Pedzisai holds a Bachelor of Technology in Management and MBA (specialising in international marketing) from the University of Zimbabwe and is at the final stage of a Master of Philosophy in Business Ethics at Stellenbosch University in South Africa.

He has 19 years experience in international marketing, small business promotion and entrepreneurship training. He has held several posts with private companies in Zimbabwe that include Marketing officer for a Zimbabwean manufacturer of glass containers, exports manager of an agricultural implements exporter, general manager for regional and export markets for a stationery manufacturing company with branches in Zambia, Malawi and South Africa. He also led a small business promotion NGO as Regional Manager for the Province of Manicaland in Zimbabwe.

Pedzisai has been with SNV Zambia since March 2005. He works with meso level private sector organisations in Northern Province, Zambia. This involves capacitating organisation in the provision of business development services to their members using the value chain development approach. Pedzisai is the subsector leader for rice value chain in the country. The value chain is enjoying success due to increased ownership levels at producer organisation level, equitable participation by processors and service providers as well as solid partnerships in value chain financing, market research, producer strengthening and inclusive business.

Ekanath Khatiwada, Economic Development Advisor

Ekananth holds a Masters Degree in Business Administration. He started his professional career in 1997 with DANIDA programme as a Business Manager. Ekanath has more than 11 years of professional experience with different international agencies including UNDP/ UNOPS, DANIDA and SNV in promoting rural enterprises and rural community capacity building and Value chains development in very rural parts of Sudan, Nepal and other member states of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation.  He has presented papers on topics related to his areas of interest, such as ICT, Business for Development and Capacity Development for MDGs in various national and international events. In 2004, he was awarded for PTC04 (Pacific Telecommunication Council) award in USA. Ekanath is good at networking and sharing his experiences and has developed his proven professional network in his working expertise.  

He joined SNV in 2000 as Economic development Officer and started by working in a remote part of Nepal. After serving two and half years in SNV, he joined UNDP/UNOPS programme and returned to SNV In 2003. Before joining SNV Zambia, he worked at the SNV South Sudan programme as an Economic Development Advisor. While at SNV Sudan, he played an important role to roll out the Triple AAA and MfR effectively in Sudan and set example in SNV ESA region. In SNV Zambia, he is primarily responsible for rice value chain and business voucher programme in Western province. In addition to his lead responsibility on rice, Ekanath is a focal person for Agri proFocus partnership and SNV Primary process/ MfR for SNV Zambia country programme. He is also member of the Extended Country Management Team. Recently he has been instrumental in setting the primary process into financial CSA processes to make a combined CSA in Zambia.

Etah Manda, Economic Development Advisor

Etah holds a MBA specialising in corporate Strategy and Economic Policy and a bachelor of science Degree in Production Management and several other professional certificates. She has over seven years experience working in a government policy-formulating environment and two years experience in a private sector development organisation providing capacity building and advisory services. She has substantial skill and experience in conducting needs assessment, market research, and project proposals development.

She provides technical advisory service and capacity building support to more than twenty business enterprises and farmers in North-Western Province in market linkages facilitation, market research, customer care service, micro-finance, strategic management, entrepreneurship development, funding and financial strategies, and organisation and business development. She successfully assisted two district business associations to establish self-managed savings and credit schemes using local mobilised resources.

Kapalu Muswala, Economic Development Advisor.

Kapalu Muswala is a member of the Chartered Institute of Marketing [CIM] and is pursuing a Masters of Science in Marketing with the Herriot Watt University of UK. He has six years experience of working with private sector organisations in Zambia supporting them in business plan development and other related business development services.

He joined SNV in December 2004 and is currently working in the Northern Portfolio team as an advisor in the oilseed [Jatropha] value chain.

He is part of the team that lay a foundation for SNV honey sector in Western province. This resulted in supporting Lyunda honey processing enterprise development of a project proposal funded by HIVOS [250,000 Euros] to be able to supply inputs and buy honey from producers. Kapalu has supported community based Jatropha Industry in Northern Province in enterprise development by being able to attract US 100,000 from African Development Foundation to be able to employ a management team as well as acquire processing machine and feedstock to be used in the making of soap, lamp oil and organic fertilizer. He has been part of the team that has contributed to the establishment of six Jatropha community based enterprises which are currently engaged in the processing of jatropha which offers an opportunity for increased production, income, employment for small-scale producers.

Keith Kancheya, Economic Development Advisor

Keith has a degree in Economics and Business Administration with over 17 years experience in entrepreneurship, small business development and microfinance. He has worked with poor, marginalised, informal and formal business sectors in the area of business development, finance, project appraisal, small business training. He worked with programmes supported by USAID, Fredrich Erbert Stiftung and the European Union and has extensive working experience in rural areas promoting cottage industries. He has also served on the boards of the Zambia Associations of Chambers of Commerce and Industry, Zambia Chamber of Small and Medium Business Associations and Association of Microfinance Institutions in Zambia.

Keith joined SNV Zambia in June 2006 in the Private Sector Development sector. In his current role, Keith supports media bodies at district level in the promotion, identification, capacitating and development of financial services that are gender friendly and pro-poor. At SNV, Keith has done baseline survey for microfinance needs and accessibility in the province on behalf/jointly with CORDAID. He was also instrumental in the establishment of SACCOS (savings and Credit Cooperatives) helped clients establish SACCOS as a pilot study and later mainstreaming in the rice and bee products value chain as a way of accessing finance and in conjunction with warehouse receipting systems development.

In terms of Producer group strengthening, he is working with beekeeper producer groups establish viable cooperatives and producer associations to give them a voice, service delivery and improved capacity to develop their value chain.

Malani Simukoko, Economic Development Advisor

Malani holds a Bachelors Degree of Accountancy and Masters in Administration. Malani Joined SNV Zambia in 2005 and became lead advisor in the Honey Value chain Development. He was instrumental in the value chain analysis and worked together with the team to design several intervention strategies along the value chain including mobilisations of more than Euros 500,000 worth of investments in the sector across the country. He has been very engaged in facilitating Multi-stakeholder platforms in the sector resulting in institutionalisations of Honey partnership forum, a private body encompassing all sector stakeholders that has taken the lead role in driving continuous developmental change in the sector. Malani through his support in financial systems development for clients interacts with other value chains.

Currently, Malani is the Country Investment Advisor under the SNV VCCF initiative and has made significant progress in pipeline investments development that will see increased value chain financing in Economic development sector. His work in this regard, includes deal generation, due diligence reports/analysis and appraisals.  His other responsibilities are that of the Country council chairperson.

Beauty Moono-Chengala, Pro-Poor Tourism Advisor

She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Education.  Her post-graduate training includes Marketing, Sustainable and Eco-Tourism. She has over 20 years experience in tourism marketing and development.  Prior to joining SNV, she held various positions in the Zambia National Tourist Board (ZNTB) and was involved in the facilitation of tourism investments into Zambia, monitoring and appraising of tourism projects, licensing, public relations and marketing.  She was instrumental in establishing joint programs between the ZNTB, local authorities and other stakeholders in monitoring of standards. She was also a member of the team that managed the smooth transition of the ZNTB to a purely marketing Organisation, the Zambia Tourism Board. Beauty is passionate about tourism and is well-travelled promoting Zambia’s tourism at various international and local travel fairs. Beauty joined the SNV Zambia team in October, 2009 and her current focus is Pro-Poor tourism and is based in Mongu. In this role, Beauty provides linkages between business units and communities in the Western Tourism Circuit of Zambia

Felix Happie Mbulo Tembo, Economic Development Advisor

Felix is a holder of a BSc Degree in Agriculture obtained from the University of Zambia is in his final year pursing an MBA with Management College of Southern Africa. He started his career in 2002 With Consolidated Farming Limited, a sugar manufacturing company in Lusaka as the Farm Manager. He then moved to CropChem Services Limited as a Sales Agronomist in 2004 where he rose to the position of Area Sales Manager responsible for the northern region stretching from Lusaka to Mpongwe and Mkushi. His work involved working with both small scale and commercial farmers offering various agricultural inputs and extension services. Whilst at CropChem, Felix was contracted by Zambia Initiative, a UNHCR and UNOPS project to offer extension services to refugees in Mayukwayukwa, Kanabilumbu in Kaoma and Nangweshi in Senanga. Felix then moved on to join a Finnish consulting company as the Agribusiness Officer seconded to Programme for Luapula Agricultural and Rural Development (PLARD) from July 2007 to December 2009. At PLARD, Felix was responsible for developing capacities of local agribusiness enterprises, organisations and groups through agribusiness development and entrepreneurial skills trainings.

Felix joined SNV Zambia in January 2010. His current focus is on Community Enterprise Development and producer organisational strengthening with clients such as, Africa Works, Selim Zambia and the Bio-Fuel Associations in Western Province. Felix’s passion is to see small scale farmers graduate from their current status to sustainable subsistence farmers and enable households increase their income.

Chola Mfula, Pro-Poor Tourism Advisor

Chola holds an MSc in Economics and Management of Rural Development from the University of Manchester Bsc in Natural Resources Management from the University of Zambia.  Chola started his work career with the Wildlife and Environmental Conservation Society of Zambia in 2000. In 2002, Chola was awarded a Fulbright-Hays scholarship to undertake short studies in the USA. In 2003, he was awarded a Charlotte Fellowship to undertake his MSc studies in the United Kingdom.

Upon his return he joined the Programme against Malnutrition, where he worked as the Natural Resources and Agri-business Officer.  In 2008 he worked as a consultant for the Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF), United Nations Development Programme and for the Market Innovation and Improvement Facility (MIIF) under the Africare. Before joining SNV in 2009, Chola worked briefly with InterAfrica Grains Limited as a Commodity Broker.

Chola has over nine years experience in natural resources management, Agri business and rural economic development work gained from both formal employment and consultancy work.

Currently, Chola is working as Pro- Poor Tourism Advisor and is based in Kasama. He hopes to contribute to the Tourism sector in Zambia through SNV Zambia.

Namakau Maswenyeho Mwanangombe, Economic Development Advisor

Namakau holds a Bachelor of Arts Degree and is finalising her MBA. She has over 15 years experience working in various aspects of enterprise development having worked with both urban and rural based micro and small enterprises. She has worked with both profit and not for profit organisations, and has vast interest and expertise in facilitating enterprise/ organisational diagnosis and development of strategies for addressing performance issues.

She has engaged in Market studies, subsector and value chain research, business planning, and development of rural based and self- managed microfinance programs, market development, facilitation of business networks and linkages as well as, organisational development.

Namakau joined SNV in November 2003 as market linkages facilitation advisor, working to link producers of products (mainly agricultural) and services to markets. She currently leads the Jatropha value chain development activities in the North western portfolio, working with primary producer organizations, processors and other actors, in the bio-energy sector as well as soap, and organic fertilizer markets. By providing support to an emerging bio-fuel processing company, and in partnership with HIVOs and Bio-fuels Association of Zambia and with €600,000 funding from the European Union, she has contributed to the development of the Bio-fuels market chain in which over 3,500 farmers are involved in cultivation of jatropha for bio-fuel production. She has also supported the establishment of four community owned jatropha processing enterprises, involving over 100 small scale farmers.