Meet Trushar Khetia, Founder of Kenya-based Tria Group, an Advertising Firm Using Public Transit Vehicles to Market Goods

Trushar Khetia is one of Kenya’s most outstanding young entrepreneurs who has made indelible marks by contributing to the growth of the economy of his country and Africa at large.

He is the founder of Tria Group, an outdoor advertising firm that uses public transit vehicles to market leading consumer goods in Kenya.

Tria, which was founded in 2013, places advertising on more than 200 buses in Nairobi for clients such as Unilever, Google, HP, Dell and Konica Minolta.

He was born in the western part of Kenya called Kitale, there, he attended Kitale government school for his primary school education, before moving to Nairobi for his high school (O & A levels). He Proceeded to study at the Manchester Business School where he studied Management with a specialization in Marketing. After graduating in the UK, he worked for Procter & Gamble (P&G) for 3 years as a business development manager.

He did a research into the Kenyan media market and realized the huge white space in the transit media industry where there were so many buses and so much traffic in Nairobi, but barely only 10 out of thousands of buses carried any ads. Majority of outdoor ads were billboards.

So, he was prompted that it was a great space to enter, the company subsequently ventured into airline media with a partnership with Precision Air, one of Tanzania’s major airline.

Trushar was able to turn congestion into a selling point, he seized the opportunity with the hustling and bustling that often fills the streets while people wait for buses in Nairobi, Kenya.

The company had annual revenues exceeding $1.3 million in their first year of operation and Trushar’s two companies have combined revenues of more than $7 million per year. The reach of the company’s media is phenomenal as they have over 110 branded buses on the road everyday and each bus carries a total of 400 to 500 people in a day.

He is also the founder of Society Stores, one of the most popular supermarkets in Thika, a thriving industrial town 40 kilometers north-east of Nairobi. The retail outlet is doing more than $6 million in annual revenues.

Khetia is set to open two other stores and to expand the Tria Group’s tentacles first throughout East Africa and then to other African countries.