Building narratives: Gumiguru publishes young emerging leaders list

By Fungayi Sox

A Harare-based business consultancy firm Gumiguru Incorporated has published its 2021 List of young movers and shakers titled Gumiguru 50 Under 30 Emerging Leaders List Class of 2021.

Some of the emerging and high-flying individuals who have made it to the Class of 2021 include young businessman Tatenda Samukange of Skylake Borehole Drilling, Mambo Dhuterere, Lorraine Guyo, Feli Nandi and influential Bulawayo-based musician Mzoe7, the later of whom are all from the arts-related field.

Other notable individuals on the list include Events Planner Kevin Zhou and businessman Shacky Timburwa who were both recently listed by Forbes Africa 30 under 30 Annual Magazine in respect of their impact in the business and entrepreneurship field.

Gumiguru was part of the team which worked on and adjudicated the 2018 Zimbabwe National Youth Awards, which were attended by senior government officials, diplomats and leaders in the business community. It has a solid digital footprint in recognising young movers and shakers in their respective fields.

Gumiguru’s MD Simba Nyamadzawo stated that since 2015, he had been motivated to publish the list based on the conviction that “young people were not the leaders of tomorrow, but were in fact leaders of today. He further noted that young people had always been at the centre of pioneering, innovation and positive change”.

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The business consultancy firm also outlined the methodology used in compiling the list.

Methodology

The list comprises of 50 individuals born after December 31, 1990 and doing remarkable, notable or unique work worth recognising and emulating.

The purpose of the list as such is double pronged, first and foremost it is to formally recognise, acknowledge and celebrate young Zimbabweans 30 years old or below, who are doing remarkable or unique work worth recognising and emulating.

Secondly, it is to inspire other contemporaries to rise to the occasion in these trying times.

Gumiguru derives its working definition of leadership from Dr Myles Munroe who stated “leadership is the capacity to influence others through inspiration, motivated by passion, generated by vision, produced by a conviction, ignited by a purpose”

The names were drawn from various sources including, but not limited to media houses, nominations from individuals and organisations that closely work with the youths.

Individuals who have been listed in preceding years will not be listed again.

Previous honourees include Jah Prayzah, Ruvheneko Parirenyatwa, Arthur Marara, Maud Chifamba, Fadzayi Mahere, Killer T and Tanyaradzwa Muzinda just to name, but a few.

An overview of the Gumiguru Emerging Leaders Class of 2021

For the purposes of this article, I will take an overview extract of some of the movers and shakers who have made it to the list.

1. Derby Bheta

Derby Bheta is a film director and co-founder of College Central and one of the brains behind the currently trending hit series Wadiwa Wepa Moyo. In 2019, he was selected for Talent Durban 2019. Derby studied at Midlands State University where he made the short film Things We Do for Love and went on to win best short film at the Zimbabwe International Film Festival and the International Images Film Festival. It earned him a National Arts Merit Awards nomination.

2. Emmy Chiyindiko

Multi-award-winning science communicator Emmie Chiyindiko is a Chemistry PhD research student at the University of Free State (UFS) and her work has been featured in numerous media publications, including Forbes Science, News24, and Sunday Times. When she isn’t hovering over experiments, Chiyindiko is a Mathematics lecturer at the Central University of Technology, a speaker and event facilitator of STEM community engagement programmes for organisations such as the South African Agency for Science and Technology Advancement (SAASTA). She recently competed and won University of Free State institutional 3MT competition for PhD and will be competing at the national level on October 29th 2021. She is also an international finalist of Falling Walls Lab 2021 having participated in the Cape Town online lab, and has since been invited to pitch her research and ideas at the international conference in Berlin Germany during the first week of November.

3. Michelina Chindiya

Better known as Miss Chindiya, she is one of the youngest female Private Wealth Managers at one of the fastest growing financial advisory firms on the African continent. She has also found time to build up a formidable social media brand as a fitness and lifestyle influencer.

She has been an economic contributor for BBC UK, BBC Africa and has been quoted by global financial powerhouse Bloomberg. In 2018 she was invited to give an insightful analysis of the Annual National Budget on BBC’s Focus In Africa in a live interview.

4. Blessing Kambarami

Dr Blessing Tinarwo Kambarami is a medical doctor with keen interest in business and entrepreneurship. In 2020, with his mother, he founded a manufacturing company called Martha and Sons Pharmaceutical Industries after being motivated by the shortage of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) at the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic.

5. Ropafadzo Makumire

Ropafadzo is one of the youngest councillors in Zimbabwe, having been elected during the 2018 general elections as an independent candidate at the age of 25. He is the Ward 3 Councillor and deputy mayor of Chiredzi Town Council and joined politics straight from university. His Ward 3 won the best ward award in 2020 in the competitions sponsored by United Chiredzi Residents and Rate Payers Association (UCHIRRA). He is also a Mandela Washington Fellowship Alumini of 2021, well-seasoned town planner, local government expert and one of the founding Directors of Makums Town Planning Consultants (Pvt) Ltd. Currently, Makumire is doing his professional development experience with City of Forest Hill, Texas in the department of the City Manager. Additionally, he is working as a part-time lecturer at Great Zimbabwe University. Ropafadzo holds a Master of Urban Design (NUST) and Bachelor of Science Degree in Rural and Urban Planning (UZ).

6. Netsai Marova

Netsai Marova is part of the famous MDC Alliance trio and a Zimbabwean youth, democracy and human rights campaigner, former student leader and the National Youth Deputy Organising secretary of the MDC Alliance.

7. Terry Maphosa

Mainly known as Prince Machiavelli on social media, particularly Twitter, Terry Maphosa is a 29-year-old political scientist graduate who has taken farming as a career in the rural areas of Zimbabwe (Mhondoro-Ngezi). He started with poultry and later on extended to Market gardening. He is one of the emerging influential young leaders with a strong digital footprint on Twitter where he engages people in business and agricultural related conversations.

8. Ruvimbo Samanga

Ruvimbo Samanga is a Bulawayo-based lawyer with special interest in International Trade and Investment Law. She has been recognised internationally for her leadership in the emerging African space economy. She is a Mandela-Rhodes Scholar, a Ban Ki-Moon Global Citizen Scholar, and a Robert Bosch Fellowship holder for the European Forum Alpbach. She has been recognised as an African Emerging Space Leader by the Space Generation Advisory Council, a Top 10 Under 30 in the African space industry by Space in Africa, and a Top Talent Under 25 in the World by the German magazine GenZEO. She was also a part of the inaugural cohort of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics’ ASCEND, Space Traffic management Diverse Dozen. Most recently, she was recognised as one of 25 emerging young leaders by the International Astronautical Federation. She has completed research fellowships with the Open Lunar Foundation as well as the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, and has also worked as a policy analyst for Space in Africa.

9. Leroy Nyangani

Leroy Nyangani’s academic background is in Chemical Engineering. He is passionate about the increase in Clean Energy Access for the over 600 million people in Sub-Saharan Africa without access to power. He is motivated by the type one civilisation outlook on humanity and the use of big data intelligence in Renewable Energy. He has led Need Energy in developing novel data analytics tools like the energy benchmarking tool in Africa, energy demand and energy generation forecast models, and day-ahead price prediction in the Southern African Power Pool. The goal for Leroy and NeedEnergy is to build Africa’s first Virtual power plants and grids for renewables.

Other individuals who are on the list, include footballer Tino Kadewere, digital marketer Gregory Gapare, blogger Tinashe Bonde, Active Citizen Mubu Delorne Mubu, chess player Kudzanai Charinda, entrepreneur Sharon James, development practitioner Belinda Magarira, artist and medical doctor Keith Ndlovu and young active leader Mcleo Mapfumo, among many others.

• The writer Fungayi Antony Sox is a communications consultant specialising in writing, book editing, education, personal development, digital media and publishing. He can be contacted on +263 776 030 949 or follow him on Twitter @AntonySox or connect with him on LinkedIn on Fungayi Antony Sox.