Women Wednesday Profile of the Week – Zambia

Monica Musonda is founder and Chief Executive Officer of Java Foods, a food processing company based in Zambia. Monica’s vision is to revolutionize the eating habits of the youth market by offering them affordable and nutritious food options made from local products. Monica is a dual-qualified English solicitor and Zambian advocate with over 15 years of experience in legal practice and corporate management, including being corporate counsel at the International Finance Corporation and for Aliko Dangote of Dangote Industries Limited.

Having worked in Nigeria and seeing the potential impact that convenient and nutritious foods could have on Zambia’s burgeoning young and fairly urban population, Monica returned to Zambia in 2012 to establish Java Foods. Monica manages the day to day operations of the business and is also responsible for the strategy and capital raising.

By way of background, Monica is a dual qualified English solicitor and Zambian advocate with over 16 years post qualification experience. She begun her legal career working for the Attorney General of Zambia. She then went on to work in private practice for Clifford Chance (London) and Edward Nathan (Johannesburg – where she rose to the rank of partner). She then worked for International Finance Corporation (Washington DC) and for Dangote Group (Lagos) as Director Legal and Corporate Affairs and was later promoted to General Counsel.Monica was the project lead responsible for the Group’s $400m investment into Zambia to build the country’s largest integrated cement plant, due to be completed early 2015. Her experience working with one of Africa’s most successful entrepreneurs gave her the impetus to start her own business and in 2012, she moved back to Zambia and set up Java Foods.

Monica currently serves as non-executive director on the Boards of Zambia Sugar Plc, African Life Assurance (subsidiary of Sanlam), Dangote Industries Zambia Limited and sits on the Microsoft4Afrika Advisory Council. She is the immediate past chairperson of Kwacha Pension Trust Fund, Zambia’s largest single employer pension fund. She has also sat on the board of Bank of Zambia (2011-2014). She is a 2013 Young Global Leader (World Economic Forum) and Archbishop Desmond Tutu Leadership Fellow. Forbes Magazine and Africa Investor named her as one of the leading Young Power Women in Business in Africa in 2013 and 2014 respectively. She sincerely believes that in order to develop our continent, we all must participate and build capacity and so in her spare time, she speaks to the Zambian youth about entrepreneurship and business development.

(Source: java-foods.com)