Strathmore University Vice-Chancellor Dr Vincent Ogutu made the biggest decision of his life at 16 years old. He joined Opus Dei, and he has never looked back.

Forty years on, the man who runs one of Kenya's most respected universities has no wife, no children, and no property in his name. He reportedly donates his salary to the Catholic Church.

"I'm not married because at a certain point in my life, God asked me to make that sacrifice so that I could be available to be sent anywhere at any time," he said.

Ogutu, who grew up in Eastlands, Nairobi, is candid that it was the hardest sacrifice he ever made. Like any ordinary boy from Eastlands, he once fantasised about meeting a princess and sweeping her off her feet.

What carried him through, he explained, was understanding that the calling was an invitation, not a command. That sense of freedom made all the difference.

He does not see the absence of a family as an emptiness. He counts the students and mentees whose lives he has shaped over decades as his children.

"Marriage, which would have been nice, but it's been replaced by having all these sons and daughters who are my students and mentees," he said.

His own rise is a story of remarkable social mobility. A scholarship earned through strong academic results took him to Strathmore College for his secondary education.

From there he earned a Bachelor of Arts in Economics from the University of Nairobi, a Master of Science in Financial Economics from the University of London, and a PhD in Organisational Management from Rutgers University in the United States through a Fulbright scholarship.

He briefly worked as a journalist at Nation Media Group — for about one week — before returning to Strathmore as a teacher, the pivot that defined the rest of his career.

He rose through a series of senior academic and administrative roles before being installed as Strathmore University's second Vice-Chancellor in March 2023, succeeding Professor John Odhiambo.

For Ogutu, the truest measure of a life well lived is not what one accumulates, but whose life one manages to change along the way.