The Top 20 Influential Zimbabwean Women Who Rocked In 2015

by TZN Correspondent

From the first ever Zimbabwean black commercial pilot to that little-known humble genius who was the youngest university student in Africa, here’s TheZimbabwenewslive.com list of the Zimbabwean women who powered change in their own individual ways this year.

20. Josey Mahachi

    Mahachi..The Top 20 Influential Zimbabwean Women Who Rocked In 2015

Josey is a businesswoman and TV host or presenter for Click Africa, a magazine show on Mnet’s Africa Magic channel. She is , credited with bringing the Nigerian billionaire  Aliko Dangote to Zimbabwe.

19. Ellen Chiwenga

Ellen ,a UK  Football Association  Registered Sport agent in a world usually dominated by men, knows no boundaries.

18. Jessie Fungayi Majome

Jessie is the former Zimbabwe Deputy Minister of Women’s Affairs, Gender and Community Development.She is the Member ofHouse of Assembly for Harare West (MDC-T). Member of Parliament Select Committee on Constitutional Reform and its Deputy Co-chairperson and Information and Publicity Sub- committee Chairperson. Founder and Senior Partner at Gonese, Jessie Majome & Co. Legal Practitioners, Member of National Executive Committee of the Movement for Democratic Change Party (MDC-T) and its Secretary for Constitutional and Parliamentary Affairs.

17. Maud Chifamba

University of Zimbabwe whizz-kid Maud became the youngest student at 14 at the college in 2012.According to Forbes magazine, Maud is the youngest and one of the most powerful women in Africa because of her amazing intellectual levels.

Maud has been the brand promoter of the UZ since 2014 and was also the Vice-Chancellor’s ambassador in 2014. She received the Great Young Achievers Award at the Great Women Awards held in Dubai as well as the Panel Choice Award at the Zimbabwe International Women’s Awards in 2014.

16. Thoko Khupe

She is a Zimbabwean politician and the Vice-President of the Movement for Democratic Change.Khupe in 2012 won the African Achievers Award for Service to Democracy and Women Empowerment for fighting for women empowerment and democracy in the country. She founded a Cancer Foundation to make sure women have access to information after her own battle with the disease.

15. Dr Fay ChungFay Chung, an educator is the Founder of the Women’s University in Africa. Chung has worked to extend access to education and to bring ‘education-with-production’ principles into school curricular in Zimbabwe and other developing countries.

14. Danai GuriraDanai Gurira is a Zimbabwean American actress and playwright, best known for her role as Michonne on The Walking Dead, an AMC television horror drama series. Now, she’s gotten a major feature role: she’ll play Afeni Shakur in the Morgan Creek Tupac Shakur biopic All Eyez On Me
    .
    13. Ruvheneko ParirenyatwaZimbabwe radio’s first lady Ruvheneko has already made a name for herself as a journalist and activist, as well as recently been placed at number 23 on the 100 Most Influential Young Zimbabweans under 40.
    12. Jenni Williams

Jenni has experienced more brutality than most of us will face in a lifetime. She is the founder of the underground activist movement Women of Zimbabwe Arise (Woza), an organisation that, since 2003, has been mobilising Zimbabwean women to demonstrate in defence of their political, economic and social rights.

11. Mai ChisambaRebecca Tsikirayi is one of the pioneering talk show hosts to emerge out of Zimbabwe. She rose to fame with her popular called The Mai Chisamba Show which was a popular talk show on ZBC TV. Apart from her popular talk show, Mai Chisamba also has a newspaper column on which people can write to her on marital issues and she responds to the various issues brought to her. Mai Chisamba’s show popularity seems to be generated from the fact that she talks about so many topical issues ranging from health, sexual promiscuity, ethics, morals among others

10. Prophetess Eunor GutiApostle Guti is a gifted award winning evangelist who has led many souls to Jesus. She is an inspiration to many and a friend to young people. As the Director of the Women’s Ministry in Forward in Faith Ministries International, and has founded several women’s ministries that have impacted millions including political leaders throughout Africa.Along with her credentials and achievements, she is credited as being the first female marriage officer in Zimbabwe.

9. Grace Mugabe

   

   Grace Mugabe is the wife of Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe and the First Lady of Zimbabwe from her marriage to the leader in 1996.Born in  Benoni, South Africa, though highly politically controversial , is also the Secretary of the ZANU- PF Women’s League after her nomination and subsequent election in 2014. She is also an established philanthropist who owns an orphanage in the Mazowe area of Mashonaland Central province.

8. Chipo Matimba

Chipo , a former Air force of Zimbabwe pilot is a motivational speaker to both young men and women, especially school children. Her main focus is on encouraging people from all walks of life to break into any challenging domains that are deemed only for a specific gender. After attaining an Airline Pilots’ Licence Chipo was promoted to Captain in 2010, a position she currently holds as she diligently serves her country at the National Airline, the proud flag career of the Republic of Zimbabwe, Air Zimbabwe

She made history high in the skies over Harare to Victoria Falls when, for the first time, an all-female flight deck crew took command of an Air Zimbabwe Boeing 737.

7. Kirsty CoventryKirsty  is a Zimbabwean swimmer and former world record holder.She was once described by Paul Chingoka, head of the Zimbabwe Olympic Committee, as “our national treasure”.   President  Robert Mugabe  has called her “a golden girl,” and awarded her US$100,000 in cash for her 2008 Olympic performance. She has now turned herself into a fully-fledged international sporting brand after she , recently went into a partnership with an American health technology company, LifeFuels, which will see her promoting its nutritional products in the United States and around the world

6. Professor Hope Sadza

She is the Founder and Founding Vice Chancellor of the Women’s University in Africa. Prof Sadza is a high achiever, who sits on seven executive boards, including the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange-listed blue chip entities, Barclays Bank and Delta Corporation.

She also sits on several committees and trusts for various non-governmental organisations.

5. Marjorie Ngwenya

Marjorie is a qualified actuary. Formerly the Editor of The Actuary magazine UK, she is a member of the Chartered Management Institute; Audit & Governance Committee at Institute and Faculty of Actuaries; Council Institute and Faculty of Actuaries and Board member at the Legal Assistance Trust.

“I hate fuss, and ironically I’ll go to great lengths to avoid it”, she says.

4. Tsitsi MasiyiwaTsitsi Masiyiwa is an African philanthropist and social entrepreneur who has devoted much of her life to empowering disadvantaged children through education and harnessing technology to create employment opportunities for young people.She is founder and co-chair of the Higherlife Foundation, a nonprofit organization that has invested time, money and resources over the past 18 years in sending tens of thousands of children to school in Central and Southern Africa. Masiyiwa co-founded Muzinda Hub, an entrepreneurship and innovation project based in Harare, Zimbabwe. Muzinda is an incubator lab for youth digital skills development and business mentorship that leverages technology to promote youth entrepreneurship.

   For nearly two decades, Masiyiwa has dedicated her life’s work to orphaned and vulnerable children in Zimbabwe, Lesotho, Burundi and South Africa, supporting them with basic education and carrying them through to college and vocational training. She has also been involved in identifying and nurturing young talent by selecting hundreds of gifted African students, and offering them scholarships through high school to university, including top overseas universities such as Yale, Harvard and Oxford.She is wife to Econet founder Strive Masiyiwa.

    

3. Nyaradzai Gumbodzvanda

Nyaradzayi is a trained human rights lawyer with extensive experience in conflict resolution and mediation. For some twenty years, she has been working on issues of women and children’s human rights, with a special focus on crisis countries. Active in the women’s movement, she has more specifically focused on issues of violence against women, peace with justice, property rights, sexual and reproductive health and rights and HIV and AIDS. She is heavily involved with charity work.

2. Petina Gappah

Petina is a laywer, writer and  an international newspaper columnist. She lives in Geneva, where she works as a lawyer for the ACWL, an organisation that advises developing countries on international trade law. She is involved in  a multi-author project to translate George Orwell’s Animal Farm into Shona. She led a project to refurbish Harare city library, backed by $1m from the Swedish government.

1. Beatrice Mtetwa

Award winning Human rights lawyer Beatrice  has spent the last 20 years defending journalists and resisting government corruption in her home country of Zimbabwe. She has been physically attacked and faced threats against her life, and yet despite such adversity, she continues to fight for freedom and the ideals of democracy. In addition to journalists’ rights, Mtetwa champions a variety of other social causes, including eradicating AIDS and poverty, protecting the rights of women and children, preserving the essential freedoms of peaceful assembly, association and speech, and helping poor farmers wrongfully evicted from their land by the government.

US First Lady Michelle Obama embraced 2014 International Women of Courage Awardee Beatrice at the 2014 Secretary of State’s International Women of Courage Award Ceremony at the U.S. Department of State in Washington.