Japheth Kogei attended Samoei Secondary School in Nandi County before joining Kijabe Boys High School in Kiambu County. Soon after high school, he was awarded the International House Program Scholarship by Jacksonville State University, Alabama, USA, where he studied and completed his first degree.

He joined the School of Business and Economics, department of Accounting and Finance in January 2011. Prior to joining Moi University, Japheth had extensive accounting and financial industry experience at Wells Fargo Financial Group, a US-based financial services company, where his roles included a financial consulting, financial analysis, accounting, auditing, and systems analysis. In his role as a financial consultant and analyst, he worked with project managers, lease negotiators and team leaders and others to ensure that projects were completed on time and within budget constraints, did market research and analysis of real estate markets in the U.S, identified banking market trends, emerging markets, general market potentials, competitive forces, market penetration strategies, customer preferences and other conditions in the marketplace, established and maintained quality relationships with real estate developers and brokers to enhance potential for new business, as well as making presentations to district, regional and divisional managers regarding potential growth areas and site selections for new banking centres or relocation of existing ones based on financial and strategic mapping analysis results. He was also an adjunct lecturer of accounting and finance at Des Moines Area Community College in Iowa, USA, between 2006 and 2010.

Japheth is a board member for the KN Global Holdings Group.