Associate Professor Chitera was speaking as Guest of Honour at the 2022 ICAM Professional Women’s Conference held at Sunbird Nkopola in Mangochi from 17th to 19th November 2022, under the theme ‘Becoming the Difference Maker: Enhancing the Uniqueness of Women’.

The MUBAS Vice Chancellor, in encouraging the women to be fearless, used the imagery of a lion pointing out that a lion is an animal that is not the tallest, the largest, the heaviest, the smartest nor the most intelligent, yet it is the king. 

Chitera urged the women to be not only goal oriented but also focused on achieving the goals and producing results in their professional work. She advised the professional female accountants to check their attitude towards work and fellow employees, observing that “attitude produces corresponding behaviour”.

She further urged the women to safeguard the environment that affects self-belief system development by having right mentality, taking charge of their lives, and mentoring those under them.

Chitera continued to say that as professionals, the female accountants should endeavor to achieve influence by acting with integrity. She added that being consistent, being assertive, and having relevant skills will also make them influential. Chitera advised: “Stay focused on what matters and follow through, but also engage with others and build connections.”

President of Forum for Women Accountants in Malawi (FOWAMA), Akonda Supuni Yakobe asked the female accountants to ask themselves, individually: “What difference am I making in my office?” 

Yakobe urged the female accountants to realize how unique they are and to always be professional. She stated that a unique woman follows her dream, realizes her failures and never ever gives up such that if one path does not work she follows a detour that still leads to her dream.

The three days conference had presentations on ‘surmounting legal barriers to women’s professional and economic advancement’, ‘wealth creation’, ‘resiliently wading through a storm’, ‘defying status quo’ and ‘personal branding’.