Meet Zandile Moyo a 26-year-old from Bulawayo who has taken the town by storm, decorating and planning events and wedding for the rich and famous of Zimbabwe’s second capital city. She is one of the directors and the founding members of Doug and Flora Events, Doug and Flora Events is a bespoke and luxury events service provider. They offer catering, events decor, interior design and deco as well as equipment hire.
“I run this event planning business with my older sister and best friend Mthandazo Nomagugu Moyo.” Zandile joined JA Zimbabwe in 2009 when the Company Program was launched at her former school Mpopoma High. “I witnessed my seniors partaking in various activities, mainly retail and l was immediately captivated and l joined the following year,” she said.
The program presented her with the first real taste of running a business. “I learnt the different functions of a business, how to work in a team and be accountable for the tasks assigned to me and meet goals/ deadlines everyday as well as how to market the products we made”. For, Zandile the skills learnt from JA, the passion to fulfil childhood dream and breaking the barriers that often bring down the girl child, has driven her to greater heights.
After being forced by parents to take an Accounting Science Degree at a South African university, she took the opportunity to plan events for friends at the university. “I remember telling my parents in 2010 soon after finishing writing A’ Level exams that I wanted to skip University and become a wedding planner, my dad didn’t approve of it and so I went off to University to pursue something more practical and safe so I chose Accounting Science.”
“I started planning events while I was a student at the University of Witwatersrand. I used to cater and plan my friends’ events such as birthdays and get together. It gave me so much joy to host my friends’ events but little did I know that I was slowly building up experience for my current line of work.” Zandile decided to make her dream come true after she spent months’ job hunting to no avail.
“After graduating with a Bachelor’s degree majoring in Finance and Auditing I returned back to Zimbabwe and I was job searching for a few months to no avail, I got tired of waiting for response,” she explained.
“Ok Mart Bulawayo had advertised for a wedding expo in 2016 and was calling decorators to come exhibit. We exhibited and won first runner up for best designed stand and décor. From then there was no looking back.”
But Zandile’s job was not easy as it is very hard to satisfy people.“It is not an easy thing to satisfy people’s needs, but when you know what they like, then it makes your job simple. The skills l learnt at JA filter through the daily running of my business. How to mobilize a team and motivate them to work together, costing and how to strategize,” said Zandile.
“One of the greatest challenges comes especially with weddings which are not easy to host. While the bride and groom are busy anticipating the big day, as the events coordinator you have to plan and your job is to look at the areas that they don’t look at when it comes to the event.”
“My hope and dream is to grow the company into a formidable giant in the Events Industry in Zimbabwe and Southern Africa. Currently Zandile is working in furthering her studies, she is doing a professional course in Accountancy called CTA and working on building up a portfolio in the interior design, construction and renovations space.”
“Entrepreneurship is really diverse and the environment changes every day and the skills the Company Program equipped me with gave me confidence to get started as well as the tenacity to forge ahead and remain in business till today.,” said Zandile.