Business & Enterprise
Distinguished
Nigel Chanakira
born 1966
Founded Kingdom Bank in his twenties, among the first black-owned banks in Zimbabwe
Distinguished is level 3 of 4 in the Zimbabwe Hall of Fame: sustained excellence over a career, widely honoured at home. See how the levels work.
Why they are here
A grocer's son who opened Kingdom Financial Holdings in 1994 while still in his twenties, making him one of the first black Zimbabweans to own and run a bank — and, for a decade, the face of indigenous finance in the country.
Nigel Chanakira was the son of a grocer and the first black pupil admitted to Churchill High School in Harare. He read economics at the University of Zimbabwe, worked at the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe as an economist, and then at Bard Discount House, where he learned the money markets from the inside.
He left at twenty-seven with a small amount of capital and two colleagues, and founded Kingdom Securities in 1994. The barrier was not only money: Zimbabwean banking a decade after independence was still almost entirely white-owned and foreign-owned, the licensing regime was conservative, and no black Zimbabwean of his age had been given room to try. He built outward from stockbroking into discount house business, then asset management, then a commercial bank, and Kingdom Financial Holdings listed on the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange in 1998.
At its height Kingdom had a banking network across Zimbabwe, operations in Botswana and Malawi, and a place among the country's significant financial institutions, and Chanakira was the most prominent indigenous banker of his generation — the proof of concept a whole cohort of Zimbabwean entrepreneurs pointed at.
Kingdom merged with Meikles in 2007 in a bid for a New York listing; the union broke up acrimoniously and demerged in 2010. He sold his remaining thirty per cent of AfrAsia Kingdom Zimbabwe in 2013 and left banking, and has since worked in ministry and in mentoring entrepreneurs, speaking openly about the collapse as a lesson rather than hiding from it.
He left at twenty-seven with a small amount of capital and two colleagues, and founded Kingdom Securities in 1994. The barrier was not only money: Zimbabwean banking a decade after independence was still almost entirely white-owned and foreign-owned, the licensing regime was conservative, and no black Zimbabwean of his age had been given room to try. He built outward from stockbroking into discount house business, then asset management, then a commercial bank, and Kingdom Financial Holdings listed on the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange in 1998.
At its height Kingdom had a banking network across Zimbabwe, operations in Botswana and Malawi, and a place among the country's significant financial institutions, and Chanakira was the most prominent indigenous banker of his generation — the proof of concept a whole cohort of Zimbabwean entrepreneurs pointed at.
Kingdom merged with Meikles in 2007 in a bid for a New York listing; the union broke up acrimoniously and demerged in 2010. He sold his remaining thirty per cent of AfrAsia Kingdom Zimbabwe in 2013 and left banking, and has since worked in ministry and in mentoring entrepreneurs, speaking openly about the collapse as a lesson rather than hiding from it.
- Forbes Africa — My Kingdom For A Second Chance
- StartupBiz Zimbabwe — The fall of Kingdom-Afro Asia Bank: lessons learnt
Spotted something wrong? Tell us and we will check it.