Maud’s mission is to encourage uplifting women in Africa to key decision-making positions, transparent ownership within the tourism industry, and handing the baton over to the younger female entrants. She has widespread training and development experience with a focus on Small Micro and Medium Enterprise(SMME) development: read more here.
Maud, who is Zimbabwean, grew up in Zambia and cut her entrepreneurial teeth from a fairly young age by managing some of her parents’ successful business ventures.
After returning to Zimbabwe upon its independence she was offered a job with Air Zimbabwe. This was a turning point, as she immediately found herself adapting and enjoying the career opportunities the industry offered. After winning a full scholarship to study Travel and Tourism in Kenya Maud explored business opportunities within the industry. She was offered a job in South Africa shortly after the fall of Apartheid. This she grabbed as she had a strong feeling that the country would soon be ready to explore enterprise development for black aspiring business entrants.
She focused on building networks, attending every business forum or expo linked to the tourism and hospitality sector and women’s enterprise development (especially for black women). She took extra work assignments so that she could learn as much as possible about the business side of the industry. Soon she was the go-to person for travel information in Africa. She then set up her own retail travel agency, focusing mainly on corporate travel. The business grew rapidly and she expanded it with events and short soft skills training programmes.
Maud has worked on AgriTourism projects, Women and Youth Empowerment Initiatives, National Tourism Clustering Market Plans, Community Based Tourism initiatives, and Local Tourism Development Strategy plans to name but a few. She keeps abreast with the fast and ever-changingtourism landscape by acquiring additional qualifications from various local and international bodies.
