The path of Jamila didn't exactly start as a newsreader. In 2000, at nineteen, Jamila Mohamed joined IQRA FM as a sales representative—a Nairobi radio station in Kenya.

And as fate would have it, one day the head of news walked into the newsroom, found the first person he saw, which was her and told her to read the bulletin.

Twenty-five years later, after that single act of reading that bulletin, she rose to become the Managing Editor of Citizen TV—Kenya's number one television station by viewership and revenue.

She has now become one of the respected journalists and a woman whose calm, authoritative presence on screen has become, for millions of Kenyans, synonymous with the idea of what a journalist should be.

The small act of reading a bulletin is what Kickstarted her story as a woman in the media space.

But it is only the beginning. What comes after, the sixteen years at NTV, the degrees earned in the middle of a full career, the hijab worn without apology in every newsroom she has ever walked into—that is the real story. That is Jamila Mohamed.

Kericho to Nairobi, Loss to Legacy

Born on May 1, 1981, Jamila Mohamed Abdullahi grew up in Kericho, in Kenya's Rift Valley, far from the gleaming studios where she would eventually make her name.

Her father died when she was eight years old. In a country where the loss of a father can derail an entire family's trajectory, her mother chose differently.

She held the household together, ensured that Jamila and her siblings had a normal childhood, and kept them in school.

Jamila completed her primary education in Kericho before relocating to Nairobi for secondary school and college.

She trained in Information Technology after high school and it was while looking for work that she found herself at IQRA FM, applying for whatever position was available.

Sales representative was all they had and she took it, although she struggled with it. And then the universe intervened in the form of an absent newsreader.

Two years at IQRA FM were followed by sixteen years at Nation TV—NTV—where she rose from junior reporter and Swahili news anchor through news editor and managing editor, all the way to Manager of Programming and Content Development.

During those sixteen years, she covered Kenya's general elections, the 2007 post-election violence, referendums, terrorist attacks, and tribal conflicts across the region.

She travelled across Kenya's forty-seven counties after the promulgation of the 2010 constitution, seeing parts of her country she had never seen before, telling stories she has never forgotten.

She also, during those same sixteen years, went back to school and earned a BA in Journalism and Media Studies with First Class Honours, followed by an MA in Conflict Management, both from the University of Nairobi.

The Hijab, the Newsroom, and the Stories That Change Lives

When Jamila Mohamed walks onto a television set, she carries something that most of her peers do not, a hijab, worn without compromise, in one of the most visible media roles in East Africa.

In a continent where mainstream media has often reflected a narrow image of who a professional woman looks like, her presence on screen has been quietly revolutionary.

She has never described herself as a trailblazer for wearing it. She has simply worn it, done the work, and let the image speak for itself, inspiring a generation of young Muslim women to understand that a newsroom was a place they could belong.

In 2018, she joined Citizen TV as Managing Editor of the Swahili division—a move that marked not just a change of employer but a change of scale.

Citizen TV was already Kenya's leading station when she joined and since that time she has helped maintain and deepen that position.

She oversees newsroom operations, story planning, editorial standards, and people management, responsible for the journalists who tell Kenya's stories every day, while still appearing on screen as an anchor and panelist on News Gang, the current affairs programme she co-hosts with senior colleagues every Thursday night.

Her Jamila's Memo segment, sharp, unsparing opinion pieces on the state of the nation, has become required reading and viewing for Kenyans who want accountability delivered without theatrics.

Each live recording, broadcast or even memo is a reminder that journalism, at its best, is not about balance for the sake of it, it is about truth, delivered with precision and without flinching.

Two Masters, A Career, and Still Counting

In March 2023, Citizen TV took to social media to announce that their Managing Editor had just graduated, with an Executive Masters in Media Leadership and Innovation, with Distinction, from Aga Khan University.

It was a moment that captured something essential about Jamila Mohamed: she is always growing.

The recognition has been consistent and well-earned. She has won the Somali Glamour Awards Female Journalist of the Year back-to-back, in 2018 and 2019.

She has received the Chaguo La Teeniez Award as favourite female presenter for three consecutive years.

She was honoured by the Media Council of Kenya for Excellence in Swahili Journalism in 2022, named among the Top 100 Most Impactful Women in East African Media in 2023, and listed among Kenya's 50 Most Influential Women by Africapitol Ventures in 2025.

Her philosophy has never changed from the day she first sat behind a microphone at IQRA FM: "Let your work speak for you. As long as you have a chance to prove yourself, every well-researched, well-thought-out, well-written piece that you put out there, do it like this is the only chance you have."