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Entrepreneurial activities go beyond handcraft as it cuts across ideas birthed from the desire to meet a need, and solve a problem in the society. This was what prompted the setup of SECURICO Zimbabwe which was founded by Divine Ndhlukula. Here is her very inspiring startup story. Founder and Managing Director of Zimbabwe’s first ISO certified Security Company SECURICO; Divine Ndhlukula has risen above all odds of life to make her company a success. Divine Ndhlukula founded SECURICO Security Services from humble beginnings in Zimbabwe in 1998. She identified a need in the market for a quality-oriented security company and she has driven SECURICO to become the market leader in Zimbabwe. She has tackled a previously male-dominated industry head-on and her business success story is nothing short of remarkable – marking her as one of Africa’s most tenacious and inspiring women entrepreneurs. SECURICO today provides its clients with a complete security solution – uniformed armed officers, armoured vehicles for transportation of valuables, onsite banking, trained guard dogs, and electronic security systems. The company also does private investigations, employee vetting, and security consulting. From a young age, Divine had always told herself and everyone around her that she would be an entrepreneur and run her own large business in the future. This was driven by her recognition of the need to create a decent and secure livelihood for her family. Her quest to start and run her own business stayed with her throughout her formative years when she was studying and working to build her career.  She set out to learn all the critical elements needed to run a successful business, undertaking various development programmes along the way, enrolling on an Entrepreneurial Development Programme in 1995. At the same time, she started researching and tracking various entrepreneurial opportunities in the local marketplace, eventually in 1998 seeing a potential business opportunity in the security services sector. Divine had identified what she saw as glaring service delivery and professionalism gaps in the private security sector, inspiring her to create and build a new type of Security Company with a difference. She was also motivated by a desire to empower previously disadvantaged women in Zimbabwe who were not able to access opportunities for formal employment, recognizing that the security sector had the potential to be a large-scale employer. The company is presently a leader in the provision of bespoke guarding services and cutting-edge electronic security solutions. While setting up her business in the male-dominated industry was no cakewalk for Divine, she has taken her company within 15 years to the highs she dreamt of. The $13 million (revenues) company presently has more than 3,400 employees – 900 out of which are women. Having won several accolades for the entrepreneurship, her company was awarded the prestigious Legatum Africa Awards for Entrepreneurship last year. With numerous educational degrees and profound work experience from her past jobs, Divine has established an empire of security services that now gives a tough competition to Security giants like Midsec and Fawcett. “Our vision as SECURICO is that we become a leading security organization in the Southern African Development Community region and continue to grow at the targeted rates and make our company a truly international business” says Divine. Divine has an Executive Masters in Business Admin from Midlands State University and an MBA from Women’s University in Africa which was conferred in recognition of her business leadership and gender equality initiatives. She also holds Accounting and Marketing Management diplomas. She has done several executive development programs among others: Success Motivation International – Dynamics of Successful Management; Empretec Entrepreneurial Development Program; Strategic Business Management by AF International in Sweden, Millennium Training Program for Directors by International Finance Corp (IFC) Divine worked for ZBC from 1980 to 1982 as an Accounting Officer, Old Mutual as an Accounting Officer from 1982 to 1985 and then for Intermarket Life Assurance Company as Marketing Executive from 1995 to 1999 where she left to fulfil her vision to start SECURICO in 1999. Her leadership excellence has been recognized by the corporate fraternity as evidenced by the numerous business accolades she has won, among others Empretec Entrepreneur of the Year 2001 and Empretec Entrepreneur of Decade (Services Sector) 2002; Manager of the year 2005 for Zim Institute of Management; Celebrate a Sister Business award 2006; Institute of Directors Zimbabwe Director of the Year (SMEs) 2008; Institute of Directors Overall Director of the Year(Run Up) 2009; Zimbabwe Women Filmmakers/UNIFEM Business Award 2010. Her company has won several awards such as- National Quality Awards Company of the Year 2011, Zimbabwe’s 7th Best Employers 2010 and won the Africa Awards for Entrepreneurship 2011 Grand Prize run by Legatum and Omidyar. Divine has a GREAT passion for women’s economic and social empowerment and involves herself in a number of women organizations. She is a role model who has been encouraging women and young people to become entrepreneurs. Through her conscious and deliberate efforts, women are now accepted in the security sector with her company employing more than 900 women, arguably the largest employer of women in Zimbabwe outside civil service. AMAZONS WATCH

Divine Ndhlukula, a Zimbabwean national, is the founder and Managing Director of SECURICO, one of Zimbabwe’s largest security companies. The Harare-based outfit is a market leader in the provision of bespoke guarding services and cutting-edge electronic security solutions. Ndhlukula has done remarkably well. In less than 15 years of doing business, SECURICO has achieved a number of significant feats: The $13 million (revenues) company now has more than 3,400 employees – 900 of whom are women. The company was also the first security outfit in Zimbabwe to achieve an ISO (International Organization for Standardisation) certification. Last December the company was the winner of the prestigious Legatum Africa Awards for Entrepreneurship. Divine Ndhlukula is immensely proud of what she’s been able to accomplish so far. The Midlands State University MBA grad recently recounted her start-up journey, shared a few lessons she’s learned in doing business in Zimbabwe and relived her experience in winning the Africa Awards for Entrepreneurship. VENTURES

From insurance broker to farmer to head of one of the country’s largest security firms, this female entrepreneur learned a great deal while mastering the male-dominated security business. What’s the Latest Development? Moving through the insurance industry, then working to save her family’s farm, Divine Ndhlukula overcame many obstacles on her way to starting one the country’s most successful security firms. And never mind that it was a male-dominated industry full of bribery and corruption. She found that the lined pockets of other security firms had made them complacent and that customers wanted a new business responsive to their needs. She understood early on that service and value added was going to carry the day. What’s the Big Idea? In December, Ndhlukula won the Legatum Africa Award for entrepreneurship. “The secret of success is found in one’s daily schedule,” she says, eschewing the management-speak too commonly heard from business consultants. She has a special message for women: “My advice to women all the time is: If you want a certain future, go out and create it. Conquer your fears as that is what enslaves most women. Opportunities are now galore.  We just need to roll up our sleeves, lift our feet, and walk through the door as no one will carry us.” BIGTHINK

Divine Ndhlukula, a Zimbabwean national, is the founder and Managing Director of SECURICO, one of Zimbabwe’s largest security companies. The Harare-based outfit is a market leader in the provision of bespoke guarding services and cutting-edge electronic security solutions Ndhlukula has done remarkably well. In less than 15 years of doing business, SECURICO has achieved a number of significant feats: The $13 million (revenues) company now has more than 3,400 employees – 900 of whom are women. The company was also the first security outfit in Zimbabwe to achieve an ISO (International Organization for Standardisation) certification. Last December the company was the winner of the prestigious Legatum Africa Awards for Entrepreneurship. Divine Ndhlukula is immensely proud of what she’s been able to accomplish so far. The Midlands State University MBA grad granted me an interview recently during which she recounted her start-up journey, shared a few lessons she’s learned in doing business in Zimbabwe and relived her experience in winning the Africa Awards for Entrepreneurship. Take me back to your earliest beginnings as an entrepreneur, right to the time you founded SECURICO. Of all the opportunities in the world, what prompted you to venture into the very male-dominated realm of security services? I have an Executive MBA from Midlands State University and an MBA (Honorary) from Women’s University in Africa conferred me in recognition of my business leadership and efforts on gender equality. After attaining an accounting diploma from an institution in Zimbabwe, I worked briefly for the government and Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation as an accounting officer. I went on to take up an appointment at Old Mutual and later took up a job at a local insurance company in 1985. While I was working at these places, I was always running around doing some small business on the side – I was ordering clothes from Harare factories and selling them to colleagues at work. Sometimes, I gave my friends in other companies some clothes to sell for me and I gave them commissions on clothes sold. Within a short while, I had made enough money to buy an 8-tonne truck, which I hired out to a construction company. As time went on, a situation cropped up where I had to rescue my late father’s farm from being auctioned. My brother (who had inherited the farm according to our customs) had taken a loan with a local bank which he had been unable to service, so the bank opted to auction the farm which my brother had tendered as collateral. As a result, I had to sell the truck in order to raise funds to rescue the family farm from being auctioned. The title of the farm was changed into my name and I ventured into the farming business in 1992 and quit my job. I then took a loan against my house in Harare, to prop up the farming business and poured the loan in a maize crop that flopped due to a drought that season. As I was almost losing my house in 1995, I then went back to my former employers,  Intermarket Insurance (now ZB Insurance), and asked for my job back. Since I had been one of their top performers, the company was happy to take me back. In no time I moved to the executive team. Let me say that right from a tender age, I had always told myself and everyone that I was going to start and run my own business which I always envisaged as a large business. Hence the time I had stopped working, I had taken time to learn about all the critical elements of business as I had learnt my lesson the hard way. Among the various development programmes I enrolled for was an Entrepreneurial Development Programme which I did in 1995 and this indeed sharpened my entrepreneurial competences in a big way. I learned elements like opportunity seeking, to goal setting, business planning, networking etc. My quest to start and run my own company never dissipated and therefore, even as I was back at work, I started scanning at the various opportunities that I could see and think of. Eventually in 1998 I saw an opportunity in the security services sector. The opportunity was prompted by what I had noted in this sector- a total lack of professionalism, quality and services that customers really yearned for. There were two distinct groups of security organizations: the first group was comprised of the long established and larger companies – there were about five of them at the time. They literally had the market to themselves and did not see the need then of meeting the customer’s expectations as they could simply rotate the business among themselves in a cartel like arrangement. The second group was the small emerging or submerging companies which did not have the resource capacity to service big corporations and the multinationals. In short, the decision to start this company was made on the understanding that only service and value addition was going to carry the day. With next to nothing in capital and no security background, just armed with passion and determination to succeed in a hitherto male area, SECURICO was founded in Dec 1998 in the cottage of my small home in Harare with 4 employees. The business idea was after the realization of a gap that I had noted in the market for a service and quality oriented security services provider. I set up operations in December 1998 and the company was formally incorporated in 2000. We started with three security operatives and two administrators-I included. I used to do literally most functions like office administrative work, accounting, deploying operatives with my one vehicle, supervision, training and other related activities. We converted my servants’ quarters to an office and we had only one desk for furniture that we shared. Give me a brief rundown of Securico’s security services. I know your company primarily provides uniformed guard services, but you’re engaged in other services I suppose. When we started we were primarily offering guarding services but we started cash