Lynn Mukonoweshuro Group CEO of King­dom Finan­cial Hold­ings

Lynn Mukonoweshuro is the Group CEO of King­dom Finan­cial Hold­ings Lim­ited (KFHL), as well as Chair­per­son of the Coun­cil of the Women’s Uni­ver­sity in Africa. She is one of Zimbabwe’s most impor­tant women, that when she agreed to meet with me, I was more than delighted.

On the day we were to have our inter­view, there was a time mixup on our cal­en­dars so that I ended up arriv­ing at her office at 7am, instead of the 9am she had on her cal­en­dar. So because she had to be some­where by 7.30am, we could not have the inter­view then, and she felt so really bad, moreso because I had come extremely early and now I had to go and then come back again. At 7am, Lynn looked like she had been in the office for hours, not that she seemed tired or any­thing — to the con­trary, she looked serene and com­fort­able. The way you and I would look like round 11am. So nat­u­rally, when our meet­ing did finally com­mence, my first ques­tion (some­what incred­u­lously) was:

 Q: What time do you wake up and how long is your work­ing day?

“{smil­ing} My mother always said that ‘you shall sleep an unin­ter­rupted sleep’, so don’t waste your time on earth sleep­ing’. I wake up between 2-4am. That’s because it’s the time I reserve for prayer, to usher in the day. I’m here at work by 6.30am and home by 8am. But I always make sure I’m home for lunch.”

Q: So you are CEO of King­dom and Chair­per­son of the Coun­cil of the Women’s Uni­ver­sity. What else do you do? And as CEO, what exactly do you do?

 “A lot of work. {laughs} I’m actu­ally a ser­vant in this whole organ­i­sa­tion, which has five sub­sidiaries and branches in Botswana and Malawi. I also work with a lot of orphan­ages, I do strate­gies for churches and I’m on a num­ber of boards.”

Q: In an inter­view you had in 2010 with the Stan­dard, you said “work­ing for King­dom is a call­ing”, why is that?

“Work as if you work for God and not for man. The company’s vision is grounded in that verse, and so I work as if I work for God and not for man, and pay­ment for me is a sec­ondary mat­ter. That’s why I see my work as a call­ing because I work for God.”

Q: I under­stand you are the first female CEO of King­dom since incep­tion. How does that feel?

“I don’t see gen­der when I look at peo­ple, I see human beings, so it’s not a really big deal for me, because if you go through life look­ing at every­thing from the point of view that says because I am a woman, then you will be in trou­ble. Besides, King­dom has always been gen­der sen­si­tive, we have a num­ber of women in to posi­tions.  {sim­il­ing} I think Nigel’s mom[Nigel Chanakira is the founder of KFHL] raised him well.

Q: Before you came to King­dom, you worked at IBM Com­put­ers and Coca-Cola, please tell me about your expe­ri­ence there?

 “I enjoyed my time work­ing at those two com­pa­nies. I’ve always believed that one must get a note­wor­thy exo­e­ri­ence whilst young. In order to do so, you join a brand because of their vision, and you grow with the com­pany. This is why I’ve worked at the com­pa­nies I’ve worked for before and now I’m here at King­dom and I enjoy work­ing here every step of the way and I’ve grown a lot since I’ve  come here.”

Q: I read that you are mar­ried and have three chil­dren, how do you jug­gle being a mom, wife and busi­ness woman?

 ”{instantly she becomes excited, stands up and shows me a pic­ture of her and her fam­ily on the wall, point­ing out the indi­vid­ual mem­bers} My eldest son is 24 — he’s just fin­ished uni­ver­sity, the 2nd is doing his A’s, and the 3rd wants to be a doc­tor. She started her own soup kitchen with her friends when she was only in Grade six, now she’s in form two and she says to me one day when we had gone to a hos­pi­tal ‘mommy I want my own hos­pi­tal just like this one, and the poor won’t have to pay’, and i think to myself oh my. My fam­ily and I have so much fun and my hus­band is ever so sup­port­ive. I have a diary I keep where every­one knows they have  to log on the day they want my time, if you don’t log on when you want me, then you can’t com­plain when I can’t make it to wher­ever you want me. We do work some­times as a fam­ily, do char­ity work together for instance, I am so blessed to have a fam­ily like mine.” {you can tell she is very proud of her fam­ily as she says this  }

Q: Grow­ing up, did you ever envi­sion your­self being where you are today?

 ”{laughs} I always thought I’d be a pilot, or if I didn’t end up a pilot I wanted to end up in the Sci­ences field. When I got to the U.Z how­ever, most Sci­ences lec­tur­ers had gone to the U.K, and so I was forced to get into Business.”

Q: Speak­ing of, where did you grow up, and which schools did you go to?

 “I grew up here in Harare and I went to Nharirire Pri­mary School in Mbare” [with eyes wide open I’m like “really” because Mbare is one of the old­est Zim­bab­wean high den­sity sub­urbs, and it is shock­ing that she went to school there because look­ing at her you could never guess] {she ofcourse, laughs, because she knows what I’m think­ing} 

Q: And your fam­ily, tell me about them

 “My fam­ily was very small and close, two boys and myself, I am the last, the mid­dle boy passed on. I was never spoilt, regard­less of the fact that I was the last born, you see, moms then were dif­fer­ernt from moms now. And my father would treat my broth­ers and I equally, there was no gen­der differentiation.”

Q: What do you enjoy doing in your spare time?

“{smiles} I cre­ate spare time. I enjoy inte­rior decor and cook­ing, I love exper­i­ment­ing. So it’s very nor­mal to find me revamp­ing a room, it’s not as often as I’d like though. I’m also a very spir­i­tual per­son and a great believer, so I cre­ate time just for me and my Creator.”

Q: So I want to know your favourite things: what’s your favourite food?

 “Peanut but­ter in anything.”

Q: Favourite country?

 “Switzer­land — it’s so clean, it gives you hope that peo­ple some­where can be clean.”

Q: Favourite music?

 “I love Hill­song, and I’m into clas­sic music so my other fav is Bethoven.

Q: To close our inter­view what would you want to say to those young women who look upto you, admire you and aspire to be like you?

 “Be very focused, know what you want to do, let noth­ing come between what you want to do. Take it step at a time. But always be responsible.”

(c) TRUE AFRICAN WOMAN MAGAZINE