Staff reporter
California Metropolitan University has honoured top Zimbabwean business tycoon Dr. Tinashe Manzungu with a Doctor of Philosophy in Business Administration recently during the Leaders Without Borders Development Centre (LWBDC) annual business summit and international honours held in London, United Kingdom.
The honour is in recognition of Dr. Manzungu’s extensive contribution towards promoting economic development in Zimbabwe and the African continent at large.
LWBDC focuses on bringing together a robust community of highly achieved and high level individuals such as Chief Executive Officers (CEO), family business owners, business moguls, technocrats and boardroom experts.
Dr. Manzungu, who is based in Gweru, Zimbabwe, is the co-founder and CEO of Zimbuild Properties Investments, Chairman of the TM Group of companies with interests in construction, financial services and insurance.
He is also the former Zimbabwe National Chamber of Commerce (ZNCC) Chairperson, current Africa Business Council Board Director and part of the Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) Business Council, among several other regional and continental bodies.
The summit ran under the theme ‘Business Beyond Borders – Global Partnerships and Sustainable Investments’ and Dr. Manzungu was conferred with the Doctorate along with six other high achieving individuals from the globe.
Dr. Manzungu said he is honoured to receive the Doctorate.
“I am honoured and excited to say I was capped by the President of California Metropolitan University with a PhD in Business Administration for the tremendous strides we are putting forward in both our own businesses and Zimbabwe, and the continent.
“With special recognition to leadership and management,” he said.
Representing the Africa Business Council, Dr. Manzungu was the guest speaker at the summit and took the opportunity to highlight the need for sustainable socio-economic development through productivity and innovation.
Dr. Manzungu took the opportunity to market Zimbabwe and the continent in general.
“This was an opportunity to market the country and Africa at large.
“It was about weighing the sustainability of investments that come to Africa and our country.
“We need to encourage partnerships in SMEs rather than monopolies from country to country, continent to continent in a bid to create a stronger regional, continental and global economy,” he said.
At the same summit platform in London Dr. Manzungu said first world countries should partner Zimbabwe in mineral value edition and infrastructure development.
“I also invited the first world countries to come to work with us in developing our infrastructure as well, value edition in our minerals as an emerging economy that has got its own targets for 2030,” he said.
With a US$1.3 million GDP in the Africa Free Trade Area, Dr. Manzungu said the first world should invest their finances and set up mineral processing and mining businesses in gold, lithium and diamond.
He said the response from potential investors has been positive.
“A lot expressed interest and were now negotiating and having meetings to that effect.
“We also used the example of SinoHydro where 1,300 megawatts of power is going to be generated through the partnership between Zimbabwe and China as a bid to encourage global partnership,” he said.
Dr Manzungu said Memorandum Of Understandings were also signed with some African and European companies.
On the emergence of the Africa Real Estate Association (AREA) where European companies invest by leveraging on the strong African infrastructure grouping, he said investors were pleased.
“It means less risk to them; as Zimbabwe is one of the co-founders, we look forward to seeing more infrastructure projects implemented because of this new big African project,” he said.
Pics:Dr. Manzungu receiving the PhD at the LWBDC in London
