The Sunday News
Mthabisi Tshuma, Sunday Life Correspondent
RENOWNED musician Fungisai Zvakavapano-Mashavave has spread her wings by joining a white collar jobs industry.
This comes after she toned down on her musical career which dates back to the early 1990s. Her zeal was fulfilled with her recent appointment as Marketing Executive for TN Assert Management. With 15 albums and countless singles under her belt, Fungisai told Sunday News in an exclusive interview that she is yet to reach her full peak.
“What inspired such a move is the need to develop, expand and maximise my influence. I have big goals and ambitions. I am yet to reach my self actualisation goal. Music is just another dimension of this multidimensional personality and I cannot depart from the world before painting the full picture of who I am.
“I am currently a Marketing Executive with TN Financial Services where I am mainly focusing on their consumer products. The sky is however, not the limit as I am aspiring to be a leader across the board. Very few women get to leading positions but I am believing God for that unique Grace,” she said.
Fungisai said people should not take this as a new direction but rather a relevance of herself to the society out there as to how God created her.
“I will not miss being a musician at all for it is an art I was born with, mastered and has become part and parcel of me. I will always keep it as one of my most priced personalities. That ministerial bit of me will not depart from me. I will always sing but that won’t stop me from expanding my other areas of influence. Even Miriam Makeba became a singing granny and it’s so inspiring.”
Fungisai is a versatile multi award winning musician who was nominated on AFRIMA Awards 2014 in the continental category for the best Inspirational Female Artiste.
She is a social activist on HIV/Aids, children’s rights and global action initiatives, founder of the Vulnerable women development Trust 2012, founder of ChurchPerson club 2018 , Girl guide guider with the Zimbabwe Girl Guides Association who does character building for young girls in schools, Board member for The National Aids Council and chairperson of the board’s audit committee (2008-2014) and panelist of the Information and Media Panel of Inquiry 2014-2015 (IMPI).
Academically she holds a Diploma in Marketing Management from Species College 2003, an HIV/Aids related Systemic Family Counselling Certificate with the Zimbabwe Institute of Systemic Therapy- Connect and Regional AIDS Training Network, BSc degree in sociology from the Women’s University in Africa (WUA) and a Master’s degree in Child Sensitive Social Policy at WUA.
@mthabisi_mthire
