Leo Manezhu Gaviao 2017 Speaker

Founder & Managing Director

CrowdFund Africa, Southern Africa

Biography

A management accountant by profession I studied with the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants and have worked with small & medium enterprise in different capacities for over 20 years. I have worked in a wide variety of industries at different levels. This has helped me to develop the ability and confidence to communicate with individuals at every level of the organization. Equally comfortable with having drinks with line employees as well as having lunch with the top executive of any company big and small I am an excellent and intuitive communicator capable of creating rapport with everyone that I meet. My open minded and easy-going nature gives me the ability to grasp new concepts quickly, which allows me to quickly run with new business concepts and thus help to quickly expand the horizons of other entrepreneurs. I specialize in creating valuable strategic relationships, business management, consulting, small and medium enterprise strategy as well as business concept development & monetization I am a sober minded individual that has a clearly defined value system that prioritizes honesty and value addition as core values.

Experience
Founder and Managing Director at CrowdFund Africa
April 2014 – Present (1 year 11 months)
CrowdFund Africa is an online crowd-funding platform that identifies suitable investment opportunities for its community of accredited investors, through its Entrepreneur Orientation Program it also provides training for start- up entrepreneurs and SME owners to help them to develop innovative and financially sound business ideas. It seeks to demystify the practice of private equity investment practice and business corporate mergers and acquisitions as well as to foster a culture of transparency, good governance and ethical business behavior in the entrepreneurs it works with. My responsibilities at CrowdFund encompass – Strategic Consulting for SME’s including business plan & sales strategy development for new businesses and SMES. – Developing training modules for the Entrepreneur Orientation Program -Growing the CrowdFund investor community membership base Vice President at Global Business Brokers Zimbabwe September 2013 – Present (2 years 6 months) Global Business Brokers Zimbabwe is a part of an international network of business brokers that simplify and facilitate the process of buying and selling small and medium companies around the world

Founder & Chairman of the Board at Reserve Equities (Pvt) Ltd
August 2008 – Present (7 years 7 months) Reserve Equities is a private equity holding company registered in August of 2008.

It was established Publications

The Entrepreneur Orientation Program

Projects
TransactSME Zimbabwe
December 2013 to Present
Members:Leo M Gaviao, Tendai Rwodzi, Lloyd Manokore, DrTaka Munyanyiwa, Valentine Wakabikwa,
Fungai Tichawangana, Cynthia Hakutangwi
According to Utz Weittzel and Killian Mcarthy in the “Theory and Evidence on Mergers and Acquisitions
by Small and Medium Enterprises” small and medium enterprises are likely to approach mergers and acquisitions more circumspectly than large enterprises. SMEs rely more intensively on external growth via mergers & acquisitions and because they are more flexible, are more able to avoid deals that turn sour. The implication of this suggestion is that generally SME merger & acquisition activity is almost always a net value creating process. If this holds true in every case, what then would be the effect of encouraging transactions of this nature in the SME sector, particularly in Zimbabwe? To explore the phenomenon of such SME transactions in Zimbabwe Global Business Brokers Zimbabwe a member of Global Business Brokers International network together with the University of Zimbabwe, The Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries and The Corporate Counsel have come together to form the core of a consortium called TransactSME Zimbabwe. TRANSACT SME Zimbabwe consortium members will collaborate in a project (called The TransactSME Project) aimed at promoting and facilitating SME transactions in Zimbabwe. Having recognized that the SME transactions in developed countries have generated a lot of value for their owners and the economy in general it is this consortium aim to identify factors that limit SME transaction activity and to devise strategies and solutions that overcome these limitations. The TransactSME Project will conduct a range of activities that will include Refining the meanings of the terms micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME) Research into SME behaviour and its motivation MSME owner capacity building programs MSME capacity building initiatives Build a comprehensive database of operational SMEs Educate of Zimbabwean society of the benefits of SME mergers and acquisitions.