Celebrating Game Changers

Apr 12, 2023

Madam Lillian Nyamasoka

FORTY years ago, a management consultant, Marilyn Loden, coined the phrase “breaking the glass ceiling” to signify breaking of barriers that deter the marginalized, particularly women, from moving to senior positions.

Today, the term is even more relevant in a world where women, despite all efforts to ensure equality, still struggle to reach the zenith in various sectors of the economy.

Locally, a significant, though still limited, number of women have scaled ladders and broken the barriers, including the ceiling itself. As the world celebrates Women’s Month, we look at some female role models, who have inspired other women that the glass ceiling can be broken.

Ms Lillian Nyamasoka

Ms Lillian Nyamasoka is the regional managing director of the Shawasha Group whose subsidiaries locally and in Mozambique are involved in supporting farmers who are into cotton, tobacco, sesame, maize and soya beans. The company targets smallholder farmers in communal lands, which are mostly prone to drought, where there is most need for financial support.

Building the company with personal funding from 2009 and 100 growers on contract farming, Ms Nyamasoka endured challenges associated with the perception that women were not capable of running businesses, let alone borrow and repay loans. To date, the company employs 1 200 people.

Last year, Ms Nyamasoka won the Outstanding and Game Changing Agriculture Executive award at the Vital Concept Agro Summit. This year she was nominated for the Women Changing the World Awards.

 

This excerpt originally appeared in The Sunday Mail of 2 April 2023 and was written by Fatima Bulla-Musakwa. click link below

Celebrating game changers

Latest News

Cotton inputs distribution 86pc complete

COTTON contractors have heeded growing calls for them to honour their contractual obligations in full amid revelations that they had distributed 86 percent of this season's inputs to farmers as at January 9 with the process expected to end this month. Agricultural...

We continue winning Awards

At the Vital Concepts Summit 2022, our Managing Director Lilian Nyamasoka, was awarded the Outstanding and Game Changing Agriculture Executive. It was a glorious occasion as she joined other Agriculture Executives who were also honoured in various fields. The Awards...

Cotton can alleviate livelihoods

Cotton can alleviate livelihoods

By Daphne Machiri Cotton can alleviate rural livelihoods if farmers are given the right support as the crop is produced annually by almost 400 000 growers under various contract farming arrangements, Minister of Lands, Agriculture, Water, Fisheries and Rural...