adminMARCH is a special month dedicated to women.
Forty year-old Lillian Nyamasoka, the regional managing director of the Shawasha Group, is a proud woman.
Shawasha Group has subsidiaries, ShawashAgri here in Zimbabwe and Agro Shawasha in Mozambique, and they are involved in cotton contract farming.
H-Metro’s Munyaradzi Doma (MD) had a chat with the businesswoman (LN) who opened up on a wide range of issues.
MD: How did the company start?
LM: The company started in 2009, we started off by supporting Sesame as a contract farming method. We had 100 farmers when we started then we grew overtime and decided to participate in cotton. To date, we do more than two products, we do sesame, cotton, maize and soya beans as well. We always encourage our farmers to do cotton and any other two crops because cotton is our prime crop and the regions that we work in are drought prone, they can only produce cotton and sesame.
MD: What is a day like in your shoes?
LM: It is a very tough day. You end the previous day on a good note, you start the next day on a bad note, so it always has a different feel and different challenge. One thing I can tell you is that being a captain of a ship in the sea is never easy, one minute there is the wind, next minute is the sun, the next is the storm and these things are what happen to us.
MF: How did the business grow?
LM: We started the business through our own funding; we started from sesame and increased financing so to date we have moved on along with that. But there is always a challenge in obtaining finance from development partners because the perception of being a woman is either you don’t know or you are incapable. But, today, we are proud to have a company that stands and employs which is very important for the industry and the economy.
MD: How many people are employed within the company?
LM: Within the group, we employ over 1200 people and these numbers are going to be growing because we are continuously diversifying. What we want to see is employment and want to see improvement of skills and knowledge.
MD: What are some of the major highlights of your career?
LM: I worked in different positions, I have worked as an MD for a company that did multiple operations, I have worked as an executive of a cotton company which was a partnership with the Chinese and today I’m working with Shawasha Group. Last year, I was awarded the Outstanding and Game Changing Agriculture Executive at the Vital Concept Agro Summit and this year I was nominated for the Women Changing the World Awards.
MD: Any challenges?
LM: In every career, we all encounter challenges but we have managed to find solutions through strategy, passion, zeal and obviously the capacity to drive this to do the business. We are in the business for profits and our partners, who are our farmers, are in the business because of their entrepreneurial mind-set. They are also in the business for profits. The major challenge is obtaining finance but we have always overcome it by being able to access from willing partners.
Online Reporter