• Careers

Preparation is key - Akwenye

Born in Windhoek, Jason Akwenye attended St. Paul’s College.

He obtained his Namibia senior secondary certificate at higher level in 2010.

Curious by nature, he continued his higher education at the University of Cape Town in South Africa from 2011 to 2013, obtaining a Bachelor of Commerce in Economics and Finance.

He later pursued his Bachelor of Law at the University of Pretoria between 2015 and 2018. In 2019 and 2020, he was a candidate legal practitioner at Fisher, Quarmby and Pfeifer Attorneys.

Akwenye is currently employed at Bank Windhoek as a senior legal advisor.

He began his banking journey as a temporary credit risk analyst at Bank Windhoek’s risk department in 2014.



Teamwork

He said the first months of working at Bank Windhoek gave him "a great introduction to the banking environment. I was blessed to have had a boss and colleagues who were instrumental in my development. At the time, I had finished my undergraduate degree and was looking to head back to university to study law. I was encouraged to apply to Bank Windhoek for a scholarship. I was fortunate enough to be awarded the scholarship in 2015. During the time of my LLB studies, I continually interned with the legal advisory services at the bank."

After completing his LLB, Akwenye was again fortunate enough to be allowed to complete his practical legal studies (law articles) at Fisher, Quarmby and Pfeifer Attorneys for the next two years.

In 2021, after his admission as an attorney of the High Court of Namibia, Akwenye returned to Bank Windhoek as a legal advisor.



Hard work

Akwenye’s role entails quite a handful of duties. As a legal advisor, his job includes offering comprehensive legal advisory services to Bank Windhoek in various areas of the law. This includes, but is not limited to, banking, insurance, private and venture equity, micro-finance, asset management, property development, and specialist financing areas of the law.

Moreover, it entails drafting agreements and documentation as per applicable laws and considering various transactions.

The legal department completes legal reviews dependent on the bank’s business requirements and extensive legal research. They also monitor the legislative landscape for any new laws, regulations, or policies that may influence the bank.



Growth from adversity

Careers asked Akwenye to highlight some of his accomplishments and challenges.

"My most recent accomplishment was also one of my hardest challenges; that being completing my legal articles (practical legal studies) under the Justice Training Centre (JTC). The balance between full-time work as a candidate, after-hour classes and then making time for studying was a challenging combination I had never experienced before. You learn a lot about yourself in your time of adversity," he said.

"When deciding on a career, one has the challenge of deciding not only which specific career but also what exact field within that career to pursue. Now that I have settled on an exact field, commercial law, I look back at the difficulty I had in deciding which path to follow and how I would get there," said Akwenye.

As a message to aspiring youth, Akwenye said: "Success is a combination of various factors, most notably hard work and fortune. Although you cannot always control your fortune, you can control how much effort you put into your craft and yourself. And if one day fortune should roll your way, then you must make sure you are prepared for whatever opportunity may present itself. As Benjamin Franklin said: "By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail’."