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
