Africa-Press – Zimbabwe. MASAWARA Group founder and chief executive officer Shingai Mutasa has called for a new Zimbabwe’s financial infrastructure with a focus on regional opportunities, warning that future entrepreneurs cannot thrive without sufficient capital support.
Mutasa made these remarks at the just-ended In Conversation with Trevor Ideas Festival in Nyanga, in an explosive last day of events that left participants excited for next year’s edition.
Mutasa reflected on his career to highlight the structural gaps young business leaders must confront and credited his early successes to strong financial partnerships and personal networks.
“Our balance sheet is about people, and this is a big part of my balance sheet,” he said, highlighting the support he received from individuals such as bankers Nigel Chanakira and Nicholas Vingirai during critical acquisitions.
Mutasa said disruptions in the financial sector have left a generation of entrepreneurs without sufficient backing.
“Until we rebuild our ability to put capital in the hands of entrepreneurs, he is limited in his growth capacity,” he said.
Entrepreneurs, Mutasa said, must combine vision with resilience.
“I no longer call failures failures, because in my world, a failure is an opportunity to assess and to correct. You only fail if you don’t learn a lesson from the event,” he said.
“If the vision is what’s strongest, it must be big enough. And if it is big enough, you may not get there, but you’ll get very far.”
The business executive stressed that a strong, ambitious vision was essential to drive business success.
Mutasa urged Zimbabwean business leaders to collaborate and learn from predecessors who built networks of mutual support.
He also encouraged entrepreneurs to think beyond national borders and embrace the broader Sadc economic space.
“The moment we begin to see the opportunity as a Sadc opportunity rather than as Zimbabwe alone, our capacity to think and to compete changes,” Mutasa said.
He highlighted the strategic value of data as a key asset for business competitiveness.
“If you can collect data, collect it. And don’t give it away, because it is valuable,” Mutasa added, underscoring the need for local ownership and analytics capacity.
He stressed the importance of mindset and proactive participation in shaping the business landscape as critical.
“We have to begin to appreciate that we are participants in the evolution of our country. If the roads have potholes, let’s stop looking at somebody else and let’s start saying, ‘What can we do?’” Mutasa said.
He urged entrepreneurs to take initiative and see themselves as drivers of regional growth.
This year’s edition of the festival ran from October 28 to 31 in Nyanga under the theme, The Future of Human Capital, Innovation, and Ethics in the Age of AI.
The event is convened by Alpha Media Holdings (AMH) chairman, Trevor Ncube. AMH is the publisher of NewsDay, Zimbabwe Independent, The Standard, and also runs an online broadcasting channel, HStv
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