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Our Amazing PeopleThe Board & Staff of the New Faces New Voices Zimbabwe Chapter

Dr. Lucy P.R. Mandengenda

Board Chairperson

Holds a PhD and has more than 28 years of banking, Microfinance and programme management experience at institutional and stakeholder levels throughout Sub-Saharan Africa, Asian and European countries.

Member Profile

Olgar Gail Denga

Board Member

Seasoned Banker with 26 years experience in credit management, digital banking, microfinance, SME Banking and corporate banking.

Member Profile

Dr. Charity Lindiwe Dhliwayo

Board Member

Former and First Female Deputy Governor of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe with 36 years of professional experience in policy formulation, and liaison with government and the private sector.

Member Profile

Vera Tendai Musara

Board Member

Lawyer by profession. Previously worked for the German Development Cooperation as a Governance Advisor and the lead focal person for COVID-19.

Member Profile

Gladys Shumbambiri

Board Member

Former RBZ Senior Economist, Financial Inclusion expert with certifications in coaching and microfinance management and over 10 years in finance and business skills coaching, mentoring and training.

Member Profile

Sithembile Stellah Maunze

Board Member

A financial inclusion, SME and private sector development expert with 29 years combined experience in development finance banking and international development.

Member Profile

Gladys Kanyongo

Board Member & Coordinator

25 years experience in financial services, development finance expert covering SME finance, women and youth financial inclusion among other areas.

Member Profile

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    Dr. Lucy Mandengenda
    Board Chairperson

    Dr. Lucy Mandengenda holds a PhD, MBA, and BSc Honours Degree and has more than 28 years of banking, microfinance, entrepreneurship, value chains and programme management experience at strategic, institutional and stakeholder levels throughout Sub-Saharan Africa, Asian, Latin American, and European countries. She brings extensive technical experience in policy, programme, project designs, due diligence, monitoring, risk management and capacity building. She has served as a taskforce member for Microfinance and SME policies and participated in thematic groups spearheaded by Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe in development of the National Financial Inclusion Strategy. 

    Dr. Mandengenda provides technical advisory services to Banks and MFIs on credit policies, credit scoring, product development, training of managers and loan officers on SME lending and microfinance. She has developed entrepreneurship curricular, written training materials for the SME sector for Southern and Eastern Arica for the ILO range of Start Your Business, Improve Your Business, Generate Your Business and Expand Your Business for Southern and Eastern Africa region. She has mobilized and managed as expert on financial sector for Hivos Foundation in southern Africa and coverage on other continents, an diverse array of donor funds namely DFID, SIDA, USAID, DANIDA, FORD Foundation, GIZ, EU. As Country Director for International Youth Foundation in Zimbabwe she designed and implemented and integrated entrepreneurship, financial inclusion, and private sector flagship project. 

    Dr. Mandengenda is a founder trustee of the Zimbabwe Microfinance Wholesale Facility (ZMF) and a trustee and board chairperson of New Faces New Voices Zimbabwe Chapter as well as Vice president for WICCI Zimbabwe. She was a founding Vice Board Chair for Zimbabwe Women’s Microfinance Bank. She has been a technical advisor for Women’s Alliance of Business Associations in Zimbabwe for public private dialogue, lobby, and advocacy. Dr. Mandengenda is an international consultant for African Development Bank managing the country portfolios in Zambia, Malawi and Zimbabwe for government and private sector lending. She has been a lead consultant for IMC Worldwide, Adam Smith International, CIPE, ILO, SNV, Care International/FAO rural finance expert and AYANI/UN Women and conducts research on financial inclusion, women’s economic empowerment, youth and value chain and rural finance. 

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    Olgar Gail Denga
    Board Member

    Olgar holds a BCom Hons Degree and studying for her MBA. She brings 22 years of banking experience at strategic, operational and institutional levels. Olgar has worked in various financial institutions including ZB Bank, Premier Bank, NMB and Diadem Microfinance. 

    She has in-depth knowledge and experience in credit management, digital banking, microfinance, SME Banking and corporate banking. Currently, Olgar is working at Metbank Limited as Corporate Accounts Manager responsible for key lending and investment portfolios. She has done consultancy work in areas of project analysis, evaluation of research data, data collection, and analysis and report writing for the NGO sector. Olgar was part of a key desktop research and publication of the Finscope Survey, Gender Access in Finance Services Report funded by GIZ and Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, which focused on gender disaggregation of financial inclusion data. Olgar is currently servicing as a board member at New Faces New Voices Zimbabwe. 

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    Dr. Charity Lindiwe Dhliwayo
    Board Member

    Dr. Dhliwayo holds a PhD, MA, BA Honours focusing in Financial Economics. She joined the RBZ in 1981 and rose through the ranks to the position of Deputy Governor at the Central Bank before she retired in March 2017. Dr. Dhliwayo also served as the Acting Governor of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe for five (5) months. She has been featured in local and regional publications for her career achievements as the first female Deputy Governor and Acting Governor of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe. Dr Dhliwayo brings a wealth of 36 years of professional experience in leadership and management, policy and 6 

    strategy formulation, central banking operations, financial institutions and markets, liaison with Government and private sector, regulation and prudential supervision and financial inclusion issues. 

    As Deputy Governor, she developed the licensing and prudential operating standards to guide the banking sector on good corporate governance, risk management, market discipline, capital adequacy, liquidity management and sound asset management standards. Dr Dhliwayo led the development of the National Financial Inclusion Strategy 2016-2020 as the chair of the National Financial Inclusion Committee. She also carried out various regional capacity building assignments for Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA); African Development Bank (AfDB); Macroeconomic and Financial Management Institute of Eastern and Southern Africa (MEFMI) and East and Southern Africa Banking Supervisors (ESAF). She was the first chairperson of the COMESA bank supervisors’ group and was engaged in a consultancy assignment to develop prudential soundness indicators for the region. 

    Dr Dhliwayo was recognized for her work in Financial Inclusion by various organizations and was invited to make presentations by GIZ in Jordan, GMT in Mozambique, Women’s World Banking in Tanzania and Bank of Indonesia. She is a founding trustee and board member at New Faces New Voices and was the first chairperson. She was appointed to the Expert Leader’s Group by the Graca Machel Trust. Dr Dhliwayo is retired; however, she continues to sit on various boards in Zimbabwe. 

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    Absolom Masendeke
    Board Member

    Absolom Masendeke holds a MA and MSc degree and studying for his DBA. He has experience as Technical and Business Development Adviser in the Development Sector. Absolom has more than 28 years in women enterprise planning and development, integrated rural development, strategic planning and visioning for small-producer organizations, women’s groups and networks, institutional capacity development as well as grounded experience in pro-poor market facilitation and access to new technologies. 

    His key achievements includes setting-up over five network-based organizations that include the African Research Utilization Network (ARUNET), funded through IDRC-Canada, the Civic Forum on Human Development (CFHD), now a multi-donor funded organization operating in Southern and Eastern Africa, the Centre for Community Development Solutions (CCDS), now an internationally recognized research and technical services organization across the SADC Region, the National Ageing Network of Zimbabwe (NANZ), now providing advisory support services to Government on mainstreaming ageing issues in national development policy. He was also instrumental in the setting up of the Southern Africa Regional Ageing Network (SARANET) now being coordinated from Malawi and Zimbabwe. Absolom has gained international and regional experience through being a member of strategic reviews and evaluations in several countries including Malawi, Zambia, South Africa, Uganda, Sudan, South Sudan, Ethiopia, Bangladesh (South-East Asia), Peru (Latin America) and in Mozambique. 

    Recently, he worked as a Chief of Party for USAID-funded programmes governance and public-private partnerships with RTI International (2010-2017) and also worked with Action on Poverty (Australia) as Regional Business Development Advisor for their partners in Malawi, Mozambique, Zambia and Zimbabwe (2017-2019). He has worked on several consultancy assignments as Team Leader mainly focused on environmentally-sensitive technologies in rural areas (DANIDA), farmer-managed irrigation systems (SIDA and JICA), child rights (DFID), women’s rural enterprises in Eastern Africa (SIDA), integrated rural development (W.K.Kellog Foundation), smallholder farmer managed seed systems (Practical Action, Pelum and Swiss Agency for Development Cooperation), Data Use in National Health Systems (CDC) and Decentralized Evaluations for WFP in Malawi and South Sudan. He has also provided consultancy services for GMT on the Network Growth Path and Resource Mobilization. 

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    Tafadzwa Mazhambe
    Finance & Administration

    Tafadzwa holds a Bachelor of Business Studies Honors Degree in Finance and Banking from the University of Zimbabwe. 

    He is a member of the Chartered Governance & Accountancy Institute in Zimbabwe as an accountancy professional. 

    Tafadzwa is an accounting, finance and banking professional with over 8 years of work experience in the banking sector and over five years in professional accounting and tax practice. He worked for four different banks (CABS, AfrAsia Bank Zimbabwe Limited, Nedbank and Metbank) in areas of Corporate Banking, SME Banking, Credit Risk Management & Retail Banking. The main areas of specialty being business development, credit evaluations, structured trade and commodity finance, project finance, credit risk management, credit administration and relationship management. Tafadzwa also worked for Fidelity Printers and Refiners where he gained exposure to the gold industry and its value chain. 

    As an independent consultant, he has assisted Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) in setting up accounting and administrative procedures. His consultancy work to MSMEs covers broader areas, including but not limited to financial accounting, cost & management accounting, financial management, financial planning, capital raising initiatives, taxation, business administration, project management and company secretarial services. 

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    Dr. Ruvimbo Mabeza-Chimedza
    Board Member

    Dr. Chimedza holds a PhD. Since 2006 Dr. Chimedza has been working as an Independent Consultant on agriculture and rural development. From 1983 – 2006 Ruvimbo held the positions of Lecturer, Senior Lecturer and Head of the Department of Agricultural Economics and Extension at the University of Zimbabwe. In this role she was responsible for administration, teaching, researching and carrying out outreach work in rural agricultural communities. She has worked with smallholder farming communities on a wide range of initiatives designed to improve agricultural productivity. She has been actively involved in the development, monitoring and evaluation of small-scale agricultural projects, promoting value chain development. 

    Her expertise was sought after in several sectors that include government, civil society and the private sector. Ruvimbo was nominated to the Boards of several strategic institutions where her knowledge of the Agricultural sector proved invaluable to the various institutions she contributed to. In addition, she has international experience working with World Bank and United Nations institutions as well as other international development agencies. Her visionary perspective has earned her numerous opportunities to work on agricultural projects in other African countries. 

    She has held various Board positions for Forestry Commission (1993-1995), Agricultural Finance Corporation (AFC), Zimbabwe (1995-1997), Chairperson of the Ministry of Agriculture’s Working Group on Credit and Input Supply (Policy Advisory Group), Zimbabwe (1996-2000), Chairperson of Board of the Agricultural and Rural Development Authority (ARDA), Zimbabwe (1997-2000), Chairperson of the Board of Trustees for the Self-Help Development Foundation, Chairperson of the Board of Directors for the Women Development Savings and Credit Union, Zimbabwe (1998-2006), Chairperson of the CBZ Bank Board and Non-Executive Director of CBZ Holdings (2016-2017), Member of the Independent Steering Committee of the Consultative Group for International, Agricultural Research (CGIAR), World Bank Research Programme on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) 2015-2019 

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    Gladys Kanyongo
    Coordinator

    Gladys holds an MPhil and BCom and post grad certificates in Private Sector Development, Agricultural & Rural Finance. 

    Gladys has financial and development sector experience spanning over 20 years. She worked for several financial institutions including, Small & Medium Development Corporation (SMEDCO) where she held the position of Chief Executive Officer from 2012 to 2019. As CEO of SMEDCO, Gladys was responsible for its recapitalization and repositioning it among the leading SME finance focused institutions in Zimbabwe. She has served as a grants committee member for SNV (2015-2016) and board member for SADC Development Finance Resource Centre. 

    She currently serves as a board member of Stimulus Africa and Hand-in-Hand, Zimbabwe and project coordinator for New Faces, New Voices Zimbabwe. Gladys combines her work in the financial services sector with consultancy projects focusing in the areas of financial inclusion, SME Finance, youth and women economic empowerment. 

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