MELO PERSONALITY OF THE WEEK…MEET LANGFORD BANDA

His name is Langford Banda. A 29 year old Power Plant Engineer and professional entrepreneur, who at such a young age is already a gaffer of 2, being the Chief executive Officer of Dimensions Agro-Mark, an Agro-processing company and Fortress Properties Limited, a Real Estate Company which are both headquartered in Kitwe on the Copperbelt.
Born on 16th December in 1992 in Lilanda West, one of the suburbs of Lusaka, Langford was such a smart kid. This was overwhelmingly obvious that his parents could not help but be compelled to enroll him for grade one at Namando Primary School in 1997 when he was only five years old. Despite being young in age and tinier in stature that most of his mates in grade, Langford had to endure a distance of 5km every school day from his then place of residence to where his school was, a routine he braved over a stretch of 7 years. One would think this hurdle would make him stumble and fail or perform badly in his academics, but to the contrary, it made him even more agog for an education and made him concentrate more. The implication of his strife can be seen in his early stages of education as he successfully made it to grade 8 with good results. He did his junior secondary at Hillside Basic School until he progressed to senior secondary when he went to Chunga High School where he got to serve as president of the ‘Mathematics Club’ when he was only in grade 11.
Growing up, Lanford had this keenness to learn about world history. When he was between grade 10 and 12 he got exposed to class history lessons, which somehow caused his interest to gravitate more towards European history. This interest grew so candid that he would passively wish to travel to places he read about, especially those tied to 2nd World war significance. However, wishing is all he could do, as at this point he had no means to make the wishes come true, so he would read more, about the Russian resistance against the Nazi Germany (Army). He collected Russian books and other forms of literature that were about Russia and its interesting history like The Patriotic War of 1812 of the 2nd battle between Russia and France. His desire to travel to Europe, specifically Russia became too conspicuous that the possibility of it would be a Dream come true even though he had no links or means to make it happen at the time.
Chunga High School had just recently been upgraded from a basic school to a Secondary School. So it lacked certain facilities like Science lab for practicals and others essential to vivid understanding of theory lessons. But despite this challenge, Langford sat for grade 12 exams in 2008 and still managed to overcome and passed with very good results. Infact he performed so well that he spent the whole 2009 and early 2010 tutoring Math and Sciences to 8th to 10th graders at Leomwe Training School in Matero as a relief teacher as he awaited what would be his next step in his academic journey. At this point he waiting for feedback from any of the institutions he had applied to for tertiary education which included The University of Zambia (UNZA), The Copperbelt University (CBU), a University Scholarship in China, a University Scholarship in Algeria and one in Russia.
The wait only lasted as far as the first quarter of 2010, when he started getting response, the first being from CBU where he was accepted. To allow himself some room for options, he opted to wait for the rest and eventually the Russian government Scholarship came in second. Having a grounded fondness and such a strong inclination towards anything Russia, he did not necessarily wait for the rest. He made up his mind and he started preparing, on 3rd October he finally traveled to St. Ptersburg State Polytechnic University, now Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic University in St. Petersburg City in Russia to study Power Plant Engineering.
During his period of study, Langford served in different leadership capacities as a Zambian student in Russia; He was Hostel Representative for the Zambian students, He was Co-coordinator of the Zambian Students’ Union in St. Petersburg (ZASUS). Later in 2012, Mr Banda became the first vice President to be elected while still just in his second year of study. He served in the VP capacity for two years and this translated into extensive leadership exposure and experience which became notable in his conduct and general ways of dealing with issues long passed his vp tenure. This gave confidence to the people that watched him to a point where he got employed as a paid intern by a renowned Russian power plant company called ROSATOM OVERSEAS as an ‘International Exhibitor.’
He was eventually done with his studies and he returned home. Between 2015 and 2016 he worked for the Electoral Commission of Zambia (ECZ) as an Assistant Registration Officer (ARO) from which he raied some money and bought 10 hectors of land in Kitwe’s New Kitwe residential area. At the same time, he worked as an intern Electrical Engineer in the Electrical Section of the Engineering Department for 6 months for the traffic lights installation using solar power within the city under the smart city project.
He and co initially started out with crop production until late 2019 when they decided to hope on the challenge of attempting to add value to their produce. They started with cassava, to which they add value by Milling into a meal that they package into 25kg bags which is manufacturing right in Kitwe. As a unit, he and his two colleagues have collectively created employment opportunities for 10 young men and women bridging the service gap from raw material to the product final market.
In 2017, Langford enrolled to study Bachelors of Business Administration at Supershine University in Lusaka. Among the courses from which he appreciated immense enlightment during his study of the program was Business Management as it exposed him to a lot of new information regarding the running of his business. This is even more so because at this point he had gone into full time entrepreneurship where he provides employment opportunities to local people. In 2021, he finally graduated and became a professional entrepreneur. Beyond that he has attended several international business trainings and acquired 4 entrepreneurship certificates and one 1mentorship certificate.
When Covid-19 was on a somewhat of a rampage, the company was partially affected but there was adequate counter activity that was timely and consistent and it kept the business afloat.
After having experienced that tremor of a situation that kind of shook the only substantial business so far, Mr Banda and co decided it’s time to venture into some sort of fall back business venture that would be run as an independent business. So they went ahead and registered a Real estate Company called Fortress Properties Ltd which owns bare land around Kitwe which it sales as plots.
His leadership prowess keep on being recognized despite not being formally employed as he was recently installed to serve ZAMRUS in the capacity of Secretary General.

ADVERTISEMENT

Melo Media | Zambia’s No.1 Social Media Platform | Copyright © 2022 All Rights Reserved