How a Law graduate found her way into tech, built an AI startup, and now helps organisations transform with intelligent solutions.
By Precious Arikeri
If you told me in 2015 that I’d one day be debating AI models and API endpoints instead of legal precedents, I’d have asked you to “state your source.”
Back then, I was buried in citations, contracts, and caffeine.
My world was footnotes and case law, not frameworks and datasets.
But life and a random website project had other plans.
The accidental project manager
My journey into tech didn’t start with a grand career blueprint.
It started with a friend who needed a website and me saying, “Sure, I’ll manage it.”
At the time, I thought “managing it” meant sending a few follow-up emails and maybe creating a neat checklist.
Instead, I found myself in a group chat where people spoke in what sounded like alien code:
“Push to GitHub.”
“Fix the backend.”
“Update the staging environment.”
I smiled, nodded, and typed “what is backend?” into Google with the urgency of someone trying to pass a secret exam.
By 2018, I was officially an IT Project Manager, proof that a Law degree can take you anywhere, including straight into debugging chaos you don’t fully understand (yet).
Lessons from the controlled chaos
That first year felt like trying to conduct an orchestra while still learning what an orchestra is.
But beneath the confusion were priceless lessons that shaped everything I’ve done since.
1. Communication beats code.
You don’t have to write code to create impact.
You just need to speak the language of clarity, translating ideas into outcomes and problems into progress.
2. Leadership is about direction, not domination.
The best PMs don’t shout “go faster.”
They make everyone understand why they’re building what they’re building.
3. Curiosity is the real credential.
I didn’t know Python or Java, but I knew how to ask “why?”
That single word became my superpower.
When curiosity met AI
Somewhere between project timelines, sprint retrospectives, and stakeholder updates, I stumbled into a new obsession: Artificial Intelligence.
It started with a simple question:
“Can technology think for us, or just help us think better?”
That curiosity spiraled into years of learning, experimenting, failing forward, and eventually building something meaningful.
Fast-forward, and that same curiosity led me to co-found Expense AI, an intelligent financial tracking app built to simplify how people manage and understand their money.
What began as a project-management experiment evolved into a full-fledged AI-powered product, scanning receipts, extracting data, and giving users real-time insights.
Every late-night bug fix…
Every “what if we tried this?” conversation…
Every broken deployment and triumphant comeback…
It all came full circle.
Because:
Project management taught me systems.
Law taught me logic.
AI taught me imagination.
Where I am now
Today, I work at the intersection of AI, business, and transformation, helping organisations rethink how they operate in a digital-first world.
Through my work with Kep Technologies, I support businesses in adopting AI strategically, redesigning processes, improving efficiency, and building intelligent solutions that actually work for real people.
I’ve gone from chasing developers for updates to helping organisations reimagine what’s possible when AI becomes part of their workflow.
And no, I still don’t write Python fluently, but I design strategies that make Python useful.
Sometimes, I think back to that girl in 2018:
refreshing Jira, surviving her first deployment, and secretly Googling “difference between UI and UX.”
She didn’t know it, but she was building the muscle for what I do now: clarity, adaptability, empathy, and fearless learning.
The ongoing experiment
If there’s one thing tech has taught me, it’s that careers aren’t ladders anymore, they’re playgrounds.
You climb, swing, fall, laugh, and keep moving.
From Law to Project Management to AI, I’ve learned that the bridge between any two worlds is not just credentials, it’s curiosity.
So to anyone standing in that awkward in-between,
unsure,
underqualified,
overthinking life…
Trust me:
Google is your best friend.
Chaos is your greatest teacher.
And curiosity is the only qualification that never expires.
Full circle
Today, when I see a product go live or an AI model perform better than expected, I smile.
Because somewhere in there, buried under a million sprint reviews and bug reports, is the same curiosity that started it all.
And if you ever feel lost in your career, just remember:
Sometimes, the detour is the destination.
