Pemphero Mphande: The man who refused to stay in the laboratory
From medical laboratory science to activism, politics, philanthropy, business and social media, Pemphero Mphande has spent much of his adult life moving from one public arena to another. At 33, he has already built a career that is difficult to fit into a single description. Writes Ephraim Nyondo.
Pemphero Mphande was trained to work in a laboratory. But the laboratory could never contain him.
The son of a Malawian family with two sisters, Mphande has spent the past decade moving restlessly between worlds—medicine and activism, politics and philanthropy, business and writing, social media and public advocacy. In each, he has sought not merely to participate, but to build a platform from which he can influence people and provoke conversation.
Born on September 18 1992 at Mlambe Hospital in Blantyre, Mphande’s journey began far from the public spotlight. He attended Luwerezi and Thoza primary schools in Mzimba before completing his primary education at St Peter’s Primary School in Mzuzu. From 2006 to 2009, he was at Phwezi Boys Secondary School.
In 2010, he entered the University of Malawi’s College of Medicine, now part of Kamuzu University of Health Sciences (KUHeS), to study Medical Laboratory Sciences. He graduated in 2017 with a Bachelor of Science in Medical Laboratory Sciences (Honours).
But even before collecting his degree, there were signs that Mphande’s ambitions extended beyond his chosen profession.
University became his first laboratory for leadership.
In 2011, he was elected Director of Non-Residential Students in the College of Medicine Students Union. In 2012, he became the first elected president of the College of Medicine Student Association of Medical Laboratory Sciences. Between 2013 and 2016, he headed the College of Medicine AIDS Counselling and Training Society.
It was in those student years that the contours of his later career began to emerge: leadership, advocacy, public speaking, health and an appetite for issues that affected young people.
In 2016, he turned that experience into an institution, founding the Forum for AIDS Counselling and Training, FACT Malawi. A year later, he became its executive director.
FACT gave Mphande a professional platform from which to work on HIV prevention, sexual and reproductive health and rights, youth development and community advocacy. It also placed him squarely in the civil-society space, where he would develop a reputation for combining advocacy with an ability to mobilise young people.
Then came Gandhi.
In 2018, Mphande emerged as one of the prominent faces of the Gandhi Must Fall campaign in Blantyre. What began as a public dispute over the proposed erection of a Mahatma Gandhi statue escalated into a legal battle.
Mphande and fellow claimant Mkotama Katenga Kaunda took Blantyre City Council to court, challenging the decision to proceed with the statue. In April 2021, the High Court ruled in their favour, finding the council’s decision unlawful and unreasonable and granting the reliefs sought by the claimants, including a permanent injunction.
The court victory was significant not simply because of the statue itself. It demonstrated something that would become characteristic of Mphande’s public life: an unwillingness to remain a spectator when he believed an issue demanded action.
Politics soon followed.
Mphande joined Umodzi Party and rose through its youth structures, eventually becoming its Director of Youth after the party’s 2018 convention in Blantyre. In the 2019 general election, he contested Blantyre City South on the party’s ticket.
His message was familiar: jobs, entrepreneurship, economic empowerment and opportunities for young people.
He lost the election.
But electoral defeat did not end his public career. Instead, Mphande walked away from party politics and increasingly invested himself in activism, philanthropy, business and public communication.
If politics gave him a taste of electoral power, social media gave him something arguably more valuable—a direct audience.
Mphande became increasingly visible online, building a substantial following and turning his social-media platforms into a mixture of commentary, counselling, advocacy, personal storytelling and fundraising. He could move from serious national issues to intimate conversations about relationships, sexuality, youth, money or everyday life, often in the same digital space.
And then there was philanthropy.
In 2019, Mphande established the Pemphero Mphande and Friends Foundation. What followed demonstrated the power of his growing online audience.
One of his most memorable fundraising campaigns came after an oxygen-cylinder gauge at Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital’s paediatric emergency unit broke. He appealed to his followers for K300,000 to replace the equipment. More than K415,000 was raised in roughly 10 hours.
It was a revealing moment.
Mphande had discovered that influence could be converted into action.
The foundation subsequently expanded its humanitarian interventions, raising money for medical treatment and supporting people facing serious health and financial challenges. Later reports put the foundation’s medical fundraising at more than K300 million, including support for patients seeking treatment locally and abroad.
But Mphande has never been comfortable with a single lane.
While running a civil-society organisation and philanthropic platform, he was also building businesses.
He became involved in technology through 265 Dates, an online dating platform, serving as managing director. He also established Mtukule Mnzako, an initiative designed to support young Malawians with innovative business ideas.
The pattern is unmistakable: whenever Mphande identifies a problem, he appears inclined to create a platform around it.
Health? FACT.
Humanitarian emergencies? The foundation.
Youth entrepreneurship? Mtukule Mnzako.
Digital relationships? 265 Dates.
Public debate? Social media.
Writing? Books and stories.
Institutional leadership? KUHeS alumni.
It is this multiplicity that makes Mphande difficult to categorise.
He is a medical laboratory scientist who became an activist; an activist who entered politics; a politician who became a philanthropist; a philanthropist who became an entrepreneur; an entrepreneur who became a writer and public commentator.
And the transitions have not always been smooth.
His public career has attracted controversy, including the 2023 dispute over an honorary doctorate he announced he had received from the University of South Africa. UNISA subsequently said it had not awarded him an honorary doctorate and that he had never been nominated, considered or approved for such an honour.
Mphande said he believed he and others had been victims of a scam involving people who claimed to be organising the awards.
The episode became one of the more uncomfortable chapters of his public life, illustrating the other side of building a highly visible personality in the age of social media: influence brings reach, but it also brings scrutiny.
Still, Mphande kept moving.
He became board chairperson of Youth for Change in 2020. He continued his writing, publishing What You See at Sunrise in 2021 and contributing stories to AfricanWriter.com. He developed a profile as a motivational and public speaker, addressing students at universities and other institutions.
His influence also attracted institutional recognition.
The National Planning Commission named him among its Malawi 2063 Mindset Change Champions, recognising his advocacy around youth empowerment, entrepreneurship and employment. In 2024, the Malawi Council for the Handicapped appointed him a brand ambassador for its Bangwe Factory.
Then came a particularly symbolic appointment.
In 2025, Mphande was elected the first president of the KUHeS Alumni Association, returning to the institution where his leadership journey had begun more than a decade earlier.
The circle had, in some ways, closed.
The young student who once led medical laboratory students and the AIDS Counselling and Training Society was now leading an association representing alumni of the institution that trained him.
And in 2026, his professional journey expanded again when he became managing director of Mr P Pharmacy Limited.
At 33, Mphande’s CV already reads like several careers stitched together.
Yet beneath the titles is a consistent thread.
He has repeatedly gravitated towards young people, health, entrepreneurship, social justice, public debate and practical intervention. Whether standing before a crowd, appearing on television, writing a book, posting on Facebook, raising money for a hospital or challenging a council in court, Mphande has built his public identity around engagement.
That may ultimately be his most defining characteristic.
He does not appear particularly interested in watching Malawi from the sidelines.
He wants to enter the argument.
Sometimes that has taken him into politics. Sometimes into court. Sometimes into business. Sometimes into philanthropy. And increasingly, into the vast and unpredictable arena of social media, where his audience can be both his greatest asset and his greatest source of scrutiny.
Mphande’s story, therefore, is not simply about a medical laboratory scientist who became many other things.
It is about a young Malawian who discovered early that influence is built by stepping into public problems—and who has spent much of his adult life testing just how far that influence can take him.
The laboratory gave him a profession. Leadership gave him a platform. Activism gave him a voice. Philanthropy gave him a cause. Business gave him another vehicle. And social media gave him an audience. What he does with all of them next may be the most interesting chapter yet.
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