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SMy story: From Zimbabwe to a Stanford MBA
Lauren Everitt
January 21, 2013

http://poetsandquants.com/2013/01/26/my-story-from-zimbabwe-to-a-stanford-mba/

It-s tough being a chartered accountant when your country is battling an inflation rate in the billions. At the height of Zimbabwe-s economic crisis, 100 trillion dollar bills could scarcely buy a loaf of bread - hawkers sold them as tourist novelties to turn a profit. But for Faraimose Kutadzaushe, 29, a native of Harare, the capital city, his country-s economic meltdown and near collapse was a learning opportunity and a testament to Zimbabweans- resilience.

After joining a work/study accounting program with Deloitte straight out of high school, Kutadzaushe qualified as a chartered accountant in 2007. The economic crisis came to a head in 2008 - inflation soared, imports dried up and shortages abounded. Undaunted, Kutadzaushe was inspired by the spirit of microenterprise he observed all around him-small businesses popped up as multinationals pulled out. He knew he wanted to be a part of rebuilding his country-s economy.

The wider economic issues took a deeply personal turn when Kutadzaushe-s father was diagnosed with chronic renal failure in 2008. The family couldn-t pay for treatments using Zimbabwean currency. Kutadzaushe took a consulting job with Deloitte in South Africa to earn the funds. The experience proved a formative one that would shape his future plans.

Kutadzaushe returned to Zimbabwe in 2009 armed with connections, new business knowledge and a conviction that he could help bring basic necessities back to his country. He teamed up with a few friends to launch Soft Touch, a toilet paper manufacturing company, in 2009. The same year he and his family started a business importing spare auto parts. Kutadzaushe had found his niche in entrepreneurship, but he needed critical skills to really make an impact - that-s where Stanford University-s Graduate School of Business came in.

After graduation the second-year Stanford MBA will join an investment bank on Wall Street. But long-term he aims to return to Africa and help develop the continent. He-s already made plans to co-lead a 36-person trip to South Africa in 2014. Dubbed Africa-s Emerging Giants, the tour will meet with leaders of multinational corporations to understand the motivations and challenges of business expansion on the continent.

His story:

One of my friends completed his MBA in the United Kingdom. We worked together at an informational financial institution in Zimbabwe, and I realized we were operating at two different levels. He had this network of people he could contact for mentorship and fundraising. We pretty much had the same background except for the MBA, and it made such a huge difference in the way we operated as small entrepreneurs. He constantly challenged me to start thinking about an MBA.

I also volunteered as a mentor for students at the African Leadership Academy, which was founded by a Stanford business school alum. We got to know one another, and he invited me over to discuss his business school experience and my future plans. It was just supposed to be a coffee chat but it lasted for hours and hours. I left his place convinced that Stanford was where I wanted to do my MBA.

I applied to Harvard Business School too, but that was it. I was interested in applying to an entrepreneurial-focused school, and that-s the sense I got from Stanford. Plus, it-s in the heart of Silicon Valley, and I felt that ecosystem would have a contagious effect on the school.

In my admissions essay I wrote about my country and my continent. I-m an Afro-optimist, by that I mean I-m really optimistic about the prospects for Africa-s future. We-ve faced some challenges as a continent, but we always seemed to find a way to continue living and moving forward.

The main theme of my essay was really about how I was motivated by the people in Zimbabwe, who kept trying to form successful businesses. Even if they failed over and over again, they would try until they hit something. Witnessing their successes and failures helped numb me to the fear of failure - that psychological barrier to entrepreneurship.

Stanford is best described as just mind-blowing. I-m not just talking about the school-s landscaping. It-s mind-blowing to be in this environment where you have such a diverse group of people doing incredible things in so many different fields. My classmates are extremely intelligent but also very humble. It-s like talking to people to have the right words to say at the right time.

They-ve all done impressive things. You walk down the corridor and you talk to guys who have founded companies or started schools in Africa. It can actually be quite intimidating because there might be an expert on a particular topic in class, but often you-d never know it. I-m inspired by the impact they-ve made.

Apart from that, Stanford has a grade-nondisclosure policy. That just adds to the collaboration. It really makes the environment very risk free to help someone else - even for those who have ambitions of getting great grades. As a result, I really get to benefit from my extremely smart classmates who know about a specific subject matter.

I also found it mind-blowing how the professors actually take an active interest in what you-re doing. For example, one of my professors spent an entire quarter with me investigating the possibility of setting up a paper mill in Zimbabwe.

Condoleezza Rice is one of our professors. I was starstruck when she taught my first quarter course about the role of business in politics. We also have great speakers. Just recently the CEO of Microsoft and the chairman of Ferrari came to talk to us.

Stanford is also transformational. There-s a class called Interpersonal Dynamics. It-s an iconic class I-d heard about before I came to Stanford. It was hyped up, but I didn-t realize the true value of it until I started taking it this quarter.

It-s really fascinating. You learn how your interactions with other people affect them. I-m discovering things about myself that are not directly apparent to me, but are apparent to other people. It has brought me along this incredible journey of self realization and made me more conscious about how my actions might affect others.

For me the best advice came from my parents, particularly my father. He believed in hard work and education. Rather than verbal advice, I think he really communicated to me through his actions. He was an agriculturist working for the Zimbabwe government. He oversaw the national livestock herd so he would drive long distances to visit the farms. He would get up at 3 a.m. to get on the road and come home at 11 p.m. and get back on the road the next morning. He worked hard, but he-d never whine about being overworked, even the in face of Zimbabwe-s economic hardships, which naturally affected the agriculture sector.

My father also steered me toward academics. I swam and played basketball for Zimbabwe-s national junior teams, so I was very keen to continue. But my dad made it clear that the priority should be academics. Based on his advice, I was able to access avenues of further development, such as coming to Stanford. I would not have been able to get this experience had it not been for my father, because I was never really an academic.

In Africa, a lot of parents realize after their first child that their childhood dreams could potentially be very difficult to achieve. So the next thing they think about is their children-s future. So I saw my mother and father living their lives in a manner that always tried to secure my future out their love.

The greatest challenge I-ve ever faced is what necessitated my move from Zimbabwe to South Africa. In 2008 my father was diagnosed with chronic renal failure. He needed to access dialysis for treatment. The local currency was in hyperinflation, so I needed to earn money for his medical expenses in a foreign currency.

The intervening period between when my dad was diagnosed and when I eventually left Deloitte in Zimbabwe to join the consulting arm in South Africa was pretty challenging. At that point you don-t really know how things are going to work out. It-s difficult to know how to raise enough money to pay for the medication.

My dad passed away in 2009. But looking back, his illness actually brought my family closer together as a unit. Humans tend to find ways to make things work. You always adapt to the situation that you-re in, and you have to find a way to optimize what you have. That experience led to the toilet paper company. My mom now runs it as the CEO.

Ultimately, I cannot name a single event that changed my life. A series of small events each provided stepping stones that created the path that eventually got me here today. But there were significant inflection points within that, one being my dad-s diagnosis with chronic renal failure.

Otherwise, the challenges that we faced as country, economic challenges that is, helped me to reflect on what we had lost economically as a country.

Through that, I witnessed a spirit of mirco-entrepreneurship develop. That sprit made me want to take part in restoring my country-s economy, even in some small, modest way. Those small companies that people start, they all contribute to our economy, so that-s where I want to go with my life.

I-m most grateful for my family - that-s my mother, my father, my wife and my eight-week-old daughter. I met my wife in Zimbabwe 10 years ago. She-s working at PricewaterhouseCoopers as a chartered accountant.

I love being a dad, and I-m really lucky to have a good example to follow. I grew up watching my parents invest time in assisting friends and family to organize weddings and other social gatherings.

This spirit of "I am because we are" is deeply ingrained in my cultural heritage. My parents showed me that I should work toward my personal goals, but I should do things to help others achieve their own.

You should know what you want out of an MBA. There are many great MBA programs, but they each have a specific emphasis. Once you choose the school you want to go to, invest the time in your application process. It-s not just a matter of filling in the forms, ticking the boxes and handing in the application. It-s also not a matter of writing what you feel the admissions committee wants to hear, because I-m pretty sure they-re intelligent enough to read past that.

My application process made me really introspective about what I wanted to get out of the experience. I wrote an application that was really authentic to what I wanted to do. That made the process easier because I was writing about things that really resonated with me.

So for those who want to apply to Stanford, think really hard about what matters most to you and why. That should not only help get you into business school, but also serve as a self-reflection exercise that you can get a lot out of personally.

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