In 1973, Bothwell Mazarura was born in rural Zimbabwe in a place called Murewa in the Mashonaland East Province. He grew up surrounded by acres and acres of endless land, enveloped by long pale green grass, umbrella-shaped trees and the freshest air imaginable. His father was an agricultural officer who would wake up each morning, jump onto his motorcycle and ride around the province visiting farmers.
There was something about his father, about farming and about making a living off the land that inspired Bothwell to pursue the career he has today. The notion of Africans thriving off the blessing of land, what is above it and what is beneath it, is the unerring nexus for farming and mining.
Bothwell’s journey from ‘plough and cow’ to ‘chuck it and truck it’ entailed moving to the capital city Harare where his education journey took him to St. George’s College, a private Jesuit boys’ high school. It was there that he heard about the accounting profession and decided to apply to join Deloitte’s trainee programme. He joined the firm in 1993 and was deployed to a number of mining audit engagements, including that of Anglo-American’s nickel operations in Zimbabwe.
He pursued a distance learning Bachelor of Accounting Science degree from the University of South Africa whilst working at Deloitte in Harare. After graduating in 1996, he sat for board exams administered by the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Zimbabwe (ICAZ). It was at this stage in his budding career that he first experienced a major disappointment. Bothwell was driven to tears when he opened his first board results letter and discovered he had failed the auditing section of the exam.
Bothwell qualified as a chartered accountant in 1999 and was appointed a manager at Deloitte. He was seconded to the Nottingham office in the United Kingdom in 2000, which initially proved to be quite a challenging experience. ‘I experienced culture shock. Going from rural Zimbabwe to living in Europe offered such a stark contrast,’ Bothwell says. ‘The transition from a small country to a big pond was daunting but I later realised the training I had gone through up until that point had stood me in good stead to compete on a global scale.’
After two years in Britain, Bothwell returned to Harare and was appointed a partner in Deloitte Zimbabwe in June 2002. He assumed executive responsibility for the human resources function of the firm. In a professional services practice, your people are your assets, and this role gave him a great vantage point from which to influence the strategic direction of the firm. After five years he moved to the Johannesburg office in 2007 but this change was not particularly smooth.
‘In Harare, I was in a small office where I had a lot of strategic influence in how the firm was run. In Johannesburg, I was one of hundreds of partners and the organisation had an Executive Committee (Exco) who manage the firm. I struggled with the notion that I had very little say in the strategic direction of the firm.’
This was part of the reason why Bothwell thought he should leave and look for a space where he could make a difference. In August 2010, he joined the finance division of Lonmin Plc which at the time was listed on the London Stock Exchange and had platinum interests in the North-West Province.
The massacre of mineworkers at Lonmin’s Marikana mine is an unforgettable blot on Bothwell’s six year stay at the company. On 16 August 2012, thirty-four miners were killed by members of the South African Police Service in a protracted strike in which miners demanded a minimum wage of R12 500 per month.
Following the fallout of the Marikana incident and the subsequent commodity down cycle, Bothwell participated in the efforts to save the company which included two rights issues and two refinancing transactions.
The Marikana incident reinforced Bothwell’s original purpose for being involved in mining in the first place while the experience gained in the efforts to save the company would shape his future personal and professional outlook further on in his career.
In July 2016, he was head-hunted for the role of Financial Director of Wescoal. He was attracted by the prospect of being part of the growth story of a company that was majority black-owned and listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange.
In September 2017, Bothwell took up the CFO position at Kumba Iron Ore, which is part of the Anglo-American Plc Group. His appointment was part of a shake up in the leadership of the company, which included Themba Mkhwanazi’s appointment to the role of CEO a year before.
This article is an extract from the Masters of Money book by KC Rottok Chesaina (JONATHAN BALL PUBLISHERS)
