Six women now sit among the most recognised in house lawyers in East Africa. Legal 500 named them to its 2026 GC Powerlist Kenya Honourees, a list that tracks the general counsel and company secretaries shaping strategy, governance and risk inside the region’s biggest employers.
Legal 500 unveiled the list on 1 September at the Sankara Hotel in Nairobi, in partnership with the law firm ENS. It was the third edition of the GC Powerlist East Africa, and it drew lawyers from Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda, Ethiopia and Burundi to celebrate a small circle of legal leaders who rarely get the spotlight their work deserves.
Imelda Bore carries Kenya Power onto the list
Imelda Bore, General Manager for Legal Services and Regulatory Affairs at Kenya Power, made the list as the utility’s top lawyer and Company Secretary to its board. She has held the Company Secretary post since August 2018 and added the General Manager title in January 2020.
Bore’s path to the role ran through the Attorney General’s chambers, where she served as Litigation Counsel from 2003 to 2008, before she joined Kenya Power as a Legal Officer later that year. She rose through the ranks there, from Chief Legal Officer for Commercial matters to Acting General Manager, before stepping into her current post.
She holds a law degree from Moi University, a master’s in Public Finance from the University of Nairobi, and a certification as a Public Secretary, and she has practised as an advocate for more than fifteen years.
Her work extends beyond Kenya Power’s boardroom. She sits as a trustee on the Kenya Power Pension Fund and serves as an elected director of Stima Sacco, roles that put her on committees covering governance, risk, audit and strategy. “Imelda is a subject matter expert in legal, governance and risk matters,” her Legal 500 profile notes, pointing to more than four years spent advising boards outside her main employer.
Sarah Chepsoi leads Sidian Bank’s win
Sidian Bank’s Head of Legal, Sarah Chepsoi, earned her spot in the Financial and Commercial Services category, and her employer wasted no time celebrating it. The bank called her recognition proof of the resilience and forward thinking spirit it wants to project across the businesses it serves.
Chepsoi built her case over more than ten years in banking law, first as an advocate of the High Court of Kenya and later as a Certified Public Secretary. She earned a law degree from Makerere University in Uganda and a master’s in law from the University of Nairobi before settling into her current role as Head of Legal and Company Secretary at Sidian Bank.
She frames her career less around titles and more around outcomes.
“I exist to make an impact and live by what is right and fair,” she said, describing herself as a team player who treats the job as meaningful work worth celebrating when it goes well.
Four more names round out the Kenya Honourees
Mical Agina, a projects, energy and infrastructure lawyer, made the Powerlist for a third consecutive year. Her practice spans more than fifteen years advising companies with subsidiaries across fifteen sectors, work that has included structuring tax and legal frameworks for firms entering new markets and consolidating businesses with mismatched legal systems. Outside her day job, she volunteers with the Teen Mums Initiative, helping teenage mothers return to school.
Alison Kariuki-Mbuthia, General Counsel for Africa at Unilever, brought more than fifteen years of experience across private practice and in house roles at consumer goods companies in East and West Africa. Her specialties include competition law, data privacy and capital markets compliance, and she is a graduate of INSEAD’s Women in Leadership programme.
Waeni Ngea, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary at AGRA, has spent her career in the consumer goods sector handling negotiation, labour disputes and commercial litigation. She holds a law degree from the University of Nairobi and qualifies as a practising company secretary.
June Opiyo rounds out the list as Head of Legal at Equity Bank, a role she stepped into after leading legal, litigation and group functions at Stanbic Bank Kenya. Her more than two decades in dispute resolution include a 2018 recognition for guiding Stanbic’s rebrand from CfC Stanbic, and her current work covers everything from drafting transaction agreements to confirming that loan collateral holds up under Kenyan law.
A pattern worth watching
The Kenya list arrives days after Legal 500 named Kenya Airways’ Habil Waswani to the same Powerlist for a third straight year, Khusoko reported, shortly before the airline handed him the acting chief executive job.
Company lawyers increasingly sit closest to where Kenyan businesses make their biggest decisions, and this year’s Powerlist suggests that shift now has a strong female face.
Six women now carry that recognition into 2026, running legal departments at a power utility, a bank, a global consumer goods company and an agricultural nonprofit, proof that the influence once confined to outside counsel has firmly moved in house.
