I mean that's important too for expression but it's like who you are inside and what that resonates with in the world and getting to know yourself.

I think that's so important and I love that you're doing creations. I mean I'm such a creative soul. I think everyone is a creative soul and I've also been wanting to dabble in animation and drawing and I've also been wanting to dabble in animation and drawing, and I've also been a little bit scared of it. So you are inspiring me today. Oh, that's good. Thank you for that. And so I'm curious, in a year from now, where do you see yourself?

Where is life? Did you not listen to me earlier? I did. I don't know, quite frankly. I mean, listen, I obviously have a media company. We launch in a search fund, a fund with that. I'm hoping that all of these businesses become successful. And yes, of course, you know, if they're successful, I'll make money.

And I mean, money is important to pay bills. Let's not be foolish about life. But the impact that those businesses create, the value you bring others, I don't mind making money, I'm a capitalist right, over and above it, I mean I'm a capitalist who believes we need to be more like China which is let's not change governments all the time, I'm not saying democracy is a bad thing, I'm a capitalist who believes that if we have consistency we can plan a lot have consistency, we can plan a lot more effectively and we can achieve a lot more and we can impact more lives. But anyway, so a year from

now, I'm hoping the businesses are successful, but I hope to have my health. And why am I saying that? It sounds so worthy. It's not worthy. I had an Achilles operation recently. And while I was in hospital, I tried to hop over to get my crutches and I pulled my other Achilles. So I was wheelchair bound for two weeks and the recovery is still not perfect. And it made me realize, man, I'd give up my car with the roof that comes down for great Achilles any day. I would give up, I wouldn't give up my family but I

there's a lot of trappings that I would give up if I could still be in good neck and function because there's nothing better than health. Health is if someone offered you Nicole here's a question for you if someone said to you Nicole I will give you a hundred million euro tomorrow right you can get a hundred million euro tomorrow. Right? You can get a hundred million euro. But the trade off is you won't be able to get out of bed. Oh, I'd never do it. Exactly. I can go make that hundred million.

Exactly. Right? That's the right attitude. Because, but when we wake up, we don't think about life like that. We don't think about the fact that there are other people who can't get up in the morning and they might be rich. I mean, think of poor Michael Schumacher, right? All the money in the world won all the races, one ski thing knocked his head, the man cannot

walk. Would you want to be Michael Schumacher today? Now, I'm not judging him. I think it's sad what happened to him. It's sad for his family. But I think if we did a juxtaposition with our lives and we say okay compared to Michael I don't have much. The fact that you can wake up in the morning, get up, walk to a table, make yourself breakfast, eat that breakfast, go to gym, walk on a treadmill, drive a car and see is something that we

all take for granted. Yeah, it is, it really is and it's those little things it's like for me I've realized just being able to make the coffee and have it in the cup that I love is like it's the simple small things of life you know it's really important and that every time you feel that gratitude, it fills your cup exactly like you're saying to do more. And then that kind of cycle feeds you. And so on the topic of gratitude, I quickly want to do a little partner spotlight and have some gratitude for the people who are making these

conversations possible. So thank you so much to Riverside FM and RSS.com for being amazing content creators, partners in crime and they have given our audience very graciously a discount. So if you want to go to the socials and contact us at fridayfields.co we will send you the discount code and yeah if you're a content creator, a podcaster, a live streamer, or you just want to take more efficient meeting notes and have the video recorded, let us know and reach out to them as well.

So thank you to them. And then a very quick little slide into a segment I want to call the People, Places and Spaces, which is persons and amazing things out there that are giving us the feels, the Friday feels. And this week shout out goes to Away Luggage. I've been traveling to South Africa and back and I brought some goodies back with me. And I had this option of taking a bigger bag and I was like, no, I have to have my bag.

That's like my baby with me. And I bought this luggage in New York and it's called Away Luggage and I've never had a suitcase like this. So thank you to you guys for just giving me a travel buddy, a travel companion, that's amazing. So whoever is out there wanting to travel, check them out. Thank you to them for bringing the feels

and bringing my stuff home safely. And then I just want to move in quickly. We've got two more questions, Keno, and then I'll let you go into the world and do your cool stuff. The one is just a little sharing. It's called the James. It's moments of gratitude, I guess, for the week, but also maybe learning. So if something was hard, I'll have quickly share mine and you can share if you want to.

For me, it was an event I hosted at La Pommeomme d'Eve the South African bar in Paris on Monday night Easter Monday and it was called the cellar Renaissance and we we hosted a beautiful music night I had two bands playing no mercy and do destiny and Yeah, I think by the end of the night, I was full of emotion. And it might have been a little bit of extra wine I drank, but I think it was also about all the feels that I was feeling of a day of rebirth and also just artists sharing their soul. I learned a lot about the Renaissance in preparing for the event. And yeah, just I feel like we are in that time again in the world

where art is the revolution and I'll get emotional again and on that note I'm gonna give it over to you to share your gem for the week. Well listen you make me want to come to Paris I mean a friend of mine has just been appointed as the group CEO of a media company in Paris he used to be the the group CEO of MTN a group CEO of digital Christian, a group CEO of Digital Christian Bombon, very nice guy. And I said to him, I'm gonna visit him in Paris. I'm gonna come to one of your events, no doubt. I think I definitely want to do that. I need to travel more actually. So gratitude, I think, I don't know, I mean it's the

health, but right. I mean for me, the fact that I have a functioning brain that allows me to utilize this thing that people call a deficit, ADHD, and utilize it to its full capacity to be able to sit and listen to people. I mean, I can't listen for very long, so I tend to have very short meetings, which to me is a blessing. I can't sit in a meeting for an hour, I can't listen to people, I mean, I can't listen for very long, so I tend to have very short meetings, which to me is a blessing.

I can't sit in the meeting for an hour, I can't. I normally say to my management team, you know what, if you can't say it in 30 minutes or 35 minutes, we can't have the meeting, then send me an email. But the fact that I'm able to get up and walk, the fact that I have a beautiful family, I mean, my eldest suffers with a bit of depression, so there's a learning there, you know, internally, but also, you know, as a parent, the lessons that it teaches you as well. Life is not easy, but I have the ability to deal with the curveballs that life throws me. But generally, man, I've lived an interesting life.

I come from a really poor area. I've got no family that's linked to any politicians. I like politicians like a hole in the head. It's just some sage advice that my parents gave me that allowed me to go on that journey, and that is show people that you've got the aptitude and the attitude. Stop asking for money upfront and prove your worth.

And if you're really worth it, you know what? People will work with you. And that's just, I've got a brain that functions. I'm healthy and I listen to my parents for once in my life. My mother will tell you it's few and far between, but that's something I did listen to. That's amazing. Oh, I love that. Thank you. Yeah. And I think everyone else out there listening, you know, what are your feels about this? You know, as you're listening to Kino chat about his life and share all these insightful moments, you know, that you've come to realize.

What do you feel about being open to business, being open to the world and opportunities? We want to hear all the feels and do share with us. We love receiving your messages. On that, I have one more question for you and that is what is in your stack? That is the reading list. It's something that maybe you've got some books on the pile that you haven't read yet or maybe you've got some that you'd like to recommend. Yeah. I'm actually going through the list right now.

I was looking at it this morning, because I mean, I do like, I certainly like learning new things each and every day. And I've made, so I mean, I'm being interviewed about one or two of these books that I've read on next week sometime. So the one is, I've just made a list here, Shane Parrish. I enjoyed the Shane Parrish book, which is about clear thinking, right? The other one

is Think Faster, Talk Smarter, Matt Abrams. I tried to, I mean, Malcolm Gladwell is always a favourite of mine. So Blink is a book I've read a few times. I tried reading Prince Harry's book Spare, but I gave up on it, I think, like a quarter way in. I was just like, I mean, I love Harry and I don't like the royal family all that much. I'm sure the French would love to hear me say that, but yeah, it's just too soppy and too Jerry Springer. I wasn't interested in that.

And then The Subtle Art of Not Giving a a beep was another book that I've read. I'm just going through my whole list. My favorite book ever, because I'm a storyteller, is Donald Miller's sort of building a story brand which basically says you know all you corporates who come up with these bloated stories and whatever, he says, just keep it simple. You're not the hero, your customers the hero. Highlight that. And so I love story.

I mean, the story Design Academy you mentioned earlier, it's not something we've launched yet. It's something that will be launched. It was going to be launched in California. It's a friend of mine, Ethan Lader. Ethan happens to be the music video director for Bruno Mars, Wiz Khalifa, The Script, Mariah Carey, very down-to-earth guy. And after the last election, I said to him, dude, there's no way. No way. I'm launching a business in the United States. So we're moving the business and we're going to have our launch in

Q2 and that'll be in Dublin. So we'll move our operations suit to Ireland. Yeah. Okay. Oh wow. So that's it really. In a nutshell. Amazing. Amazing. Well thank you for sharing all those recommendations. It's a pleasure. I'm quite excited to check out the story one. Being an avid storyteller myself, Poet at heart storyteller, singer, songwriter. And yeah, I really love that. And I love what you're doing. I'm really excited to see the Story Design Academy come to life. Tell us how we can help and promote and celebrate it with you.

Thank you. By a Friday feels. And yeah, I just thank you for coming on. Thank you for sharing. Thank you for giving your time and your energy to come and share today and really appreciate that and let me say something to you you know what's so cool you know I've dealt with people for 30 years of my life it's just such a cool vibe I get from you very authentic very chilled but very connected.

So, I mean, I like that. I enjoy interviews with people who are comfortable in their own skin and know what they want. So it's been a good interview. I really enjoyed it. Thank you, Kenna. That really means a lot to me. What a pleasure.

Thank you. It's a pleasure. And wishing you a fabulous, fabulous week. I hope it's full art fills. Thanks. You you. It's a pleasure. I mean it. Wishing you a fabulous, fabulous week. I hope it's full art fields. You too. You too Nicole. In Paris. I will come and visit. Christian, I will come and visit. I've got a few friends up there now. So I'll definitely come and say hi. Well, we'll make a plan in the South African bar. We'll make a plan. We'll make a plan in the South African bar. We'll make a plan. Absolutely. I like the sound of that. I like the sound of that. As long as the South Clippers and Kohler in Paris, I'm a happy guy. I actually like the Irish whiskey, but I mean, it's not good.

I'm sure we can find something of decent effect. I'm sure we can find something decent effect. Thanks so much. What a pleasure to call. Thank you very much. Take care of you. Have a lovely day. Bye. Bye bye. If you haven't just yet, follow Friday Feels on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok and LinkedIn. You can share with us all your feels this week by tagging us at

fridayfeels.co and you can also find the website at that handle. And now as you ease into this weekend take a moment celebrate who you've become, what you've overcome and what is yet to come as you do the crazy and cool things that you do as the authentic you. You know the truth about life and work is that it's hard but the beauty is this global working experience that you're in while we are in it together. So keep connecting, empowering and inspiring this week. And of course, keep it raw and real. Until next time.