- Jasper Musadaidzwa appointed Kavango CEO with immediate effect.
- Brings 27 years in mining, including 17 at AngloGold Ashanti.
- Donald McAlister moves from interim CEO to executive chairman.
- Appointment follows commissioning of Kavango’s Hillside gold plant.
KAVANGO Resources has appointed Zimbabwean mining executive Jasper Musadaidzwa as chief executive with immediate effect, as the Southern Africa-focused company pushes to scale up its gold operations in Zimbabwe.
Musadaidzwa brings more than 27 years in the industry, including 17 years at AngloGold Ashanti, where he held senior operational and executive roles across Africa, Kavango said in a statement.
He was most recently senior vice president of AngloGold’s Guinea business unit, where the company says he led an operational and financial turnaround. Under his leadership, the operation’s life of mine was extended from 2026 to 2034 and its net present value doubled, according to Kavango.
Before Guinea, Musadaidzwa oversaw four mines across Ghana, Tanzania, Mali and Guinea as senior vice president of operations for AngloGold’s Africa region. Those operations produced around 1.1 million ounces of gold a year and employed more than 14,000 people. He began his mining career in Zimbabwe.
Donald McAlister has stepped down as non-executive chairman and interim CEO, and becomes executive chairman.
“Kavango has reached an important stage of its development,” McAlister said. “We have established a growing operational platform in Zimbabwe, and our ambition is to build this into a substantial and sustainable mining business.”
Musadaidzwa said the appointment carried personal significance. “I began my mining career in Zimbabwe nearly three decades ago, and I am extremely excited to be returning to help build a mining company with the ambition to create lasting value in the country and across Southern Africa,” he said.
His immediate priority, he said, would be strengthening operational capability and moving the company toward becoming cash-generative.
The appointment follows a significant operational step for Kavango. As ZiMining reported in August, the company began commissioning a 50-tonne-per-day gold processing plant at its Hillside project in Matabeleland, moving the asset from construction into live processing. The plant, built as a proof-of-concept to validate Kavango’s processing flowsheet, ran at an average 69% capacity utilisation in late July.
Kavango is listed on the London Stock Exchange and the Victoria Falls Stock Exchange, and also holds base metals exploration ground in Botswana.
