Profile: Nkosana Moyo '92, Zimbabwe
January 2002
Nkosana Moyo ’92 is a man intent on improving conditions in his country. This sense of purpose led him to leave an academic career in physics to get an M.B.A. and devote himself to a career in finance. After serving as managing director of a bank in his native Zimbabwe, Moyo created Batanai Capital Finance, a venture capital company, in 1997. While Moyo stepped down as managing director of Batanai to accept a government position three years later, he said, "The company continues to promote indigenous participation in the economy, which I feel is a good achievement."
In July 2000, Moyo became Zimbabwe’s minister of industry and international trade, with the aim of trying to promote industry and facilitate exports. Moyo left after ten months because "I was not able to have an effect," yet he gained invaluable insights. Today, Moyo is a senior advisor in the World Bank Group’s Small and Medium Enterprise Department. Upon returning to Zimbabwe, Moyo said, he plans to put into practice what he is learning about "how to structure the relationship between a development partner such as the World Bank and developing countries."
Moyo grew up in rural Zimbabwe and this background plays a crucial role in forming his views. "Most people from developing countries have to live in different worlds and to commute between them," he said. "It gives you a skill in multicultural management, because that’s how you have to live. It’s not an intellectual construct. Every time I visit my mother, I go back to my original world, and I need to be careful that I don’t impose my other world. . . . When you raise that to an international forum, taking it to this issue of development partners, you see that the Western world tends to impose on developing countries a way of thinking that doesn’t take root at all—bringing in methods and structures foreign to those who need to manage them. A much better approach would be to come to a country and say, ‘We want to understand how you think and to help you within your own context, to help you do what you do better.’
Moyo serves on Eisenhower Fellowship’s International Advisory Council and draws on the Eisenhower network regularly in his travels. Yet, he explains, "The value for me of Eisenhower went way beyond the network created by its members. It’s a way of thinking . . . that helps people to become more international in approach . . . and that in itself creates opportunities."
Moyo lives in Washington, D.C., with his wife, Chipo, and their two young children. Their older daughter is pursuing her education in England. Chipo Moyo, an editor and writer, now also teaches English through the World Bank community.