Our BOARD

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 Dr. Peter R B Ward spent a formative part of his life in Zimbabwe.  He was Physics and Maths student at the (then) University College of Rhodesia and Nyasaland at a time when the University was extremely small. After completion of a Ph.D. degree at University of California in Berkeley,  Dr Peter Ward taught at the University of Zimbabwe in Civil Engineering as Senior Lecturer, during the period when the Faculty of Engineering was being established. Dr Ward, now a Canadian citizen, has lived in Vancouver, Canada for several decades, working as a consulting Water Resources Engineer, and as an Adjunct Professor. During the last 2 decades, Peter and his wife, Rabab supported the education of numerous young Zimbabweans, both in school and in higher education. The WEST scholarship program was established by Dr Peter Ward and family in memory of M.M. Fiorini in 2019.

  Rafik Ward grew up in Zimbabwe and has very fond memories of the people and natural beauty of the country.  Rafik has always looked for ways to contribute to the health and well-being of the people of Zimbabwe and Africa, and spent several months post-university on a volunteer assignment in Botswana supporting ground-water pumping in rural villages.  Rafik has served as an executive for Finisar, a large high-tech company in Silicon Valley (since acquired by II-VI/Coherent) and now works as a business consultant to several high-tech startups in Silicon Valley. He as an MBA degree from the MIT Sloan School of Management in the USA and a B.A.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of British Columbia in Canada.   Rafik lives in California, USA with his wife and two children.

Kenzias Chibota (Ken) holds a Bachelors Degree in Accountancy from the University of Zimbabwe and is a Chartered Accountant by profession.  Ken has over 40 years of Business Experience mostly with Philips Electronics from where he rose from a Financial Controller to the Chief Executive Officer of a Zimbabwean Philips Zimbabwean subsidiary. Ken has been a member of many listed companies including a large local bank and currently on a Board of a company in the hospitality industry. He is running a family company called Horizon Healthcare which is a distributor for Philips Medical Systems in Zimbabwe and Malawi. Due to his training and experience Ken is the Administrator as well as the Financial Manager for WEST 

 Cuthbert is a graduate of the then University of Rhodesia with a B.Sc. (Eng) Hons degree in Electrical Engineering. He also holds an M.Sc. degree and D.I.C from the Imperial College (University of London, UK) and a PhD degree from the University of Duisburg (Germany) in Communication Engineering. During the early years of his career, Cuthbert worked for the Department of Civil Aviation and the City of Harare. He later served as the first substantive Director General of the Postal and Telecommunications Regulatory Authority when it was established in 2002. Overseas, he worked as senior projects/contracts engineer for a global telecom supplier, Italtel (based in Milan, Italy).  He has also served at senior levels in large global telecom operators Celtel International, ZAIN Group and Etisalat Group. Currently, Cuthbert is running a telecommunications consultancy firm.

  Michael holds a PhD in Engineering Technology, an MBA, a Postgraduate Diploma in Hydrology and a BSc (Hons) Civil Engineering degree. Michael is a Fellow of the Zimbabwe Institution of Engineers (FZweIE), the Institute of Civil Engineers (FICE) (UK) and the Zimbabwe Academy of Sciences (FZAS). 

Michael is currently a Senior Lecturer and Director of the Department of Engineering Infrastructure and Estates at the University of Zimbabwe. He served 16 years as the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Zambezi River Authority (ZRA) managing the operations at Kariba Dam and the Lake Kariba, the largest man-made lake in the world He spent 11 years in the Zimbabwe civil service and 5 years in the private sector in Botswana.   He has published several books and numerous professional journal articles in the field of water resources and infrastructure development and management.