President Dr. Lazarus Chakwera has appointed Colleen Zamba as new Chief Secretary to the President and Cabinet replacing Zanga-zanga Chikhosi.

Chakwera announced the changes yesterday night during a media briefing at Kamuzu Palace in the capital Lilongwe.

According to Chakwera, Chikhosi has been re-deployed somewhere else.

But who is Ms. Colleen Zamba?

Ms. Colleen Zamba is currently the Head of Presidential Delivery Unit and Chief Advisor to the President on SDGs & Int. Affairs at State House in Malawi since April this year.

For the past twelve years she has been Economic Advisor in UNDP with six years in Nigeria Country Office, four years Zambia Country Office and past one year covering Swaziland and Lesotho Country offices.

Prior to UNDP, Colleen a macro Economist, career technocrat has nineteen years managerial and professional experience in development policy rising to Permanent Secretary Cadre in Malawi Government where she served as Principal Secretary in Ministries of Finance responsible for Economic affairs, Debt and Aid where she led the exceptional negotiation of HIPIC decision Point for Malawi: Trade and Industry; Comptroller Statutory Corporations and Special Assistant in Governor’s Office, Reserve Bank of Malawi. She was Secretary for the Cabinet Committee on the Economy for six years when Democratic Malawi was born and She worked with the VVIPs including the President.

At that time, she was also in charge of Monitoring of the Malawi Economic Programme. Colleen has acquired a wide range of experience in doing business at national and International levels, economic, trade, and debt and Aid, dealing with development partners, Government decision and Policy Makers and politicians (Cabinet).

Colleen holds formal qualifications in macroeconomics, (MPhil Economic Planning), development policy (Post Graduate Diploma in Development Policy) obtained at University of Glasgow where she was awarded best student of the year 1989 and a Bachelor’s degree in Social Science (Economics) obtained at the University of Malawi.

The nature of work and responsibilities in all these employments involved application of superior networking skills, with interpersonal skills through working with Ministers of Finance,Trade.