Mary Chilima

Mary Chilima is the widow of the late Dr Saulos Klaus Chilima and the former Second lady of the Republic of Malawi. She is the founder of Children First Trust which promotes good health, education and nutrition for Malawi’s underprivileged and disabled children. She also serves as patron of Visually and Hearing-Impaired Association of Malawi, where she champions and supports the cause for mothers of children with cerebral palsy in Malawi.

Mary’s driving passion is sustainable philanthropy based on a strong desire to elevate the education, health and welfare of rural populace through evidence based strategies. She identifies strongly with the plight of Malawian women and girls; and the challenges they face such as gender based violence, child marriages, teen pregnancy as well as online harassment and cyber bullying. Mary also utilizes her continued pursuit for higher education as a platform to motivate Malawian youth to remain in school.

Mary is an entrepreneur with various business interests in the retail, education and mining sectors. Early on in her career, she served as a banker with Standard Bank Malawi, as a Marketing manager and marketing executive for First Merchant Bank and the Malswitch Project at the Reserve Bank of Malawi respectively. Mary holds a Bachelors Degree in Business Administration from the University of Malawi; a Master of Science in Strategic Management from the University of Derby in the United Kingdom; and a Master of Philosophy in Evidence Based Management from the University of Pretoria. She is a PhD candidate in Business Administration at the University of Pretoria, in South Africa.