Gadzikwa receives Sadc top post
ONE of Zimbabwe’s female business leaders, Dr Eve Christine Gadzikwa, who is also the Standards Association of Zimbabwe (SAZ) director general, has landed a top post at the Sadc Accreditation Service in Gaborone, Botswana.
She is stepping down from her position at SAZ at the end of this month to assume her new role next month.
Sadc Accreditation Service (Sadcas) is a multi-economy accreditation body established in terms of Article 15 B of the Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT) Annex to the Sadc Protocol in Trade with the primary purpose of ensuring that conformity assessment service providers (calibration/testing/medical laboratories, certification and inspection bodies) operating in regional member States which do not have national accreditation bodies are subject to an oversight by an authoritative body.
Dr Gadzikwa holds a Masters in Business Administration from Nottingham Trent University, a diploma in Medical Laboratory Technology with the University of Zimbabwe as well as the Institute of Marketing Management (IMM) Diploma in Marketing.
In an interview, Dr Gadzikwa said having been at the helm of SAZ since 2008, she was leaving the national standards body happy.
“I am actually taking a regional position in Sadc. Actually, l will be the chief executive officer of Sadcas (Sadc Accreditation Service) based in Gaborone, Botswana starting in July. It’s a higher position now and l will still be working with the national standards bodies in the region.
“I am leaving SAZ in a very solid state that l am very confident about. Its strong from the point of view of governance, l have a very strong board.
“That board is there…and one of my ex-bosses used to say, “all companies can fall down, but SAZ must be the last man standing”, why was he saying that, it’s because he recognised the importance of this institution in terms of setting standards. So, SAZ should never fall,” she said.
Before being appointed SAZ director general, she worked for Parirenyatwa Group of Hospitals as a medical laboratory scientist, first as a student and then as a qualified scientist.
“I enjoyed it very much. But then, l got to a stage in my career where l said l think l need a change now.
“I then applied for a job actually as executive director of ZINQAP (Zimbabwe National Quality Assurance Programme), this was for medical testing laboratories at Parirenyatwa, that’s where this organisation was based.
“I worked there for about six years and that’s where l developed an interest in quality and standards,” Dr Gadzikwa.
“I thought l was now branching out of the medical field and l am enjoying this peoplebased profession so from there, l went into management and did some stint in the private sector clinical labs what is now called Lancet Laboratories.
“At Lancet Labs, l was there again for six years, actually it was Lancet first and then ZINQAP and then l came to SAZ in September 2008.”
Apart from taking the national role, Dr Gadzikwa was also appointed to be the president of the African Organisation for Standards (ARSO) from 2016 to 2019.
“I became president of Africa covering all the 55 countries, so that was a task and in addition to my national role.
“I also had to cover the African continent in terms of standardisation to represent the continent. ARSO was formed by the African Union (formerly Organisation of African Union) in 1977.
“I think l was the first African woman to ever hold that post and then my successor is from Cameroon, he is still the president,” she said.-eBusiness Weekly
