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Business Reporter
Tanganda Tea Company financial director Henry Nemaire, boasts that his company is the most efficient tea operation in the world. He also opens up on his career path, what keeps him awake at night, and how he got a beating from his father for stealing 25 cents.
How did you choose your career path?
Interestingly, I have always wanted to be a doctor but what happened is that I watched a video of an operation and I could not stand it and I realised at that point that I was not going to be a doctor. After university, where I did a Bachelor of Accountants, I then joined Deloitte as an Articles Clerk in 1994.
As a business executive, what keeps you awake at night?
What keeps me awake is the realisation and the knowledge that what we do has an impact on the nation, so, therefore, the whole nation is actually waiting for us to arrive and do something and make a difference. And as you know when we say GDP (Gross Domestic Product), when we say economy of Zimbabwe it’s the sum total of the individual activities throughout the nation that come together to make GDP. So the economy is not with the Minister of Finance in his office. The economy is us the people, the economic players, so what keeps me awake at night is the realisation that we need to contribute to economic growth and to the vision 2030, to get to middle income level for Zimbabwe.
What keeps me awake also is the realisation that the work we do in our company, impacts more than 5 000 employees in terms of direct employees and also impacts 2 000 small scale farmers who work with us in the production of tea.
What is your philosophy in life?
My philosophy in life is to make a difference in the world basically, and I believe that each individual person has a journey that they must travel here on earth and to make a difference.
What motivates you?
What motivates me partially is the Word of God, and the encouragement that comes from the Scriptures and also the motivation of where we have come from and the impact of what we have done and how it has impacted on the nation.
How do you motivate employees during difficult times?
When you choose a path as leadership, one thing to do is that if its austerity, to all go for the austerity. The leadership and the employees, everyone should feel the pain, and also tell them (employees) exactly what is happening so that you move together. So you need an open book system where you say guys, this is where we are, this is where we are going, and this is the pain that we are all going to suffer.
There must be a shared vision like what happened in the armed struggle where the comrades would come and tell us what was happening. We would have a party and drinks, but also some people were beaten in those meetings because they would have made some mistakes here and there. So the idea is to rally people behind a vision. So I believe all leaders whether political or business leaders should walk with all the stakeholders in the journey of transformation.
Leadership is very important in all spheres of life, what is the best place to train a leader?
The best place to train a leader is the family – home. My father trained me to be what I am today. In 1978 I stole some money from my father, I stole 25 cents, the one with the queen’s face and everything. So my father gave me a very tough lesson, that thou shall not steal and of course it came with some serious beating from both my father and my mother.
What was the biggest lesson from your father?
My father also taught me what we now call sustainable agriculture, he was a farmer, and when growing up, my father was very strict, he was against hunting, against not developing contours, he was for what we now call sustainable agriculture, but those lessons that I got from my father are the ones that sustain me today, to be a strong advocate for sustainable agriculture, which we also practice at Tanganda and we get certification from all over the world.
What is your attitude towards money?
My attitude towards money is that we should make money, a lot of it as a nation, but not only just for individual selfish needs. Money should help us answer a lot of our situations. It should give us hope that what we are going through is a temporary situation.
Online Reporter