Joyce Karanja, a Nairobi-based partner at Bowmans, started her career as a mergers and acquisitions lawyer, but her career changed significantly when the Kenya Competition Act came into force in 2011. The legislation, Kenya’s first modern attempt to create a robust competition policy and establish an independent regulator, marked Karanja’s foray into competition law.

“My work went from 100% in M&A work to gradually becoming competition law and I can say over the last four to five years, I’ve been a dedicated competition practitioner,” she told Law.com International. “I would say it’s definitely an interesting, dynamic area of law. And because of where we are on the continent, it’s only going to uptick from here.”