Friday Drinks S10_E29: From the farm to Ivy League & Wall Street -Inspiring Maud Chifamba story

[Music] a very good welcome to everybody to another Friday drinks show on uh well it's almost a week before spring but I believe it's spring and uh we do have a special guest all the way from America we feel so honored to have you here mod well thank you for invi me yeah yeah it's been a long time coming I mean we've lived through your life uh vicariously uh since you were 14 I think that's when you I I I remember your face uh on uh Sunday Mail M I think it was a Sunday Mail Right face first page of sunl and uh you know so the memory I have of you is as 14year old kid so seeing you all grown up it's uh it's wonderful yeah well it's just an honor to be here I've watched a couple of um episodes and with you guys like doing your drinks and I've always wondered like if you actually would be drinking which which is something that I already have an answer to uh but I think a lot of people have that view like a lot of people like you know they see me in certain places like wait are you not too young to be in this I'm like I'm 26 like I don't think because to everyone they still think I'm like that 14y old 14y old yeah well that's how you enter the scene and um we'll always look at you and think of you as a 14-year old but we're quite happy to have you here and we want to hear more of your story and I mean now you're flying all the way from the US coming back home to zom yeah um my story I don't even know how to tell him well before we do that yeah ER shumba yeah you know in our little group I asked the producer you know what our guest will be drinking and you know the producer being a tea toddler and very much uh Philistine when he comes to alcohol says look she she drinks cocktails and I thought oh my gosh uh I'm not actually you know all that great with uh cocktails um I'm a I'm a whiskey guy I so I thought you know what are we going to do are we going to do a whiskey cocktail like a a rusty nail or a whiskey sour and then I thought but well you know what I have no idea what your alcohol Torrance is like I wouldn't want to put you under you know and de pressure so let's do something you know since we're going into spring according to CH I just think Zimbabwe has winter and summer the end but that is very no Str no look you know he thinks look at the trees he thinks that's a good sign he thinks I think about spr true so I thought you know this is a popular Italian cocktail that they have in summer over there uh it's made with a a lior called Kari and they add a bit of Italian sparkling wine I've got prco here and uh they usually uh water it a bit down with sparkling water and uh some orange and ice and we're good to go um so that's what we're going to be having in our little corner if I can actually open it um um I don't know what's going on over there he's trying to compete with us but with without without the special Source well going water M steel water yeah yeah you can use steel water uh I'm I'm actually going to make atic okay a Mala Shanti I mean I haven't had this in since we were in Victoria Falls right oh so it's Friday cocktails today let's make yeah yeah exactly he's he's he's is a mck tail he's trying you know because there isn't anything interesting in it it's still okay uh bit I think it's enough alcohol thank you okay so uh maybe to actually start off could you just tell us a bit about your story cuz it's a fascinating story thank you um I probably I don't know when to start because whenever I'm like tell us your story there's like the 1 minute 30C version and then there's a 15 minut we we have all afternoon all afternoon and all evening whatever and our would love a a recap with all the juicy okay um so um I was born in girl uh 1987 that's when I was born um started school in go grade one when I was about 6 years old like everybody um then I moved to to H Rod which is um which is a resettlement area between ququ and guu uh that's where I started off grade two so they transferred me from G to Kar prison school so there's a school called K school and on the first day of school I actually figured out that it was quite far away from home like we kept walking and walking before we got to that school um so when when we were at the gate I asked um my guid at the time I'm like what if we get there and you say that I'm actually gritty two not gritty one because I didn't want I didn't want to walk for seven years so I was like how do I make this peer that I have to do this walking thing less so I got there they asked me like what grade are you I said I was in grader two and the teacher so at that time I was very very tiny I started not being not tiny like way later in life but um I was very tiny so did the actually did not believe me remember her name was M was she was like no there's no way you're going to um then she asked one of my brothers who was at that school MH like wherever she was I got one and then my brother said well I'm got grade one so I went back I went back to grade one um then the following year the villagers because this is a resment area so there isn't much infrastructure there um the villagers then took over a farmhouse then they made it into a school um and The Farmhouse was taken by the powers that be the actual house so we were given where the farmer was used to keep his like poultry and it was like there buildings with like three walls that didn't have the fourth FL and everything and we only had enough for the government gave us three teachers so it was like grade one and two in one class three four five in another class five uh six or seven in another class so I was grade two and then my younger brother who is two years younger than me uh they asked him to come to school because I think there was like a required number of students that they needed for them to be called like a composite School whatever whatever the actual word is used for those kind of schools so my brother who was not supposed to go to school that year actually went to school and then because he was grade one and I was grade two we're literally in the same class and the agenda Wars that happened in my house like in my family like men thinking that they are all that so my brother would come back home and like you know the teacher as the small business she didn't even know I knew it so I hated being in the same class with him so fast forward the following year um I was now graded three which means I moved into another class yeah so meid year um when I was grade three I then got a paper for grade four a test paper for grade four fortunately it was a math paper I'm not really good with numbers so I totalized that paper so the following ter instead of writing exams of gr 3es I asked to write exams of grer Fes because we were literally in the same classroom right although we're learning like different things so that show would come teach grade 3 is give you work teach grade fours give you that's how M knew whatever was happening in my my side of class when I was on gr two so then I was I asked to write exams with grade fives then I was the first in in grade five like I I was the best performer in grade five so the following year I was supposed to go to grade four mhm instead of um yeah I was supposed to go to grade four but because I was number one in grade five I asked to go to grade six yeah which make sense yeah yeah because that that made made sense right but like the teachers at the time blessed their heart they kept saying school is not really about like what you can do it's just about like the social aspect being around your AG mes growing together learning other skills that are not just like academic skills so they wanted me to stay in that classroom but the problem is my brother was coming into that classroom and I did not want that so I remember I met her fast like I had a scene I refused to go into classroom I was like literally sitting in the middle of the school until the Headmaster allow me to go through then I did my grade six um at that time so we do not have a lot of students so there was actually no grade six class no grade seven class during that year um when I then went to grade s there was just like four of us okay uh so I did my grade seven at that time we writing four subjects it wasn't like five or seven or whatever it is um um I had four units um and then I was supposed to go to which I think for the purpose of the audience four units is that's the best yes that's yeah yeah so the best was like so it's like for grade seven one is like the best right and so for four subjects though that was like four units um then I was supposed to then go to high school but I remember this is like a resment area there was no high school at that time um I was told I had a scholarship to go to some school um but my family did not I don't I don't even know what happened in that time because I remember people bought me like a trunk and everything and I was supposed to go to boarding school that year but somehow I ended up not going but there was no High School in the area that we were staying mhm so that meant like that was the end of my uh academic Journey uh but then my brother at the time then said you know what why don't we take you to ququ for you to go to your high school there mhm um so it would be I think it's like 50 cents from H Ro to qu because it's like H is equidistant from gu and so you go to either Town um but then I went there uh to this other school was called buo College in in ququ when I got there I knew there was no way we're going to sustain this 50 cents to town every day 50 cents back home dollar my family were like vendors would go and get fishing and S main road road all of that entrepreneurial yes it was entrepreneurial business it was business um so I knew there was no way uh my family would be able to sustain doing that for four years so when we got to that college they asked me like what form I was and I said I was form two uh instead of form one um because recurring theme yeah um so because they were because it was a private college they didn't care like literally they did not care they just said cool you you going into form two so I went into form two I did it for um about two months and then my brother went to beinging up forish and he like took like maybe two months before he came back so I literally was just back home because there was no one to give me money to go there was no food at home like not to even talk about like money to go to school so I was back home um there was no re there wasn't really other options for me I couldn't go to school there was no high school um people might age what were they doing uh usually when the the norm was once you're done with school once you're done with primary school um the boys would go and know find gold like gold padding and yes exactly um Al and all of that and uh for for the girls it was like you then get married but then at that time I was I finished grade s when I was 10 like okay it wasn't really an option for me so I just decided to study on my own um then my when my brother came back my family ended up moving to guu where I started going to this the college called Solas College um when I got to that college they asked me what what what what form I was um and I remember I just said I'm in form four and this is like literally 3 months after my grade seven so so are you no longer tiny cuz the reason why you couldn't get into grade two was because you were tiny I was Tiny But like remember these are now not public schools these are private colleges so for them it was more of like who can pay them the money that they want every month it wasn't really like a public school where they actually care about you and all of that so they were but you think you think the public schools care about you more than the private schools no no no no no okay okay let me clar ify let me clarify there is private schools and then there's public schools and then there's private little colleges in town okay so I'm not talking about a private school ah yes I'm not talking about St John's St what what what what what you know like the good schools and Georges or whatever it is the private schools M I am talking about the little colleges in town okay so basically a small you know um manager owned yes well one or two teachers like oh yeah let's start our to college yeah yeah it's like so so they they just they just uh invoice you for tuition they just invo you yeah and usually the invoice is like $10 or something it's not even like that much so it's not really Private School per se no no no no no okay no I hear you no no I only said private because it's not government owned because I think for government owned U when I then went to like High School uh when we get letter of the story they had to like oh we need approvals and everything but for them rules and regulations there's rules and regulations yeah for those ones was like those small ones but then for at start as they asked me like if you say you're in form four uh we're going to give you an exam so they gave me uh a test and then it was math which is unfortunate for them because I'm good with numbers so they were like okay cool sounds like you are phone four and then I just went in um did that for like another two months then it failed um so then I was just back home so I didn't necessary to study by myself so I started by myself registered for five subjects um this is also like the time so so maybe for certainly for me and for the audience uh I'm quite keen on understanding how you actually when you say you were studying by yourself how did you go about it did you have a syllabus and what would you do were you disciplined in the study methods uh so ever since I was like 9 years old I've been waking up like at 3:00 a.m. every morning uh to study um until to the extent that even now if I go to sleep usually by 3:00 a.m. I'm up because my body is just used to that kind of routine where you wake up at 3: a.m. and it was more of it wasn't like I had a syllabus because I did not have those kind of resources it was more like just reading so so you just get a book and you go cover to cover yes yes so at home there was this book called Integrated Science book three which is uh I think very foundational people do it when they're form three to form four uh there was a book called success in Commerce um there was also a book uh there was a Bible and then there was new general mathematics book three okay um so I just went with those um I just did cover to cover for those okay so there's an interesting idea I I don't know if you've ever listened to this Harvard psychiatrist uh Dr K and he had a a podcast where he was talking about gift to kids uh how they do very well in primary school but find it very difficult in high school and primarily uh determined by you know earlier on in your in your career or in your schooling what's necessary is a high IQ so aptitude but not necessarily the the depth or the the rigor in actually learning you don't you don't know how to learn and then in high school uh these kids have difficulties because while they have a higher aptitude they don't have the rigor and the the the a method of learning they haven't learned that okay um but it sounds like you had both you had a method of learning and I'm quite keen on understanding where you where you picked that up I would I would certainly say yes to part of it because obviously I'm not a psychiatrist but um what I noticed with with me is that because in my early years so I finished GR S I was like 10 right and then I started by myself 11 I said for my a for my O Level and then 12 I was form five AG 12 and then 13 finished my um form six and then 14 I was at University um I had to do and I was also in and out of school a lot so for the for the entire for what you're supposed to do in four years I had to bnch that up right and then for form five I was also EA and out out of school for form five and then I only got a a sponsor for form six of which by Form six most of the things are already like people have already had that foundational so I had to do a lot of catching up by myself which even up to now um I see myself even when I'm at school because I'm getting my MBA right um I don't do well in scenarios where somebody's in front of me and trying to teach me I do well in it's written here read it and then I get it that's my method so your retention memory is very high yes so when someone is up there I have to consciously make effort to say Let me listen to what this person is saying I have to consciously what short attention span or I'm I'm not sure what it is but I do think I find it easier to learn things and I read them on my own and I think it's all coming from how I got to to do schooling in the first couple of years that I was doing schooling so I do agree to the extent that if you do schooling Primary School which is like the about seven years of it a certain way if you then change into like something that requires you to learn things a different way you might struggle because that's not the method and that's not just how you learn yeah so I I'm curious philosophically about you know um because I think you've had an opportunity to reflect on your on your story and I think um the way the education system is designed you know know it's uh you know if you actually think about it from a historical perspective it was um the British trying to train civil servants you know to do the same thing everywhere in the world whether you're posted in New Zealand or South Africa or Canada and you know so modern education kind of evolved from you know the need for that structure which is why we say you go into grade one at this particular age and your your your cohort uh um not withstanding differences in aptitude and conscientiousness uh you you generally progress based on the calendar right so from grade one to grade two to grade four you know and then and yet the the reality of the matter is we're very different we are in terms of our talents and uh our personality traits some people are highly conscientious some people have um excellent uh or above average aptitude but the system doesn't actually allow for that right I mean I I think in TAS and my experience through formal education you know seven years of primary school and uh six years of of high school it was rare if it happened at all for people to skip grades no matter how much they demonstrated uh that they may you know um that they could operate at a higher level and it's and and it's not a it's not a bug it's a feature you're just supposed to progress well socialization part of it it's because uh well it is true that mentally you were a particular Pace but emotionally are you and socially are you or do you have that aptitude you know so a 14-year-old now with 18year old you know that's but but the thing is the reason why I'm asking this question because if you actually look at the real world because ultimately the whole point of investing in education is so that when you become an adult and you you know um Rel you out into the world you uh you thrive right you get a good job or you you know you learn how to build a business or if you choose to be a doctor or a lawyer you're able to set up your practice and be successful right and if you actually look at um you know the world some of the most successful people um have bucked the convention you know so you've got Zucker dropping out of Harvard or or Bill Gates and then they built businesses that have changed the world and so when you think about these 13 years does it make sense for us to still follow this regimented path when we know that in every Court there's a potential Bill Gates or Zuckerberg who could go through the system faster and then emerge on the other side and build something that changes the world I I don't think I hear both sides so I think to his point the um the issue around socialization when my teachers were saying you're in school not just for the academic part but you also here to like learn social skills and everything I do think that um there are things that you learn in school that are not books that are not what you're going to read like social skills um and you know U other like I think they call them soft skills um for me when I was even though I was academically successful most of the time until I was until was done with my masters PR much because I was done with my masters when I was 20 um I really felt like I was an island I felt like I couldn't relate with the people I was in class with because people who I was in class with were five years five years older than I was and the people that I was that were my agates were really stressing about things that I I was done with like when I was at College they were like form two um all of that but you would consistently people who went to school with me know this when even when I was at Singham so when I was at cam we had a nice hostel Trinity house which was for aover girls so this was like for form six mhm form six girls but you would rarely find me in Trinity I was in the form one Doms like those are like d like proper Doms that's hanging out with people your age where my AG mes were you know but then we would still not be able to relate 100% because while they had cews I probably did not have as much the cew as they had while they had like things that they needed to go through they were even eating at a different dining hall than I was our dining hall was like way out of school had so much other freedoms that they didn't have so I still wanted to be with them but still I couldn't relate with them 100% so I get the I get the socialization part I also think like the former education system needs to stay like with some sort of standard like that mainly because we are all different but we can't then have an education system that is spoke or that is like tailor made for each and every one of us that is why it's very important to like bucket people into like cohorts you're six year you're 6 years old you're going to go into school with six year six year old this is the curriculum we expect you to to learn this in seven years you're going to learn it in seven years where I do think that the education system fails is where someone is clearly doing better better or or gifted let's use the word gifted is is is more everyone is gifted academically yes where somebody is operating at a level that is higher than others I think it's counterproductive to continue to keep them there um because um and and this is what the formal education system does and this is what the public schools what I was talking about like the rules and the regulations um when I was going for form five um when I went when we went to prop Jenna High School I remember the Headmaster asking for time to get approval from the district to be able to take me in even though so with the other schools this was now in Chu the other schools were like well we don't know if it's you actually said for the form four exams right we don't speak it to you because how can somebody was so young but I set for my exams as an external candidate but I set for them at F high school so they knew me like they had seen me take these exams they knew that I could handle phone five but still they thought they needed to get approval even after I had my um I had 12 points at a level I went to apply for uh accounting at at the of Zimbabwe and I remember meeting these two ladies and they're like then you can come back in four years and then you can apply and then at that time um I remember they would try to put my details into the system but I think the system would be like the your age was too low there was not even an option to select my date of birth right because it was like 1992 1993 those are the people coming to college and it wasn't 1997 so they were like we're going to put this aside but go home and then after four years you can come back and apply for whatever program you want and I met that a lot MH uh which I think is a very counterproductive way of doing things um because I think that it's more of you you're just supposed to recognize like oh this was meant to take you four years you did it in one oh great let's move you to the next one so that we continue to utilize your brain or whatever it is that we want to do instead of trying to say even though you're doing better than this we want to keep you here I think that is that does not allow so I I want to make a counterargument to the one roro is making uh and you're a classic example that actually the the schooling system while it's great uh is actually inadequate for gifted kids that actually we don't know how to so slow Learners we know how to support slow Learners remedial classes that sort of thing uh and yet gifted kids even when we bump them up yeah a grade or two we actually don't know how to support them that is so true the things that you're raising is the socialization that is very true that is very true you speak to that yeah I I I think I think that is that is very true um because then if we have bumped you up we have recognized that you your bride or whatever it is um we now have to build an infrastructure around how then do we make sure that you still get what you're supposed to get from being around people your Edge from the how do we then develop those socialization or that those social skills those soft skills you're supposed to get because just bumping someone into just saying okay now you're graded six or now you're graded seven I don't think is enough because I do think that to an extent I struggled because there was no one like me mhm which I don't think there's no one like me I just think that they are just not identified we don't have a system that actually catches on cuz for me what pushed most of my thing was that there was actually no money other I think if there was actual money at home and I was in a class where my brother was not showing up where I didn't need to study by myself I was going to see a teacher and whatever I think I would just have been following just the normal course well let's make light of the moment uh and help us to understand when did you actually start having a boyfriend cuz that will help us you get to University at 14 you know you get to University at 14 and lots and lots of testosterone okay okay um what if I say I started having a boyfriend sitting in an age and then somebody comes and comments like hey I was your boyfriend when you were 13 what happens as long as you're doing any as long as you are legal uh it's perfectly fine you know but but it will help us to understand some because like it's like your hormones cuz you know what a 14-year-old hormones uh and thinking and you're around a lot of testosterone now and a lot of women who are looking at all these men and the socialization is about yeah you know yeah um so I I think like for me it was very unconventional um going to University like when I was 14 and I think that whole journey made me have more friends who were like God guys um even when I was at cam High School my friends were like boys I couldn't relate with the girls because the girls are talking about I mean four five years 17 they've started having boyfriends theyve they've done whatever that I was 13 I hadn't had my PE like I can't like I can't be part of these conversations yeah even when I was at College they would be like oh p man don't talk about that you know that's kind of thing U so I started relating more with um the guys they were like my I I think they were just like we have adopted a little sister here at college so I had like great amazing friends who were guys um but um you saying they were not attracted to you okay one one person asked me out when I was 14 and I ran away like speed you know um and I I ran into an office building because I just wanted to be away from them but then this office building was the dean's office building the office was in there and and when we're having our orientation at us the de had brought me up like in front of every oh we have a 14y old this year so they knew I was very close with the dean so they thought I had actually going to to report them oh my word yeah so so but that's that's the socialization that we're talking about right like if this had if I was form two and this is also another form two probably I was not going to like run away this is you know this is how you you get introduced to things but like for me it was like this man he was probably 19 but he was like this man is old you know this man is old and I was running because of just the dynamic take you back on something that you just said that just picked my uh my mind uh you you were 13 and you still didn't have your period I had my first per when I was in college so this is interesting so mentally you were way ahead of everybody but phally physiologically you were behind everybody yeah yeah yeah that that contradiction on its own do you want to speak to that I I well I don't know whatever was causing it um I knew I was supposed to be because you know what puber starts at 12 or whatever it is right um I I just never like looked at it that way looking maybe a psychologist can help us to just look at this but now let's go University yeah and what's actually happening at University and then take us through the Journey to your first job cuz you're in the workplace and you're pretty young yeah um so on the on the workplace I was pretty lucky so um I got to college when I was 14 get there uh everyone everyone around me recognized that you know what this is this is such a baby so um I remember the Metron for the building that I I was living in so I was staying in swon which is a host at Shad um I was given like a room he was supposed to stay alone because I didn't want people influencing me and the mention would um would come in like I think every day end check in like hey how was today what happened anything interesting which also made everyone stay away from me because then that means you know like you're isolated like your story is going to end up with the meton if you ever do something with those kid um um at first also it felt like I was a zoo animal because every was like oh that's the go that's the go that's the go I was like a zoo animal um then even the vice Chancellor was pretty invested in in in me um which was pretty good I think at us that I got a very good infrastructure that allowed me to you know like when you get to College there just so much freedom I did not have so much Freedom at least for my first degree um I remember and what did you study I was studying accounting cuz I remember I would go to like first year second year third year after after my internship I was going to class and like short skirts and all of that like now I'm getting into like puberty you know um and I would get a call from the VIS like my office right now then and then you get there and then it's like I heard that you're walking around canas naked I'm like I'm not naked and they like no no no that's not what a respectful girl is supposed to to be like so I had an infrastructure around me that was looking on like although they were trying to filter in Freedom it wasn't like all at once and it was not of like the entire R it once at such a young age when I was not doing my masters because I did my masters straight after my undergrad okay um I still stayed in undergrad accommodation because I was still just 18 so I was still like just like an undergrad so you it gave me like um an opportunity to stay in undergrad accommodation but I had more freedom like he was the would still Professor girl would still check in but it was not like every other day or whatever he was like now recognizing that you know what she's gr let's start to give her so so what made you choose to be a bin counter of all the things oh my God say that time no cont are not being coun counts are not being couns um so I'm actually good with numbers I love working with numbers you could have been a mathematician a physicist yeah actually be cter I chose to follow the money I chose to follow the money um so for me I was good at numbers um but then um as I said my family were like vending we we had been vening my entire life uh weish back can I yes absolutely okay cool fish along Road Stu and then uh we moved to Chu we sold everything from my orange my Sal um myber my chunks everything we were selling everything and we were expected to help right um so even when I was form five I would be called in you know after school come cuz I was going to a day school come into town and then you help we selling this things and you know the selling is not like you're in a shop and you know it was literally mum the buet for my biscuit and I used to be so embarrassed of it why am I doing this um but then That's How rent could be paid or like anything like my school fees to be paid that's how you know is what it is so what my family then decided to do because they knew that that's what I would do so even if if I'm selling something and if I see somebody that knows me I would run away from the and I wouldn't like so for them to like sort of fix that they thought it would it would be helpful to make me understand the whole point so we would sit down and we would have like these numbers like oh if we go into town and we buy oranges at this amount we're going to sell you this amount then we're going to make this much profit so it used to it used to Boggle my mind how if we're supposed to make so much profit how come at the end of the day we don't have food how come at the end of the day you can't pay for m my school face how come at the end of the day um we're like the poorest people in this community and stuff like how when we are when we all helping in this business so I thought I would study business so I actually when I was doing my um my O Level I did not do I did not write accounting at all level I actually started accounting at phone five a level yeah because I was like I'm going to start some I'm going to study something that is the mix of business and my ability numbers so it was like my interest as well as my natural ability so I thought I was going to do accounting so I started studying accounting when I was uh in form five okay so I I want to make the point that ruaro is making from a different perspective okay and again around gifted kids because once we've identified that we actually have uh gifted kids and we're talking about the infrastructure around it it's if a society can produce gift kids MH then it's it's incumbent upon the society then giving these gifted kids a pathway in which they can help Society the greatest so if it's mental aptitude that's why he's talking about physicist and Mathematics because we're saying you're so gifted that it would be a waste for you to be just like any other accountant who studied sha [Laughter] history fin that fixes the uh current problems we have well that's not the the real problem that we have right uh we're saying that for you to be a minister of finance yeah there are millions of other zimbabweans who are potentially capable at that particular job but if you look at mathematics or phys physics they are probably 10 out of the entire population who can get to that level okay you know so you could have been that person who becomes the greatest physicist in the world because you're so gifted and if we had the right infrastructure for people who are gifted then we put them in positions where they are best able to help Society certainly not been counting no we just having fun with you I'm thinking of a respectful way to respond to that no no that's why we're yeah and that's why we eat Friday drinks we we take Jabs as much as we give them yeah I you don't have to be politically correct I I I I I think for me ending and accounting was the best outcome for me because I do think there's also a privilege that's embed in being able to do whatever you want to do there's a privilege that not many people have and I just don't think that for me the immediate problem was money I was solving for money and I think for in my case um that made the most sense for you at the time made the most sense um would it be different if I was born to an affluent family somewhere maybe but for my Cas this was the best the best outcome um and I was thinking but then in terms of like mentorship and everything like getting uh the proper resources how I even got to become um CH account mhm is to my was a partner in Deo called me and said hey I have a partner in Deo I'm like okay um I don't that a point you have no idea what was I I knew there was something called Deo like everybody talks about but I wasn't like very previe to what what does a CH accountant how are they different from a normal accountant for me and that time uh growing up everyone everyone in my family actually calls me doctor because everyone in my family thought I was going to be that one person I was the first person in my family to go to university but everyone thought I was going to be that one person who's going to have a masters and a PhD so that's what I actually wanted to do a master's that's why I have a masters in accounting I was going to have a PhD in accounting because from the community I come from that's the path forward the pathway right shout out to to for giving for giving your call at that forever end uh founder um so I do think there is an argument to be made for mentorship and you know providing that structure that says hey this is what you know but this you could do there's a whole world away that's why you see even when I was still doing like my YouTube and my social media and stuff because I wanted to make people know these things because I actually didn't know about them until someone called me but it's not everybody who has the privilege of having a partner Del call you like it's not a privilege walk through that uh what actually happened to deoe and what was the experience cuz now you're in the working in the Working World in the Working World Deo was a f and people people don't care as much about your attitude it's now more about your other skills yes yes yes uh Deo was a fantastic I wouldn't have asked for a better place to start my my career so I did work at zimra for my internship because I was sponsored by zimra so I did a year at zimra and the plan is that way you started picking up mini skirt h no blame it on puberty blame blame it on puberty CU remember it was late yes yes yes yes yes blame that puberty um but um cool and also the other thing about the men when I got to used they gave me a mentor who was like a Church Girl to go help me buy clothes I literally she would literally buy me what she would wear like the long and everything but then when I came back from internship I had my money remember zimra paid really well I think it still does it was like one of the like the best paying uh companies for internship okay yeah yeah so I had my own money and I could go into the shop and buy my own things so that's why I was not like wearing those those Min skes and stuff um but like going back to deoy so deoy was amazing in the in the sense is that remember my articles from high school yep so I was literally within my agement okay so my age was not something that's special or or different and even though I had a masters you still had to start from zero yes absolutely so I was um what what age was I when I joined I was 19 I think um I started off you you have kids coming from high school the difference would then be like I get promoted every six months they would have to spend a year before because they're still learning yeah yeah yeah yeah and you know but it was it was a fantastic learning opportunity um there are some cultural things that I picked up at deoy that I'm not proud of like drinking why I started drinking that's not a bad thing that sounds like progress in your life socialization otherwise you would be in the tea to corner with something to blame toay yes blame that one blame yes um Chas toay yeah for bringing to the side of the ler yes uh but but it was fantastic and it was one of like the few times where you got in you're not like a zoo animal like yeah people still like oh you know she has a masters and everything but you're not standing out because you're young because everyone at the f is Young okay yeah so that was that was really good uh and I got to to work with like a amazing people some of them are like still my best friends up to today um amazing bosses I used to work uh to be a client with cherry team toi who was like the managing was a managing partner before they they now the change but yeah amazing amazing Mentor so I think Deo was such a blessing I'm grateful for that call Al so so they had better structures you know uh handling young people yes I think it would would it have been different so you were now 20 but would it have been different if if you were 14 and you went straight to articles do you think that they better platform to actually support you yes because I think accounting firms are meritocracies like it's not like everything else does not matter as long as you can deliver on the job so I do think in terms of being able to handle someone that does well because they have like people that are like super accelerated even like their promotion Cycles if you do well you get super promoted like you get accelerated from your own cohort so I think accounting films are Meritor cresses and in that way I think they had a better chance of that just okay now let's fast forward uh and you decided to leave the accountancy world and do an MBA yeah walk us through the thinking process there the thinking process there and and just for context now you are similar to your peers so you went to University accounting and then de now your peers so you're applying or you're doing your gmats with people who are more or less your the same age yeah so currently I sit in a class with people that are my age the only difference is I have more working experience than they do yeah but we are like the same age okay so um the thinking behind uh behind going for an NBA was first off to my okay this sounds like a to my marketing commercial whatever it is um he's he's a fan of the show and he's helped the show quite a bit but uh to my the first time I had to go to see him and have a conversation with him he said to me come here I'll train you and you become a TR accountant and then I'll take you to Stanford for your MBA and then you go to Wall Street and I was like at that point remember I also didn't have Expos like what is Wall Street like what is done forward but anyway this guy seems like he knows whatever he's talking about um so that was the initial introduction to like oh there's something called an MBA uh that you can do after you qualify and I remember actually two years in he would actually follow up with me like hey how are we doing with the great plan and I'm like I'm working on it because I I had put it like at the back of of my mind but towards the time that I was about to qualify you start really thinking about what is going to be the next step uh of my career uh I remember I had um because when you're like auditing in the big four when you're about to qualify you start getting like head hunted with people like with audit audit firms in the UK mainly so I had like offers in the UK I remember some point I actually had like started processing the Visa but um working in ordered is a very steep learning cover when you start off you're learning so much but then it gets to a point where it starts to flatten out and you start to build other skills and I feel like I was at that point number one number two with the Zimbabwean economy I qualified in 2021 yeah qualified 2021 uh the Zimbabwean economy is when you're auditing you're supposed to be aiding in you know something that investors are going to use for their decision making that's the whole point I'm not producing giberish exactly but the thing is like we'll get there we'll get there when you're done AIT financial statements it's like I myself as an auditor I can't tell you a lot of things about these things because these numbers I don't know them we applied an index we just multiplied things and we had this hyperinflation adjusted numbers so it started to feel like because what do you mean when the whole street is getting qualified opinions like it's useless for us continue doing this order well it's still useful no [ __ ] um well you heard it straight from an accountant um it's called um what kind of what what's the expression it's froi and slip it's still useful but like for me from my perspective I started to feel like I wasn't doing something that had an impact because we're just producing this numbers spot on numbers that even I as an old if you go you know when I started off 2018 uh did I start de 2018 yeah actually said 2018 um when I set it off for deoe the the the currency issues were not yet like currency issues you know you could go to a client's analyst briefing and you could like literally see okay I I worked on something here and then like after then like it's like okay what are we even doing but so for me it made me uh and then working with like a different and uh different companies I started to see that what I wanted to work in was not necessarily accounting or audit I stopped seeing myself as a senior audit manager I stopped seeing myself as a as an audit partner I started to see I wanted to work in finance like Finance decisions and we don't have here we don't have much of a very active Capital Market and that's what I wanted to that's what I wanted to work on because the idea is you learn you go out shots fired everywhere probably us hold you probably need to delete this but no no I I then figured what I wanted to do was work in finance I want to help businesses with their financing problems um I have a brother who decided that he wanted to do entrepreneurship had brilliant ideas um and he was like I need money right fortunately I was working uh at that time I loaned him money and he managed to grow his business it's not like a huge business but for his standards at the time it changed so much coming from a point of somebody I knew him that's why I was able to give him that money and the money that I gave him was probably like $2,000 or something yeah um but he managed to do a lot with that money right yeah and then we have a problem of a high unemployment rate for youth we have a couple of graduates coming out of college the the the economy cannot absorb them to give them jobs but some of them have like great ideas but they unbankable you don't have experience you don't have Capital what if we have a venture fund a venture capital fund that is specifically targeting entrepreneurs entrepreneurs but not the sexy entrepreneurs not the people who have a proven record like let's target women you know my family were vendors if somebody came and said I'm giving them $50 and charges them 10% interest per month you would see even the way they their stock SP changes just because they have somebody who's been willing to Capital right so I want to work in something that has that sort of impact and I could get that through ordered that's the real reason not everything that I was like putting I'm I'm quite curious because I think so at the risk of revealing my age here um when we got into the firms uh you know 20 years ago at the turn of the century you know more more than 20 years ago um in the early 2000s um some of the biggest companies in the world M were Global Banks MH right and and and Wall Street was all the rage I think they used to describe you know the the celebrity CEOs you know of of the Wall Street firms as Masters of the Universe right there was just this there was this incredible aw to Banking and finance this this power this Prestige these guys ruled the world of business right and so you fast forward to where we are today right and you think about you know the biggest most powerful companies in the world and the personalities behind them it's not guys on the east coast of the US in New York on Wall Street right it's it's Silicon Valley we talk about the Google guys and and and Jeff basil at Amazon and uh Zuckerberg and musk and that sort of thing so I'm just curious you know because you could probably have pivoted into uh So you you're obviously going into Finance yeah yeah uh but you could also have decided that look you know what the grass is greenest in Silicon Valley yeah and maybe that's where I should be pting that's where you know all the celebrities and talent and the monies so I'm just a bit curious to you know as to why you would then have this view that you are more likely to have a bigger impact in the world of Finance yeah today and and to contextualize his question especially for the audience you chose Warton over Stanford and to much had actually advised you to go to Stanford cuz that's actually on the exactly that's in tandem with this question so it's a very important question for us because we want to understand your thinking process so I get that like the Magnificent 7 you know the Google the apples the taxi companies right now and and all of that um the impact I'm seeking to make is not necessarily that I own I want to be the person that finances Co so I'm not necessarily looking into um working at Google or at Apple or any of any of those companies and actually the long-term plan for me is when I say long time I'm like 15 years or so is to definitely come back home and do that financing here okay um and I feel like for me to be able to work in Venture Capital so like VC there's a lot of we SE in the Silicon py yes um there's that famous Road uh that's probably as as famous as Wall Street now slipping my mind um but it'll it it'll pi and and because you're not going to get away with it that's why we it's Friday drinks and we're going to catch you out on your inconsistencies because if it's Venture Capital then it's Silicon Valley yeah yeah it's Silicon Valley Investment Banking it's New York it's New York yeah but like so why are you because you you keep talking about Venture Capital yes and why why didn't you go that way and you went uh so for me New York the the for me it makes sense to ear your stripes in Investment Banking before you start vure capital okay so that is the thinking around going into Finance going into Wall Street uh and then coming back like I don't think I'll would do like VC in the US or anything like that um in my application eay I actually talked about how I went to won I wanted Wen for the network uh because whaton has people VC has people in PE yeah one of it's very uh famous uh alumni is uh the the Oracle of Omaha waren Buffett to yeah we do havek also went to ell mask went to Wharton yeah didn't Trump also go toon yeah um so they have I love your sense of humor um so uh for me it it is really about I wanted to get the network the network of whon their curriculum is also great the people that are teaching in finance and not people that read about Finance the people who made an obsene amount of money in finance yes yes yes yes we even have like lecturers that literally sponsor people's uh companies like they like Finance people's companies and because I wanted to go into Investment Banking whaton sends uh a significant amount of his class into banking because they literally the banks bring the banks to campus for so for me that made most sense uh if I wanted to just do uh VC I probably would have gone to Stanford but um the I I I like I like how blessi is about it if I wanted to just do VC in I think I think I think because I knew I wanted to go into Finance it made sense to go to a finance School absolutely um it's it's the time that I wanted to go into uh Stanford I think Stanford takes a lot of people with hard impact makers which is why I love Stanford I just think for this stage of my my career more important because you know what uh because you're at a top MBA school yeah um you know your gmats were obviously very high and what I want us to talk about is because we've got a lot of uh an audience especially uh Jen Z who listen to the show and would love uh you know one or two things you can say about the gmet and how you actually prepared for the gat so I have a lot of people that actually ask me like oh did you get a tool CH for G and all of that but again I'm that person that has started by this by themselves from a very young age so I did my JY I I did not get like a a Twitter or anything I did them by myself I got um a package from this other company I don't know if he's allowed to say it on the the on the yeah we we the producer is not around any but you can say for for for the good of uh it's always better to to apologize than to ask for permission yeah for our audience CU we do have a good audience that actually is thinking of doing an MBA and they would benefit I I used marush uh marush is um so they have like these plans where you can do like a self-study plan they do have videos of people explaining things but they also have like a lot of content that you can use um I did that and then I booked here in Harari wrote um my my exam here in Harari okay yeah uh did you find it very difficult or okay I did not have I did not have the best jimat school um okay but uh I don't think it's restrictively hard you know like how people are like oh meds is hard I I think it's it's more of like if you just give yourself you just need to give yourself enough studying time for it uh but it wasn't restrictively hard like I'm not going to do my MBA because they okay uh because again the producers now jumping up and down and they're telling us that we because it's such a joy man but I I still want us to go on uh and now let's go into some really tough subject matter which is uh mbas and what you know Peter T Elon Musk has said about uh NBAs that you know never employ a CEO has an MBA and here you are a gifted uh daughter of Zimbabwe doing an NBA just walk through that process where you're going against people who have made it who are saying we don't need NBAs in the seaw um no here you are doing an NBA look I think I think that there is no one siiz Fe all for most things now in in in life um just C you see a lot of people say CEOs that are CA are going are destroying companies you know but I am a CA and I don't think that is true um I you have a certain bias in that but that's that's okay um I don't think that's true but like um I think um just like everything in life there's no one siiz Fe all uh first off for me the incredible value of um an MBA an MBA is especially if you go to a good school like um the top schools uh the networking effect from there like the people you get to meet that you're sitting in a class with have done amazing things in their CU they average average is 5 years they've done amazing things in their workplaces you have people with Olympic medals in your class right you have these people that have set in trades that you want to be you want to be part of that community so for me it's the network uh then for me it's the actual value in terms of being able to restart your career so for for example I was here in Zimbabwe I was a CA though the work that we were doing as CA was great and we're putting in C hard working and all of that I wanted to transition from that and I couldn't have done that without an MBA I couldn't have recruited into another company straight from here into the us so that value for that that value is great and then just it's it's a gift of two years so for the good the the good mbas I believe um for most of them they actually have like grades and disclosure yeah so what you're there to do is not to show people that look I have A's everywhere they are encouraging you to take classes that you actually enjoy uh things that you're actually curious about and if what you actually don't want to do is academics and you want to focus on like networking or recruiting looking for a job that's what you focus on because you're an adult right and for me what that does is just you identify the gifts for for me uh I knew that my negotiation gos were bad and I was I was like I'm going to take negotiations I'm going to take a class on diversity the economics of diversity I'm going to take a class is there an economics of diversity yes there is a class and it's amazing really it's it's Tau we're not going to get into it it's called the economics of diversity and it talks about the economics of gender the economics of rest I'll let Tashi shut me down because if he doesn't oh my gosh yeah we're not going to get that we're not going to get but yeah I think there is a value so so I'm interested in because now you on Wall Street right and I'm interested in just how that speaks to your personality timee so now it has less and less to do with you as a gifted kid yeah you know the the the the path that you are getting into less and less about you as a guter kid and more and more about you as an individual yes and yes uh and I want you to maybe speak to our audience around how you're placing yourself on Wall Street and what you think is the value that you offer Wall Street and why they coming to you and not the next guy or the next woman oh I'm lucky they came to me honestly um yeah why why why what's their interest um cuz you're just like any other gifted kids I think well if we say no I'm one of them that wanted to be on Wall Street maybe they didn't want to be on Wall Street m um so there's that first um and then there's also the issue around I think what they're looking for is somebody who has demonstrated that they have a certain rigor that they are uh committed um that they can handle hard situations and you know like when I was saying like my introduction there's a one minute 30 second one and there's a 15 minute one I had to make sure that in those one and a half minutes I have given them you know enough content to think that I'm a hard worker to think that I have greet to think that um I will not shy away and run away because it is it is a hard job right um are the hours still crazy are you guys still doing like 80 hours a week I don't know how to answer that question but you work hard okay um um but they are like you know like protected H and everything so they say yeah well actual experience those those on actual experience um I guess what we're trying to get to is again if you're looking at our audience and somebody's thinking oh maybe one day I actually want to work on Wall Street y you know what's the what's the two two or three things they really need to work on you you know people who work on Wall Street are not just people coming from Finance we have people coming from the Army like War veterans working on Wall Street we have people coming from from Finance like me we have people who were doing God knows what um who get this jobs to work on W streate and the main thing is just show that within your experience you were working hard show that hard working yeah you were working hard show that you do not shy away from a challenge show that somewhere in there show that you are somebody that has so you've overcome something uh you have overcome something or you have achieved things that people had people like you went above and beyond somewhere um show that um in your experience also show like you're actually a person because I think they're looking for personality like they're not looking for you to be like a zombie because for me I actually expected W to be like very you know straight jacket whatever but that's not how it is like every day like people are working and like I suppose how you differentiate yourself from everybody yes yes yes but I think hard work uh being um being a person who doesn't shy away from a challenge um I would also think um somebody that's showing like some level of commitment because they also want like you know continuity and then like things more things like paying attention to detail which are small when you're outside but when you're like really with them those are like really great and then showing that you're actually like a human being fantastic so what I'm going to do is I'm going to put you on the spot primarily because um you're now a representative of something great than yourself okay which is uh gen Z okay so you're right at the threshold where you are actually the representative of genz especially the Zimbabwe gen Z right and if you've gone through this conversation I would articulate it as somebody who is gifted and that would Encompass your talents and mental aptitude or hardworking yeah high in conscientiousness so actually you know ambitious mhm right and these are things that we haven't seen in the previous generations if you look at the Baby Boomers and you look at uh the Millennials okay they were not gifted hardworking uh overcome uh adversity which you have you know uh from parents who were or family that was vending to Wall Street yeah that in itself is a very inspiring story right so you're now representative of what we can look forward to in the future as gen Z the Zimbabwean gen Z oh thank you so well that's the easy part right that's why I'm smart when I'm doing that when I'm doing that is because he priming for something yeah okay let's hear it um how then do you view yourself and your contribution to Zimbabwe and the Zimbabwean State because as it is uh it's there's something fundamentally wrong in Zimbabwe and it's not going to get any better if you look at the economic statistics it looks like mozek will do phenomenally better than us yeah and here we are exporting the brightest MH into the world and they abandoning their country I wouldn't say we're abandoning the country um so I I was chairing the Zimbabwe youth Council before I left okay I had to resign from that because you can't do that from you can't share person on board from out of the country I was sharing the Zimbabwe youth C so I was sitting on the Port board uh as well um which I thought was my contribution to the country um I do however think that there I have I don't worry about them okay I do however think like I have I have more more to give I just didn't have the skills or the network that I need to give what I need to give as I said like I I I want to work in capital markets and um I feel like I did not have the skill or the network that I needed to do that that's why I lefted and I think that is probably the story not for the majority it's a bottle of whiskey my guy yeah what's happening with our producer anyway don't worry carry on worry yeah um I I don't I don't think that's a story for the majority of the people that are leaving the country because I mean a lot of people are living the country well he did kind of say tongue and cheek that you aband losing us but I um I think when you when you go out of the country you get to learn like look at even like Minister works a lot out of the country come back um and I think we have a lot of people like that who work in the out there because there's just like there are just things that are out there that we don't have well the question is there's this heavy burden on you and you again because you're now a symbol okay right of genzi people that we've educated that are doing phenomenally well yeah uh but now are contributing to the US and uh yeah I do think I I don't think there's a way where we can get to contribute actually in the ways that we want to in Zimbabwe without having so that's part of the journey yeah I do think for me I believe so much in in new stpes uh it's for me it's it's incredibly hard to be out of the country because I'm very close with my family I like being being with them I like hang out with them that's why you will see me I H here in December I will be here in December because I like being home and there's no feeling that beats being home but we have to end the tribes because what I need to learn for me to contri contribute to this country for me to contribute to this economy I can't learn it here I have to learn it there and then no no fair enough is too small uh so now the producer you said that I didn't no I'm summarizing what you're saying uh you know I don't have any coms with being Politically Incorrect so now work life balance yeah uh have your have your boyfriends improved over time now that you're on Wall Street and and how do you balance you know what's what's what's life like uh in the US and uh you know what's happening with jenz what what your ideas of marriage or about marriage uh starting a family is that a possibility is it not uh you know your Ambitions where you see yourself Venture Capital uh all this just give us a glimpse of gen Z as M gen ZZ and work life balance and how they thinking about it I think I don't have quite too much to say about the Zimbabwe new JY because I do think I'm fundamentally different the things that people really look for or people really Chas and I'm quite different from what I chess so I wouldn't say I have quite a clear view on that but I would say as a generation maybe things around with work life balance I I read that uh this generation likes work life balance more uh again I believe in earning your stripes if it means that I don't have balance for a couple of years then that's okay um so as long as it leads me to where I want where I want to go um then in terms of like marriage um I would say this generation is moving away from the PRI Generations that worshiped marriage okay um we are moving more into a generation where it's kind of a choice you have to make like do I want to get married or do I not want to get married which I think is amazing because um we were raised um in in in an environment where you what was the expectation for you was to get married true stuff which I think is very dangerous um yeah it's a very dangerous way of thinking and looking at life um so this generation is kind of like a very pro-choice kind of generation where if you want to get married that's okay if you don't that's also okay um and the the difference between Kun and over there is they go to that stage a couple of years ago so over there in my class we have 26 year old if someone says they're married everyone's like why were you married so young when here in Zimbabwe like you know like is there is there a problem okay so I do think that is the Western picture is sort of what we're going to follow through although we're just like trailing behind M this was wonderful this was great uh unfortunately you know I would go on but you can see the talk a lot so no no this is I want to s in one last question go because you know this is you know my pet uh passion and you've had um quite a varied experience uh you know in your from growing up primary school going through the education system here your experiences at De the US yeah yeah so when you when you think about um you know how Society should be structured philosophically you know on the spectrum of socialism on the one end mhm and free market capitalism mhm on the other hand where do you sit I believe in free markets ah fantastic cheers fantastic cheers and on that note uh have yourself a wonderful weekend uh we going to have lots of fun tonight and um we will have a great weekend and please continue subscribing I think uh the producer will let you guys know that we're we're going to have membership on on YouTube uh and we're just I think the the producer will do a lot of the talking but I think it would be great for you guys to support us and uh yeah let's see how far we can take this otherwise have yourself a wonderful weekend cheers [Music] n [Music]