Our Team
We Are Specialists In Customized Trips To
We Are Specialists In Customized Trips To
We are pleased to introduce you to the amazing team behind the success of Greenwise Travels. Drawn from diverse professional, academic and geographical backgrounds, their collective knowledge, skills and experiences have been instrumental in delivering exceptional experiences and results to our clients and stakeholders.
With over a decade of experience in travel and tourism, having worked with some of the leading travel, hospitality and conservation organizations, Ken possesses a deep understanding of Africa as a destination. He has also worked as an outbound travel consultant and this, in conjunction with his personal travels, has exposed him to other renowned and little known destinations across the world giving him an all-round clear understanding of the global travel scene.
Ken’s love for tourism can be traced back to his childhood. Growing up in the hilly parts of Nyanza in rural Kenya, he’d always marvel at the beauty of the hills and his occasional travels to other parts of the country exposed him to other magnificent natural features in the country. Ken would later, upon completion of his high school education, enroll for a degree program in Travel and Tourism Management at Moi University which exposed him to the reality of tourism as an economic activity as well as the limitations to tourism development in the country. During his study, he developed particular interest in two subjects, namely: Sustainable Tourism and Community Based Tourism and committed to play a significant role towards making Kenya a model destination in sustainable and community-based tourism. His interest in sustainable tourism not only led him to establish Greenwise Travels but further earned him a Commonwealth Scholarship at the Leeds Beckett University in the United Kingdom to study MSc. Responsible Tourism Management.
Over the years, he has implemented successful sustainability programs, both as an employee and consultant. While serving as an employee, in various capacities, he was instrumental in shaping the visions of the employing organizations in line with sustainability principles, all while harbouring a burning urge and passion for entrepreneurship and the desire to pursue meaningful change unabated. The end result of this dream was the establishment of Greenwise Travels and Niko Green Consulting.
Ken is an alumnus of UNLEASH INNOVATION LAB ( https://unleash.org ), having been part of the inaugural class of 2017, held in Denmark. UNLEASH is a global innovation lab that brings together top 1,000 SDG talents from across the world annually to co-create disruptive solutions to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Nickson Otieno is a Licensed Architect, a sustainability expert, and an Eisenhower Fellow who's championing the transition to an inclusive, sustainable and resilient built environment through design, research, training and technology. He has over 13 years of post-graduate leadership and innovation experience in co-designing and delivering climate-smart built environment programs ranging from green building, clean energy, biodiversity conservation, sustainable waste and water management, and use of digital technologies to strengthen urban governance for sustainability. He has provided policy advice to the Government of Kenya and consulted for different organizations including UN Agencies such as UN Environment, UN-Habitat, World Health Organization (WHO), and UNDP.
Nickson has also been involved in convening and participating in several multidisciplinary networks, conferences and professional exchange programs. Nickson is a Partner at Trimax Architects Ltd and the Founding CEO of Niko Green Ltd, the parent company of Greenwise Travels. Nickson’s role at Greenwise entails designing and implementing our sustainability projects and advising the team on sustainability matters.
For more information about Nickson, please visit his portfolio - https://nicksonotieno.com/
Millicent has been part of the company since inception and has played a key role in establishing all the requisite internal and external structures of the company. Her passion for travel and joy of sharing the beauty of Africa, and the rest of the world, with our guests is enough motivation to ensure that everything is in place to ensure the smooth running of our programs. She strongly believes in the collective approach to problem solving and always encourages team work amongst individual staff members and across departments.
A graduate of Diplomacy and International Studies, ‘Madam Diplomat’ as we fondly call her is the glue that holds the team together. Her empathy and wit in problem solving ensure that every team member receives the support needed to deliver on their responsibilities. Additionally, her keen attention to detail has granted her an additional responsibility of Quality Control and, as a standard practice, no piece of work is presented either to clients or partners without passing through her ‘eagle-eyes’ for scrutiny. On the same front, she’s in charge of making critical decisions regarding partner selection such as accommodation and transportation partners, all of whose selection are matched with their abilities to meet our prescribed quality and sustainability standards.
Morten has travelled from the hottest deserts in California to the coldest glaciers in New Zealand, and everything in between. Even though he is born and raised in Denmark he sees himself not as a Dane, but as a global citizen. He gets up every morning with the mind set of taking care of mother nature and our future generations, and believes that the best way to do so is by interacting with the different people and cultures who all shares the same home, planet Earth. Besides that, he works as a full-time consultant within Circular Economy, and volunteers in a Danish Youth and Environmental NGO. He loves sailing, running and know how to survive in the wilderness.
Morten and Ken met first time at the UNLEASH Innovation Lab in 2017, where they worked together on a project that received the third prize in the SDG category of Responsible Consumption and Production. Their common passion for travel and sustainability formed the foundation for the partnership. As the company’s link with the Scandinavian market, Morten’s duty entails marketing the company’s product and preaching the message of sustainable travel to Africa.
Cynthia is a nature conservation driven biologist from Mexico. She has been part of AgroDer´s team since 2007, a civil society consultancy and advisory firm where she has coordinated and led multidisciplinary groups of consultants in a nationwide scale working in national and international projects with NGOs, private companies, farmer organizations and government.
She has strong experience in strategic planning, nature conservation, agriculture and food production, feasibility studies and diagnostics, sustainable development, market intelligence and business advice. Key projects and initiatives: nationally, the Water Reserves National Program, identification/economic valuation of ecosystem services, the national REDD+ strategy; internationally, the Integrated Water Management Cooperation between The Netherlands and Mexico, Securing Water for Food: a grand challenge for development (USAID grant challenge), Water Footprint. Cynthia is the coordinator for AgroDer in an IKI (International Climate Initiative) 5 year-long project to build resilience in small communities in Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Cuba and Mexico through Ecosystem based Adaptation mechanisms, innovative financial instruments and Ecosystem Services economic valuation along with partners from each country and Germany. Cynthia is a SDG Global Talent at UNLEASH Lab held in Denmark in 2017; Network Capital Country Head – Mexico; Mexico City Chapter Lead in the Circle of Young Intrapreneurs; was a member of the Follow-up Group for the development of the Biodiversity Strategy of Mexico City; a member and participant of the National Forest Council; and AgroDer´s representative in the Civil Society Committee at COP 13 Convention on Biological Diversity, Cancun 2016.
Erika has traveled to all six inhabited continents and hopes one day to travel to Antarctica as well. She loves learning about diversity on earth: in cultures, nature, and through art. She travels in order to foster understanding and compassion and learn how best to achieve social impact around the world.
She also is a firm believer that tourism can be an immense force for good if done sustainably and equitably. Erika works on issues of climate change, sustainable development, social impact, environmental justice and tropical forest conservation. Erika and Ken met at the UNLEASH Innovation Lab 2017 in Denmark, where they both worked on the category of Responsible Consumption and Production. She currently lives in Washington DC, has a Master of Business Administration (MBA) and a Master of Environmental Science (MESc) from Yale University, and loves spending time with her adorable dog Arnold.
