Why Zimbabwe needs engineers at the helm

Zimbabwe's leadership crisis is not just political; it is profoundly technical. For decades, the country's executive suites, boardrooms and policy spaces have been dominated by chartered accountants, lawyers and political scientists. These professions bring valuable skills, but their dominance has also shaped a national leadership culture that is risk-averse, compliance-heavy and overly comfortable with managing decline rather than engineering growth.

It may be time for Zimbabwe to be led by engineers.

This is not an argument against accountants or lawyers as professionals. It is an argument against monoculture in leadership. When the same professional instincts dominate decision-making for too long, they quietly hard-wire the economy to behave in a particular way. In Zimbabwe's case, that behaviour has favoured preservation over creation, caution over courage, and short-term financial safety over long-term productive capacity.

Engineers think differently.

Where a chartered accountant asks, "What is the risk to the balance sheet?" an engineer asks, "What problem are we solving, and how do we build a system that works?" Where a lawyer asks, "What could go wrong?" an engineer asks, "What must go right?" That difference matters enormously in a country trying to re-industrialise.

Two of Zimbabwe's most globally respected corporate leaders illustrate this point clearly: Ralph Mupita and Strive Masiyiwa. Both are engineers by training. Both have built, scaled and transformed complex systems in hostile, uncertain environments. Both understand infrastructure, networks, feedback loops and long-term investment cycles — precisely the capabilities Zimbabwe lacks in its public leadership.

Masiyiwa did not build Econet by picking low-hanging fruit. He built it by staring down political risk, technological uncertainty and capital scarcity, then engineering a solution where none seemed possible. Mupita's tenure at MTN Nigeria has shown how disciplined systems thinking, execution and long-range planning can unlock exponential value. These are not coincidences; they are products of engineering mindsets.

By contrast, Zimbabwe's economy has increasingly channelled capital into low-risk property development — shopping malls, office parks, gated suburbs. These are classic "accountant-friendly" investments: predictable returns, asset-backed security, minimal technological uncertainty. But they do not build productive capacity. They do not create export competitiveness. They do not re-industrialise a nation.

This is what happens when leadership is obsessed with protecting value rather than creating it.

Engineers are trained to deal with uncertainty, complexity and failure. They understand that progress requires iteration, experimentation and, yes, the possibility of things breaking. Re-industrialisation is not a spreadsheet exercise; it is a messy, capital-intensive, technically demanding process. You cannot rebuild manufacturing, energy systems, transport networks or value chains with compliance checklists and audit reports alone.

Leadership, at its core, is about scanning the environment, sense-making, and taking daring, informed risks. It is about reaching for the ripe fruit still hanging on the tree — not merely collecting what has already fallen to the ground. Too often, Zimbabwe's leadership class behaves like careful fruit gatherers, congratulating themselves for harvesting what gravity has already delivered, while the real value remains untouched above them.

This professional bias has also crept into government. The Ministry of Industry and Commerce, which should be the engine room of national production strategy, has been a major letdown. Industrial policy has been reduced to conferences, policy documents and slogans, with little systems-level execution. There is scant evidence of engineers, technologists or industrial practitioners shaping decisions at the highest level. As a result, policy floats above reality, disconnected from factories, supply chains and production floors.

Countries that have successfully industrialised — South Korea, China, Germany — did not do so under lawyer-led or accountant-led economic cultures. They were driven by engineers, technocrats and production-minded leaders who understood that growth comes from building things, not merely regulating or accounting for them.

This does not mean engineers should rule alone. Balanced leadership still matters. But Zimbabwe urgently needs to rebalance its leadership ecosystem. Engineers, scientists, technologists and applied innovators must move from the margins to the centre of power — in Cabinet, in parastatals, in boards, and in strategic ministries.

Until that happens, Zimbabwe will continue to manage scarcity instead of engineering abundance.

The country does not suffer from a lack of laws, audits or financial controls. It suffers from a lack of builders.

And nations are not rebuilt by those who fear risk — but by those who know how to design, test, and make things work.