2022 Women to Watch Awards Americas EMEA
Dorothy Chapeyama CEO
Reunion Insurance Co. Ltd.
Blantyre, Malawi
When Dorothy Chapeyama qualified as an accountant in Malawi in the 1980s, she expected to work in a finance department, so she was surprised when her first employer, British insurer Commercial Union PLC, placed her on an underwriting team.
“The moment I joined I just fell in love with insurance,” she said.
Decades later, and with a wealth of underwriting experience, she was dismayed when she learned that Commercial Union was pulling out of Malawi with all its executive team. Undeterred, Ms. Chapeyama and her fellow managers came together and bought out the business, forming Reunion Insurance in 2005.
As a promoter of the business, shareholder and CEO, Ms. Chapeyama has grown the insurer from a team of 20 to almost 70 and developed it as one of the fastest growing and most successful indigenous businesses in the country. It now has 11 offices supporting local economies.
Frank Muula, CEO of Unified Technologies Ltd. and non-executive chairman of the board of Reunion Insurance has worked with Ms. Chapeyama for more than a decade. Ms. Chapeyama is “a trailblazer” in the financial services sector, which is typically a male-dominated industry, he said.
“It really has been against all odds,” Ms. Chapeyama said. “We have not only grown, but we have had a woman at the helm.”
Along the way she gained her designation with the London-based Chartered Insurance Institute and spent time mentoring young professionals inside the industry and beyond.
As a past chairman of the Malawi Insurance Association, she is also pleased that the African Insurance Organization may soon bring its annual Reinsurance Forum to the country, an accolade to the success of the local industry.
In addition to mentoring young professionals, she works closely with schools to give those among the most vulnerable opportunities to develop. For example, she is board chair of the Malawi Girls’ Educational Trust and shows by example that gender balance benefits any organization.
In addition, she is a part-time lecturer at Malawi College of Accountancy.
