THE Jester Media Services (JMS) Group — whose basket of media assets include 3Ktv, The Financial Gazette, the inimitable Daily News and the Daily News On Sunday — continues to shine.
This comes after its unassuming, but highly-regarded chief executive (CE), Pilate Machadu, bagged a Marketing Champion Leadership Award at a glitzy event hosted by the Marketers Association of Zimbabwe (MAZ) in Harare on Friday evening.
The richly-deserved award was in recognition of Machadu’s proven excellence and leadership in the marketing field for many years, which has now seen him being honoured by MAZ as “one of the movers and shakers” in the profession.
Speaking to the Daily News yesterday, the much-respected and ever modest JMS boss paid tribute to his colleagues in the group, saying they should all feel proud about the award, as they had contributed immensely to him being acknowledged by MAZ.
“I feel humbled and honoured to receive this award, which reflects the good work that all of us at JMS are doing as we continue to aspire to serve our loyal audiences across our multiple platforms optimally, and to build our group to be the media partner of choice for many businesses.
“Indeed, all of us at JMS can be immensely proud of the work that we are doing all round. We have a strong corporate brand now, as well as equally strong assets that are all commercially sustainable and much-loved by our stakeholders.
“We are very happy that marketers recognise our brands and the work that we are doing. We will continue to work hard so that we can continue to give our viewers, readers and business partners value for their support,” Machadu said.
This comes as the trail-blazing television channel, 3Ktv, as well as its staff reporters, recently garnered more recognition after they bagged awards from the National Blood Services Zimbabwe (NBSZ) — for their news coverage on health generally and blood trends in particular.
JMS Group Editor-in-Chief, Guthrie Munyuki, said at the time that it was gratifying to see the group’s various brands and staff continuing to be honoured by key stakeholders like the NBSZ for their outstanding work.
“We appreciate the exceptional support that we continue to get from our audiences and business partners across all our market-leading multi-media product offerings — from TV to print and digital.
“My gratitude also goes to all my hard-working and loyal colleagues across the JMS group for continuing to deliver riveting content for our audiences on all our platforms. “This has resulted in us receiving all these accolades that we are getting, at a challenging time for many other players in our important industry,” Munyuki said then.
The awards for 3Ktv underlined the station’s growing dominance of the broadcasting sector, where it has won a string of other accolades and also registered many significant milestones over the past 18 months.
The channel, the country’s first independent television station, was also recently adjudged the best broadcaster in Zimbabwe on travel and tourism by the Twalumba National Travel and Tourism Awards. The gong was in recognition of the station’s tireless efforts in covering and promoting travel and tourism in the country.
3Ktv’s much followed news and current affairs programme, Vantage, was also recently named the country’s outstanding television programme. Vantage’s host, Munyuki, was also adjudged a ‘distinguished editor” for his outstanding leadership role at JMS.
Machadu is the former chairperson of the Advertising Media Association (ADMA) and a former deputy chairperson of the Zimbabwe Advertising Research Foundation (ZARF) board. He is also a former Super Brand and Exceptional Marketing Awards adjudicator.
He holds a Bachelor of Commerce Marketing Honours degree from NUST, an MBA from UZ, and is currently pursuing a Doctorate in Business Administration. Since joining the group, he has risen through the ranks — becoming Commercial Director a decade ago, before being appointed CE of Modus Media (the publisher of FinGaz) in 2017 and then JMS Group CE three years ago.
