Industrial Advisory Board (IAB)

Douglas Mboweni, Ph.D.
Group Chief Executive Officer
Econet Wireless Zimbabwe Limited
Harare, Zimbabwe

Douglas Mboweni is the CEO of Econet Wireless Zimbabwe Limited, the country’s leading provider of telecoms services and has over 20 years of senior management experience in the Information Technology and Telecommunications industry. Under his stewardship, Econet Wireless Zimbabwe used innovation in the face of difficult economic conditions to grow its subscriber base from 200,000 in 2002 to over eleven million today, a commanding market share of above 65%. Dr Mboweni was instrumental in the promotion of local mobile financial services through EcoCash, up to the unbundling and listing of its parent company, Cassava Smartech on the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange as well as the set up of Mascom (Botswana) and Econet Wireless Nigeria. Dr. Mboweni graduated with a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) Degree in Business Leadership from the Zimbabwe Open University (ZOU) in 2019. In his doctorate thesis, he proposed the Leadership-Driven Resilience Model (LDRM), which theoretically proffered possibilities for business leaders to develop sustainable coping strategies in response to extreme business operating environments. Dr. Mboweni is also a visiting Professor of Practice at the University of Johannesburg since 2018 and is a holder of a Masters in Business Leadership (UNISA), and a BSc Mathematics and Computer Science degree from the University of Zimbabwe (UZ).  In recognition of his leadership and his success, Dr. Mboweni has won several national and international accolades. He continues to show leadership through a number of youth mentorship programmes in the community and is an opinion leader on telecommunications and technology in Zimbabwe and abroad. Dr. Mboweni is married to Sarudzayi and they are blessed with 3 children.