Andrew
Dr Tsitsi Rosemary Choruma was appointed Secretary Service Commissions in October this year. She is a specialist in human capital development and management, business development and educational leadership.
She has a wealth of knowledge and extensive practical leadership experience in social and economic development issues, and in high-level public administration and management.
For many years, she occupied leadership positions in various national and global institutions, where she superintended transformative production, investment and trade-related activities in Africa, Asia, Europe and North America.
Dr Choruma first joined Government in 1991, and rose through the ranks from being an administrative officer in the Ministry of Women’s Affairs to senior administrative officer in the Ministry of Higher and Tertiary Education before becoming head of the National Manpower Advisory Council in 1994, and moving to the Zimbabwe Manpower Development Fund as management trainer between 1997 and 1999.
Dr Choruma then spread her wings and excelled as a development practitioner. This saw her working as a director of several international organisations, including Fair Trade in Kenya and Bonn, Germany; Catholic Institute for International Relations; Oxfam; and Action Aid.
In 2018, she was appointed commissioner for the Public Service Commission.
In this capacity, she advocated matters relating to policy, programming and human capital development and management. She was instrumental in, among other things, the establishment of the Public Service Academy, the Job Evaluation Exercise, and also contributed significantly to the development of the first Gender Policy in the Public Sector, which was launched by Government in July this year.
Other notable achievements by Dr Choruma include sitting as an advisory board member of the Graca Machel Foundation, the Zimbabwean Chapter; being selected to be one of the Richard Branson Entrepreneurship Trainers in Zimbabwe; and sitting on the board of Oiko Credit International, a two-billion-Euro fund that supports agriculture, renewable energy and infrastructure development.
She contributed to the development of the Corporate Governance Guidelines for NGOs in Zimbabwe.
With a passion for the marginalised, Dr Choruma has published work on the plight of people with disabilities in Zimbabwe. In the work, titled “The Forgotten Tribe”, she provides a complete account of the condition of people with disabilities.
She is also committed to women empowerment and has demonstrated this by, among other things, initiating the establishment of a School of Leadership for Women in Cocoa, Cote d’Ivoire, and remains a patron of the institution. Dr Choruma holds a Master’s degree in Public Administration from the University of Zimbabwe; a Master’s degree in Management from the Academy of Social Sciences in Sofia, Bulgaria; and a PhD in Educational Leadership from Seattle University in the United States.
Online Reporter