James de la Fargue

This Personal Effectiveness course has been developed over 30 years, having operated in most countries in Southern and East Africa, a multitude of sectors and a wide variety of roles, both professional and personal:

Born in 1963, James was brought up and schooled in Zimbabwe. After leaving school in 1981, he went to Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh in Scotland, where he got a 1st Class Honours BA degree in Business Organisation, followed by postgraduate qualifications including Chartered Association of Certified Accountants (ACCA), Diploma in Marketing (Institute of Marketing) and Diploma in Marketing Research (Market Research Society).

James’s work career has been diversified. His training was with Unilever PLC and Deloittes in the UK before moving to France, where he worked as a financial controller for Chargeurs SA. At Chargeurs, James ended out as the Finance Director for the Wool Trading and Processing Division based in Paris and responsible for 25 companies in 10 countries.

In 1996, he decided to return to Zimbabwe, where he joined Merchant Bank of Central Africa (MBCA) as Senior Executive in charge of Corporate Finance: mergers and acquisitions, capital raising and restructuring, and venture capital funding. In 1998, he became involved in both agriculture as well as agricultural education (Chairman of Blackfordby College of Agriculture, a non profit making training and development centre).

James joined forces with the partners in African Century Group in 2009 and has remained with them since then, in a number of different roles: 

• Setting up the financial services division, including the acquisition of a 25% stake in NMB Bank (board member since July 2010); advised on the establishment of a leasing business in Zimbabwe – African Century Leasing, and investment and Board representation in Untu Microfinance 
• Advised the Group on agricultural commodities and farming ventures – set up AC Matama, a 1000 ha large scale row cropping and seed production farm in Niassa Province, Mozambique
• Appointed Executive Chairman of Frango King, a poultry operation in Nampula, Mozambique in 2014 – the operation was turned around and sold in 2016

Since 2016, James de la Fargue has served as Chief Executive Officer of Lake Harvest Group with three fish farms (Zimbabwe, Zambia and Uganda producing 9000T of fresh water cage reared tilapia) and distribution companies in these same countries, as well as Kenya, Malawi, South Africa and Botswana. The Group employs 1000 people.

James is active in all African Century Group financial services, food and agri businesses, as well as being a Board member of Equity for Africa Tanzania (EFTA – leasing business) and Matanuska Holdings (a banana business in Zimbabwe and the region).

James is married with two grown up sons. James’ mother tongue is English, he speaks French and has a good appreciation for Portuguese. His interests are reading, personal development, golf and jogging.