waira mungai
&waira.mungai1
Human connection, culture, joy, and good company
Waira works to build technology that serves human connection, culture and joy, as Director of Growth at The & Company, the Kansas City company behind &tags, a privacy-respecting identity layer for the web. In early 2026 they gathered Kansas City's entrepreneurs, artists and connectors to preview that work, and in May took part in a city conversation on joy as infrastructure. Waira hosts dinners that turn into late-night conversations, organizes local cultural events, and finds inspiration in music, food and the energy of people gathered in one place. That instinct for connection goes back to their University of Kansas years, when they founded Lume Lifestyle in 2015 by listening to what people said they wanted. From McPherson, Kansas, with family ties in Kenya, they now call Kansas City home.
Designing for agency, from activewear to digital identity
Waira Mungai (&waira.mungai1), Director of Growth at The & Company, approaches product design through the lives people want to lead. A trainer’s observation becomes Lume’s phone-pocket leggings; work at SquareOffs brings opinion-sharing onto publishers’ own sites. Mungai carries that interest in participation and personal agency into &tags, a privacy-respecting identity layer intended to make online connection more human.
Top themes
- Observation-led product design
- Crowdfunding and customer validation
- Conversation on publishers’ own terms
- Privacy-respecting digital identity
Featured
Joy as Infrastructure: A Conversation with Waira Mungai of The & Company
A May 26, 2026 event listing presents Mungai’s conversation on &tags, privacy and technology in service of human connection.
socialventuremeetup.com