Meet Dr Divine Simbi Ndlukula, the richest woman in Zimbabwe, Founder at Securico and Zvikomborero farms. She spoke to Trevor Ncube in an interview that was published on his youTube Channel – In Conversation With Trevor.

Key points

  1. Divine was born in Gutu, she says her parents were business people.
  2. Her father encouraged her to be ambitious
  3. Her father was a general dealer
  4. Divine said she always knew that she wanted to start a big business
  5. Her father sent her to St Domnics and Makombe boarding schools
  6. He also paid fees at Roma University but the fees did not get to Roma
  7. She then worked for the ZBC as an accounting officer.
  8. Divine says her father died before she became successful.
  9. Divine says there were 8 members in her family.
  10. From ZBC Divine worked for Old Mutual and Intermarket Life Assurance.
  11. As she worked at ZBC she would drive to factories in the industrial areas to buy clothes and sold them to colleagues.
  12. She bought a truck from selling clothes.
  13. She had other friends selling clothes on her behalf on commission.
  14. She says a true entrepreneur does not go into business to make money but to make an impact.
  15. Divine says she had a number of dependents that were looking up to her.
  16. She said she was looking for a scalable business.
  17. Divine said she started off with Zvikomborero farm.
  18. She has been farming at Zvikomborero farm for 28 years.
  19. She said she had a deep passion for farming. She enjoyed planting trees as a child.
  20. The farm was born by her father and when he died her brother inherited.
  21. Her brother got into debt and she had to rescue the situation when the bank was about to foreclose the farm.
  22. Intermarket refused to buy a plot for her with the staff loan.
  23. She farms goats and cattle and she says she loves seeing the amazing circle of life when the animals drop their calves.
  24. She has Boer goats, Kalahari red goats, Milk goats and she also does cross breeding of goats.
  25. She is working with many small holder farmers to farm goats.
  26. By cross breeding, it shortens the growth period of the goats
  27. She is also helping with capacitating small holder farmers.
  28. She has local breeds of cows, Boran from Kenya, Thuli from Zimbabwe, Texas Mashona. She also runs a commercial herd. These are breeds that are cheap to run.
  29. Divine has animals that are not suitable for breeding, steers that are put in the feeding lots when they are 18 months.
  30. She is selling through her retail outlets but is now selling online.
  31. Zimbabweans are buying meat from the diaspora for their family in Zimbabwe.
  32. People in Zimbabwe prefer fresh beef and not matured beef.
  33. Boer goats have a head that is like a basketball, brown, the horns have to go in a certain pattern.
  34. An F1 goat is a mixture between a boer goat and an indeginous goat. It will got up to 17kg.
  35. She is also into fish in 2 ponds. She has just finished harvesting 15 000 fingerlings which were fed for 9 months.
  36. They were 400g each and she is bringing in another lot.
  37. She is planning to put more 5 more ponds of 15 000.
  38. She has egg layers chickens.
  39. Divine has more than 34 people working at her farm.
  40. She is hands on at her farm and enjoys dipping the cattle and weaning and selecting the proper breeds.
  41. Securico was started after she started other things
  42. She was going to buildings and the first people she met were guards. She realized that the guards had low self confidence.
  43. She saw an opportunity to create guards that were professional and confident because they are front line.
  44. When she entered the sector she challenged existing big companies who worked in the sector.
  45. The sector was dominated by men.
  46. No one believed that she could make it in that industry.

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