Meet Country Manager, Charles Phiri, overseeing the country operations of the Mukuru vertical in Malawi.
I was born and raised in the southern parts of Malawi. Raised by a single mother, I took on the role of “deputy daddy” for my four siblings at a young age. This responsibility taught me a lot of resilience and persistence and a desire to be a good role model for their sake.
One thing I love about my job is the sort of impact my decisions have, not just on the business, but also on the individual customer. I like to take my time before any decisions or suggestions are made. Also, I love leading the team and taking part in setting up booths in the middle of the night while taking over the operations of the country. I keep these words by John Maxwell in mind in all that I do: “Everything rises and falls on the leader”. An achievement I’m incredibly proud of, and my favourite project to date is when we set-up 60 Mukuru Orange booths in 48 hours!
I remember what sold me on Mukuru; it was the vision visualised to me by my line manager before I joined the company. He made working for Mukuru sound like something I would always be proud of as I would be part of a team changing lives in this part of the world. And the vision has remained but with lots of innovation and sleek ways of serving our customer base.
The advice I would give someone wanting to start a career at Mukuru is: Get ready to be excited and challenged at the same time. From the outside, it may seem that the job is easy but once you are working in your role, you get to see the ambitions and drive all the people in the organisation have. You then realise you should be hardworking, sharp and excellent if you are to grow in your role. I just love it. Mukuru is probably the most dynamic institution I have worked with. Working for Mukuru requires one to be easily adaptive to change
