US STATE DEPARTMENT SPONSORS SUSAN MASHIBE FOR MENTORSHIP WITH GOOGLE EXEC

 Mwamvita Makamba Director of Corporate Affairs at Vodacom Tanzania Limited,(Left) and Susan Mashibe at the US State Department and the White House in Washington DC.

Susan Mashibe
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TANJET DIRECTOR HONOURED BY FORTUNE MOST POWERFUL WOMEN

US State Department sponsors Susan Mashibe for mentorship with Google exec

They say that pilots were born to be above the clouds. So even though Susan Mashibe has not been flying as often as she once did, the young aviator, engineer, and entrepreneur must still feel right at home. She’s soaring right now.

The US State Department recently announced that Ms. Mashibe won a prominent month-long mentorship for promising women global leaders. Conducted over May, the FORTUNE/US State Department Global Women’s Mentoring Partnership will connect Ms. Mashibe with some of the most influential women leaders in government, business, academia, civil society, and the media. 

Highlights for Ms. Mashibe are sure to include an official visit to the White House in Washington DC and an intensive mentorship with a vice president at Google Inc. in the famed Silicon Valley, California. 

The program already had an auspicious beginning, as Ms. Mashibe and the other young leaders had dinner at the had dinner in the Truman Banquet Hall in the US Department of State on May 2, engaging in discussions with some of the most prominent women leaders in Washington DC, such as the former White House Homeland Security and Counterterrorism Advisor, Francis Fragos Townsend. 

“My gratitude is boundless,” said Ms. Mashibe. “The United States, the Fortune Most Powerful Women… they have created something extraordinary and so vitally important. Women have come far in some places in the world, but we still have so far to go, especially in countries like Tanzania. Girls should know that there are no limits to what they can achieve.”

Ms. Mashibe is the executive director and founder of TanJet, an international Fixed Base operations service and the first company of its kind in Tanzania, mastering logistical support for corporate, diplomatic, and private jets.

Among 26 impressive women chosen from 16 countries around the world, Ms. Mashibe joins one other rising female leader from Tanzania, Mwamvita Makamba, who is the director of corporate affairs at Vodacom Limited, the leading cellular provider in the country. 

After an orientation session in Washington DC, Ms. Mashibe will head to California alongside Marissa Mayer, the vice president of consumer products at Google Inc. Mayer leads the management and engineering efforts of products for the world famous multi-billion-dollar Internet company. Mayer will mentor Ms. Mashibe in business and leadership skills over three weeks. Besides being regularly named as one of the Most Powerful Women by Fortune Magazine, she also happens to be the youngest member of Google’s executive operating committee.

“I do not even know how to describe my excitement,” said Ms. Mashibe. “To be able to able to learn from someone as accomplished and consummate as Marissa Mayer and to experience the aura of a company like Google! What more can I say?”

For her own sake, Ms. Mashibe has her own triumphs to speak of in Tanzania. Her company, TanJet, has transformed the way business aviation operates in East Africa, and its clients include Heads of State, monarchs, Fortune 500 executives, celebrities, and military flights. 

Ms. Mashibe runs another company, Kilimanjaro Aviation Logistic Center, which processes landing and overflight clearances for private jets throughout the African continent. Currently, she is establishing aircraft maintenance and repairs services at hangar at Kilimanjaro International Airport in order to provide a modern, quality, and safe scheduled maintenance services for general and corporate aviation in the region. The project promises to be a major foreign direct investment initiative for Tanzania. 

The FORTUNE/US State Department Global Women’s Mentoring Partnership will mark one of many career highlights Ms. Mashibe has experienced in 2011. In March, the World Economic Forum honoured her as a Young Global Leader. In April, Ms. Mashibe became one of the only women and one of only two Africans to speak at the National Business Aviation Association international annual conference. Now in May, she will be in the United States again for the prestigious Fortune partnership with some of the world’s most powerful women. 

After the internship, Ms. Mashibe plans to attend the program’s debriefing and seminar in New York City, where she will also meet and learn from several other American businesswomen executives. She will then return to Tanzania and will be available for interviews. 

Besides Fortune and the US State Department, the program is also sponsored by the Vital Voices Global Partnership. Fortune’s Most Powerful Women Leaders share their time, talent, and expertise in leadership with the next generation of international women leaders. The professional and personal ties that grow out of the mentoring relationships last well beyond the program and enable the international participants to bring positive changes to their companies and communities.

Contact the TanJet Public Relations Officer for more information,

photos, and interview requests. 

Email: publicrelations@tanjet.co.tz 

Phone: +255(0)788-120-977