The rise and rise of Mudavanhu

packed with plain boiled dry maize in the freezing Gokwe winter, is an image one might not easily call to mind when faced with Samuel Mudavanhu, the group chief executive officer of Develop-It Zimbabwe, a multi-million-dollar wholly indigenous entity.
When Mudavanhu (39) speaks about his childhood, his voice drops several octaves and his eyes show the depths of a pain that will never be forgotten.
It shows too the source of the drive that has seen him set up housing projects, a commodity supplies company, a printing firm and a private school.
His progress in life, despite never going beyond Ordinary Level, speaks volumes about the lessons he took from his early childhood and the value of family and social support structures.
Armed with the basic educational qualifications and a dream, he has carved a niche in Zimbabwe’s education and construction industry and is poised to grow bigger.
“We used to grow cotton, so we would spend the early morning hours in the fields before running off to school, where we would learn under trees.
“I vividly remember feeling tired and wanting to sit down and rest, but my mother would always tell me: ‘If you want to go to school and be someone, you need to get up and work.
“So I would keep working and then I would run off to school,” said Mudavanhu, from his office at Maranatha Junior School, his company’s latest venture.
“My mother taught me the value of education, the importance of hard work and how to value what we have.
“I would keep my sugar sachet for as long as possible because there was no way of knowing when I’d get another.”
Mudavanhu says his biggest regret is that his mother never got to enjoy the fruits of his work. She died in 2007.
“That is something I often think about. She never got to see how her lessons helped me grow,” he said.
His company is a housing solutions provider which has successfully completed the Tynwald housing project and is in the process of renewing the Budiriro housing project after it fell foul of the economic crisis.
The group also owns Maranatha Junior School along Kirkman Road, whose blue roofs and lush fields are testament to a dedication that was born from the days of barefoot trekking across the Gokwe bushveld.
The third unit in the organisation is Apollo Wholesalers. A fourth unit, Red Dot Litho, is still in wraps, waiting to be resuscitated.
“Our focus at the moment is on properties and education,” said Mudavanhu.
Develop-It Zimbabwe is a player on the Zimbabwean housing landscape. The company has successfully constructed Tynwald housing project, putting up 320 houses.
The company undertook another project in Budiriro to construct 108 three-bedroom executive flats at the height of the economic crisis.
“We will rescusitate our project to fulfil our mandate,” said Mudavanhu.
“When I left the rural areas for my Grade 7 at Warren Park 4 Primary School, I stayed with my brother. I stayed with him until I completed my Ordinary Levels.
“Thereafter, I started renting a place of my own. Having realised the challenges I went through, looking for a place to stay I became determined to, one day, provide housing for ordinary people.”
Maranatha Junior School recorded a 100 percent pass rate in the first year in which it was used as a Grade 7 examination centre.
The school now has an enrolment of 500 children, boasts state-of-the-art equipment, including computers and top-of-the-range sports facilities. It also has a fleet of eight buses. There are plans to construct a high school and a university.
“We have secured funding from a local bank to start construction of the high school and we would like to start enrolment in January 2012. The university should follow thereafter.”
After his O-Levels in 1990 he joined a company called Trinity which owned a wholesale business at Warren Park 1.
“I was a general hand, and on a good day I would offload sides of beef all day. I remember the first time I had a forequarter placed on my shoulder. I collapsed and the meat rolled into the dust. I never gave up, and soon I could lift beef all day.
“Other times, we would be offloading a whole truck of soft drinks. If I say I went home tired, I’d be telling just part of the truth,” he said.
He stayed at the wholesale for four years, eventually moving to the till in 1994.
“This job strengthened my work ethic and taught me public relations. It helped me meet many people, and I actually met one of the teachers at our school while I was selling her soft drinks at Warren Park 1. Life can be strange,” he smiled.
“I used to walk over the Warren Hills,” he says, gesturing through a window at his office at the long reddish range of hills.
“There would be all sorts of stories about people getting murdered in there, but I’d walk back at night and I never had problems,” he said.
In 1995 he got a job in the old Ministry of Labour, Manpower Planning and Social Welfare.
He worked there until 2002 when he left to pursue a course in IT at the University of Zimbabwe. This was when he was exposed to the business world.
“While in the ministry I bought a stand, and I sold this off to start my first company called AllQuip, selling stationery.
“The ministry had taught me the value of documentation and processes and I took this all on board,” he said.
The rest, as they say, is history. He says he would never have made it without the support of his family.
“My family has been with me through thick and thin and we remain glued to each other. My wife and three children have made me remain focused in the pursuit of business, I have not been the best father sometimes but they have supported me and we remain there for each other.”
He also credits the church for inspiring him.
“When I first came to Harare, I went to a church in Warren Park, called Wings of Faith. The pastor there (Timothy Chatikobo) inspired me so much and we still go there today. He taught me “with God all things are possible”.
“I have learnt the value of being a person of integrity and how to get to the next level in all things using what you have,” he said.
Samuel is in demand for seminars teaching upcoming entrepreneurs on how to start a business and business growth strategies.
Mudavanhu also has high praise for the country’s policies which, he says, allows entrepreneurship to flourish.
“If you have O-Level and a dream and you follow it diligently, you can achieve anything. I am a living testimony of this,” he said.
He has called on financial institutions to scale up financing for infrastructure and provide working capital.
“There are many indigenous businesspeople contributing to national development through taxes and playing a big community development part, and these need to be supported.
“If we all focus more on being productive and ethical, we can develop the nation faster and make it a better place for our children and for ourselves,” he said.
In his spare time Mudavanhu is a keen photographer and he owns cameras of all vintages and sizes. He also enjoys sharing the word of God, which is his source of inspiration.
“I like the peacefulness of a picture. It is still and it captures a moment for life.”
He is in the process of writing his biography, which he hopes will inspire businesspeople with no shoes on their feet, but ideas in their heads.
The picture of his life seems well captured right now.
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