- Executive Overhaul: OK Zimbabwe has replaced its senior management team, reinstating former leaders Willard Zireva, Alex Siyavora, and Muzvidzwa Chingaira,
- Market Challenges: The company is grappling with severe issues, including a struggling local currency (ZiG), a shift towards informal trading, and difficulties in sourcing supplies
- Criticism of Leadership Change: The firing of former CEO Maxen Karombo, despite his success in maintaining profitability during turbulent times, raises concerns
Harare- Zimbabwe’s retail giant, OK Zimbabwe, has thrust itself into the spotlight with a sweeping executive overhaul, axing its seniour management team and reinstalling veterans who once steered the company through a highly dollarised economy prior to 2019.
Willard Zireva, who retired as CEO in 2017, returns to the helm, joined by Alex Siyavora as CFO and Muzvidzwa Chingaira as Supply Chain Director, leaders credited with stabilising OK during a period when the U.S. dollar reigned supreme.
Their reinstatement ousts Maxen Karombo, who took charge in April 2021 and delivered profitability until 2024, despite navigating a hyperinflationary abyss and the disastrous rollout of the Zimbabwe Gold (ZiG) currency.
This drastic move signals a desperate bid to reclaim past glory, but can it salvage OK in a market battered by currency chaos, rampant informalisation, and supplier woes?
A critical analysis of OK’s trajectory, regional peers, and bold options like delisting from the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange (ZSE) reveals a company at a crossroads, where nostalgia alone may not suffice.
A Tale of Resilience and Reversal
OK Zimbabwe’s story mirrors the nation’s economic rollercoaster. During the hyperinflation crisis of 2007-2008, formal retail crumbled as price controls and the collapse of the Zimbabwe dollar ($Z) empowered informal traders, leaving OK’s shelves bare and revenues negligible.
Dollarization in 2009 changed the game. With the adoption of the U.S. dollar, OK recapitalised via a $20 million injection with $5 million from Investec and the rest through a rights issue fueling a remarkable turnaround.
By 2013, under Zireva’s leadership, revenues soared, peaking at $479.6 million in the fiscal year ended March 2014, as the stable USD restored consumer confidence and supply chains.
OK expanded to over 70 stores, leveraging a compliant, formal retail model to dominate the market.
Maxen Karombo’s tenure, beginning in April 2021, built on this foundation.
He inherited a hyperinflationary mess, with the ZWL plummeting to US$1:ZWL36,000 by late 2024.
Yet, OK remained profitable through 2022, posting recurring revenue upticks driven by operational efficiencies and local sourcing. Even as the ZiG replaced the ZWL in April 2024, depreciating a staggering 36% in its first month on the parallel market, far worse than the ZWL’s 19.5% slide post-2019, Karombo kept OK in the black throughout to 2024.
That year, however, macroeconomic headwinds overwhelmed the retailer. Sales volumes plunged 36% in the quarter ended December 2023, revenues cratered, and four stores shuttered in 2025 alone, with more closures likely looming.
Layoffs have stripped tills to single operators from 3 to 4 in some areas and security to lone guards reflecting OK’s dire straits.
The Current Crisis: Currency, Informalisation, and Supplier Standoffs
Stocking woes define OK’s present predicament. Introduced in April 2024, the ZiG aimed to stabilize the economy but instead crashed, trading at a 50% premium to black-market rates and hemorrhaging value faster than its predecessor.
Suppliers now favour informal vendors who pay cash in USD, shunning OK’s ZiG-heavy coffers (with a USD-ZiG ratio of 20%:80%). Foreign currency collections have dwindled to 20% of revenues, a far cry from dollarisation highs, leaving OK unable to compete with vendors selling identical goods on its verandas where it still pays rent.
This informalisation, estimated at 64% of Zimbabwe’s economy by the World Bank (though some peg it at 80%), is exacerbated by a punishing tax regime of over 30 licensing costs and a 2% Intermediated Money Transfer Tax (IMTT) on digital payments that formal retailers like OK cannot evade.
The fallout is striking. Competitors like Metro Peech and Brown, Choppies, and N Richards have ceased and sold operations entirely, while Food World drastically reduced their outlets, evidence that Maxen Karombo outperformed his peers despite the same brutal market conditions.
OK, the last major player standing, finds its formal structure a liability. Since 2023, the retailer has hemorrhaged viability as suppliers’ USD bias and the ZiG’s dominance choke restocking efforts, a phenomenon that felled competitors and now threatens OK’s survival.
The Executive Purge: Nostalgia or Nonsense?
Reinstating Zireva, Siyavora, and Chingaira is a calculated gamble. During their tenure, this trio streamlined operations, cut costs, and boosted sales in a dollarised rebound. Their playbook store revamps, local supplier ties, and lean staffing delivered results in a less chaotic currency climate.
The board’s logic seems clear: if they navigated the post-hyperinflation recovery, they can tackle today’s mess.
Yet, their era differs starkly from the present. Under dollarisation, suppliers accepted USD, informal competition was manageable, and the economy, while fragile, offered predictability.
Today, the ZiG’s instability, supplier USD preference, and a ballooning informal sector demand innovation beyond past tactics.
Karombo’s exit, despite his early successes, smacks of scapegoating for systemic failures, currency policy and market distortions beyond any executive’s control.
From 2021 to 2023, he defied a hyperinflationary spiral and the ZiG’s 36% debut plunge, maintaining profitability where predecessors faced milder challenges.
The ZWL’s decline under Siyavora’s watch (2019) pales against the ZiG’s chaos, and Zireva’s dollarised tenure (pre-2017) bears little resemblance to today’s local-currency quagmire.
Bringing back an aging leadership team even for six months risks stagnation; their experience may lack the agility to pivot in a digital, informal-driven market.
This “old wine in new bottles” approach could signal desperation rather than vision, undermining OK’s ability to adapt.
Regional Peers: Lessons in Stability and Strategy
Contrast OK with regional players like South Africa’s Shoprite or Kenya’s Naivas. Shoprite, with over 2,900 stores across Africa, posted a 7.6% revenue increase in 2024, per its annual report, thriving on a stable rand and a hybrid model blending formal stores with cash-and-carry units for informal traders.
In South Africa, spaza shops command a $10 billion market, yet giants like Shoprite coexist through competitive pricing and loyalty programs, bolstered by license-enforced supply chains.
Naivas, Kenya’s top retailer, grew 15% in 2024 by leveraging a consistent shilling and e-commerce integration. Both face informal competition but benefit from predictable currencies and policies absent in Zimbabwe.
Botswana’s Choppies, which exited Zimbabwe , rebounded after delisting from the JSE in 2021, refocusing on stable markets like the pula-driven Botswana. OK’s plight is uniquely Zimbabwean, rooted in currency volatility and policy failures no CEO can fully counter.
Pathways Forward: Delisting and Systemic Fixes
Beyond leadership swaps, OK faces existential choices. One radical option is delisting from the ZSE, as National Foods did in 2023 to escape regulatory burdens and currency-induced volatility.
Public listing ties OK to quarterly pressures and compliance costs, evidenced by $1.7 million USD dividends in 2022-2023 amid $5 million loans at 7.5% interest draining resources better spent on restocking or debt reduction.
Delisting could mirror Choppies’ rebound, freeing capital and enabling OK to negotiate USD-based supplier deals off the radar, sidestepping ZiG’s shackles.
However, it risks losing public capital access, a lifeline National Foods offset with private backing that OK may struggle to secure as a retailer facing direct informal competition.
Other strategies beckon.
Lobbying for a 10% USD pricing option could claw back customers from vendors, while curbing smuggling, via South Africa-style licensed supply chains might level the playing field.
Yet, vendors’ USD cash payments complicate enforcement, and Zimbabwe’s cash-strapped government lacks the will or reserves for such reforms.
The currency conundrum remains OK’s Achilles’ heel. Unlike the rand or shilling, the ZiG’s instability and USD scarcity cripple formal retail.
A full return to dollarisation could stabilize transactions, but political resistance persists.
Without aligning exchange rates with market realities, OK’s recovery hinges on out-manoeuvring a system stacked against it.
A Crossroads Beyond Leadership
OK Zimbabwe’s executive reboot is a nostalgic lifeline to its dollarisation heyday, but nostalgia won’t tame today’s turmoil. Karombo’s firing discounts his resilience, while Zireva’s return bets on a past ill-suited to the present.
Historical grit must meet modern ingenuity to counter informalisation, currency chaos, and supplier shifts. Delisting, USD flexibility, and digital leaps offer bolder exits than leadership roulette, yet without systemic change, both internal and national, OK risks joining the graveyard of Zimbabwe’s retail giants.
In a region where adaptability, not legacy, dictates survival, OK must evolve or perish, regardless of who holds the reigns.
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