Most people cross a border chasing opportunity. Jonathan Thompson crossed one to build it.

He grew up poor in America, selling door to door at eleven to pay his own way. He trained as a minister, married a Zimbabwean, and moved to Chipinge in 1999 to pastor a church and work with an orphanage. He stayed through the land invasions and the hyperinflation. Then in his forties, in a city he had only just moved to, he wrote real estate exams by hand and started his career over.

Today he runs Thompson Developments and is Executive Director and part owner of Chas Everitt Zimbabwe. His team helped deliver Hopeville and King City, a development roughly ten times the size of the Bulawayo CBD. Weeks before this recording his company won the national Best Emerging Business award from the Zimbabwe National Chamber of Commerce.

This is not a masterclass on property margins. It is a conversation about resilience, about what happens to your identity when you completely swap ecosystems, and about how you build a legacy when the ground beneath you keeps shifting.

IN THIS EPISODE

CHAPTERS

Recorded in Bulawayo, the City of Kings, on the HUMHR Career Insights Across Borders Tour 2026. Watch the video version at https://youtu.be/odXT9bG2vA0

GUEST

HOST

Studio provided free of charge by Educate. Educate, funding the future.

DISCLAIMER: The content in this podcast and on this webpage is not intended to constitute or substitute for specialized professional advice, including legal, financial, medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Never disregard relevant professional advice based solely on the information presented in this podcast or channel. Furthermore, all opinions expressed by guests are their sole views and do not represent those of the channel or its host.

Nothing here is financial or investment advice. Figures reflect the speaker's own experience at the time of recording. Markets change. Consult a registered financial advisor and a registered estate agent before you invest, buy or transfer money. Recorded 21 July 2026. Copyright HUMHR 2026.

She started running in 2012 to lose weight. Her first 10km took over an hour. In April 2026 she crawled across the Two Oceans Marathon finish line. Two months later she became the first black woman to stand on the Comrades Marathon Up Run podium in the race's 105-year history.  Nobukhosi "Buhle" Tshuma grew up in Makokoba, Bulawayo, Zimbabwe. Orphaned young. She moved to Swaziland at 10 and to South Africa at 14. She turned professional in 2016 under coach Hendrick Ramaala. She is wife of 2023 Two Oceans champion Givemore Mudzinganyama, and she runs for Entsika Running Club in Tembisa.  In this episode Batje Chibafa sits down with Buhle to talk about: - How a girl from Makokoba became a Comrades podium finisher - What it means to cross borders and build a career from nothing - The Two Oceans moment the whole world saw, and what happened next - Faith, family, and finishing what you started - What she wants young Zimbabwean women to know  Recorded in Johannesburg as part of the HUMHR Career Insights Across Borders Tour 2026.  Listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and all major platforms. Watch on YouTube: @humhr3715 Follow HUMHR Career Insights: Instagram: @humhr2021 LinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/humhr Website: humhr.org  #HUMHRCareerInsights #AcrossBordersTour2026 #NobukhlosiTshuma #Comrades2026 #ZimbabweProud #CareerInsights #WomenInSport

She wrote her first novel at 13. One handwritten copy,

passed around her class at Girls' College - and nobody ever lost it.

Fourteen years after self-publishing The Polygamist,

it became a Netflix series - number one in 16 countries

around the world.

In this episode of HUMHR Career Insights, Batje Chibafa

sits down with Sue Nyathi in Johannesburg - the first stop

on the Africa Across Borders Tour 2026.

They talked about:

- Writing by night while building a 20-year career in finance

- The rejection letters that almost ended everything

- Leaving corporate at 40 with no plan B

- A spiritual awakening during COVID

- The phone call in 2022 that became Netflix

- What it means to be a social anthropologist

- The 4 Ps: Perseverance, Passion, Persistence and Providence

CHAPTERS

00:00 Welcome | Johannesburg, South Africa

00:48 Netflix #1 in 16 countries

02:38 The Polygamist: written 2010, self-published 2012

03:43 The two-page rejection letter

07:53 The novel she wrote at 13 - one handwritten copy

11:14 Writing as a lens on society

16:24 Quitting finance at 40 - with no plan B

19:57 COVID, silence, and a spiritual awakening

23:35 Learning the business of writing

37:44 Discipline over inspiration: 8am to 3pm, every day

40:17 The Polygamist's impact: book clubs, healing, controversy

49:39 The Netflix adaptation

61:12 Kenya: when the government took notice

63:09 French translation rights

65:33 What would 13-year-old Sue say?

65:51 Fire round

GUEST: Sue Nyathi | Author | The Polygamist, The Gold

Diggers, A Family Affair, An Angel's Demise

HOST: Batje Chibafa | Certified Career Coach | Founder, HUMHR

Subscribe: YouTube @humhr3715

Instagram: @humhr2021

Website: humhr.org

Linktree: linktr.ee/humhr

For the Season 4 finale, Batje Chibafa sits down with a guest unlike any she has had before. No flight to catch, no green room. Her guest is Claude, Anthropic's AI.

They talk about whether AI is coming for your job, what it means for humanitarian careers, why entrepreneurship is not the answer for everyone, the recruiter double standard, and the question that stopped the whole conversation: Is AI even made for Africa?

Claude also reflects on Season 4, shares its favourite episode, and answers the question Batje saved until last: how much water did this conversation cost the world?

HUMHR Career Insights helps purpose-driven professionals navigate career transitions, build on their strengths, and find work that matters. Globally.

If this episode moved you, three things help us grow. Subscribe. Rate. Share with one person who needs to hear this.

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Book a conversation: humhr.org

Subscribe to HUMHR Career Insights and stay inspired.

I posted a reel about 172 job applications and 3 responses. The comments did not say "wow." They said "me too." Person after person. Different country. Different industry. Same silence.

When that many people recognise themselves in one experience, you are not looking at a bad day. You are looking at a broken system.

In this Batje's Take, I dig into the trust that has broken down between those who are hiring and those who are being hired — and what it will actually take to fix it.

What I cover:

If you have been screened out, ghosted, or went through a full process and heard nothing — this one is for you. And if you work in HR or talent acquisition — this one is especially for you.

Listen on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

Be a Pioneer. Be a weed. Weeds survive where other plants cannot. Dandelions are food. Being a weed is not a consolation — it is a strategy.

In Part 2, Elizabeth Mhangami goes deeper on what it really means to build a career on your own terms: entrepreneurship as a mindset, the donor consulting model that works without a pocket of donors, why return-to-office mandates are a career equity issue, and the self-worth conversation that changed everything.

What we cover in Part 2:

Listen on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Follow HUMHR on Instagram: @humhr2021 | humhr.org

She sent 172 job applications. Got 3 responses. Not because she wasn't qualified — but because the AI screening systems never read her CV.

In this episode, Elizabeth Mhangami (Principal Consultant, NDISU) joins Batje Chibafa in studio to talk about what is really happening in hiring — the ATS arms race, who AI was designed for, and whether the tools shaping the job market were ever built for the Global South.

What we cover in Part 1:

Follow HUMHR on Instagram: @humhr2021 | humhr.org

What keeps you grounded when the title disappears?

In this deeply reflective episode of Batje’s Take, Batje Chibafa unpacks one of the most powerful themes from her conversation with humanitarian leader Rudo Kayombo, faith as an operating system, not a performance.

From leading humanitarian work across 18 countries to navigating life after executive leadership, Rudo’s story explores what happens when identity is no longer tied to position, status, or a paycheck.

Batje reflects on:

This episode is especially relevant for professionals navigating transition, leadership pressure, uncertainty, burnout, or reinvention.

If you are currently in a season of change, this conversation may give language to what you are feeling and remind you that your worth is bigger than your title.

🎙️ Listen to the full two-part conversation with Rudo Kayombo on HUMHR Career Insights.

📌 Connect with Batje Chibafa on Linkedin

📌 Follow HUMHR Career Insights for more conversations on careers, leadership, entrepreneurship, and purpose-driven work.

#CareerTransitions #Leadership #FaithAndWork #HumanitarianCareers #CareerCoaching #LeadershipDevelopment #HUMHR #BatjesTake #PurposeDrivenLeadership #NGOCareers #WomenInLeadership #CareerGrowth #PersonalDevelopment

She left Africa Vice President at Habitat for Humanity and the most overwhelming feeling, she says, was relief.

This is Part 2 of Batje Chibafa's conversation with Rudo Kayombo. If you missed Part 1, start there. We walked through the twenty-five-year humanitarian career, the lawyer years, the saying-yes-in-tears moment, and the faith thread that pulled her from World Vision Zimbabwe to World Vision Uganda to ONE Campaign to Habitat for Humanity.

Part 2 is the building arc. The first week after she stopped being VP. The cousin's message that broke her open. Why she moved back to Harare and chose a cottage over a Prado. The Fahari Women's Fund. The mentee who paid her back fifty thousand shillings. Why she calls herself a dinosaur for ChatGPT. And the single piece of counsel she leaves for every senior leader sitting at the exit door.

If you are mid-pivot, this conversation is for you.

MEMORABLE QUOTES FROM PART 2

ABOUT THE GUEST

WATCH THE FULL VIDEO ON YOUTUBE

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🎧 Podcast (Apple/Spotify): https://batje.podbean.com/

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💼 Batje on LinkedIn:   / batjechibafa  

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If this episode resonated, three things help us grow. Subscribe. Rate. Share with one person sitting at a transition.

Until next Tuesday. Stay inspired.