My dear husband, Richard, has been the driving force behind my success and rise to whatever level I am now. My story and legacy is incomplete without his mention.

Leadership is about falling in love with the people you serve and the people falling in love with you.

When I took over, the economy had almost collapsed. I told Malawians we needed to pass through difficult times. Two days ago I even cut my own salary by 30% to show we are making sacrifices.

What I am saying every day to Malawians is that time has come for us to move from aid to trade. We have picked several sectors that we think we can focus on immediately in order for us to grow our economy. So we have decided to diversify agriculture, we decided to develop our tourism sector, we have decided to develop our mining sector.

In 1989, I started the National Association of Business Women. We incorporated microfinance and different job training for women. We did a survey, with USAID, that found women lacked training, credit and information.

It is only when a woman is economically empowered that she can negotiate at household level with her husband about the number of children that body of hers can have.

My dear husband, Richard, has been the driving force behind my success and rise to whatever level I am now. My story and legacy is incomplete without his mention.