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Joyce Banda
She came to power by a death, devalued the currency because the arithmetic demanded it, and fell to a theft.
The rise
Born Joyce Hilda Ntila on 12 April 1950 in Malemia, Zomba, she left an abusive marriage with three children, ran small businesses, founded the National Association of Business Women to lend to traders like herself. Foreign minister from 2006, she became Mutharika's vice-president in 2009 — expelled from his party a year later.
What they did
When Mutharika died on 5 April 2012 his circle tried to bypass her; she was sworn in on 7 April, the first woman to lead Malawi and the second to lead an African state after Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. She devalued the kwacha by a third to restore donor flows, cut her own salary by 30 percent and sold the presidential Falcon 900EX for about $15 million.
The full picture
In September 2013 auditors traced over $30 million looted from state accounts through the payments system — Cashgate. Officials of her government were convicted; she was never charged, and a 2017 arrest warrant has never been executed. She stayed abroad four years, returned in April 2018 and polled far behind in September 2025.
Why it matters
She took the economic decision that was right and unpopular, then watched her own machinery of state be hollowed out by theft — the two halves of power that most profiles refuse to print together.
“I learned that leadership is about falling in love with the people and the people falling in love with you. It is about serving the people with selflessness, with sacrifice and with the need to put the common good ahead of personal interests.”