Ammon Machingambi Mutembwa presented his credentials as Zimbabwe’s ambassador to the United States to President Barack Obama on November 18, 2014.

Mutembwa has bachelors and masters degrees from the University of Ibaden in Nigeria and an M.A. in international relations from the University of Westminster in England. He served as a political counselor in Zimbabwe’s Office of the High Commissioner in London from 1991 to 1994.

Mutembwa returned home in 1994 to work in the office of Zimbabwe’s longtime dictator, President Robert Mugabe, first as an undersecretary for policy research and analysis. He published a book in 1998 entitled Water and the Potential for Resource Conflicts in Southern Africa. Later he was appointed director for external relations, working in the country’s Central Intelligence Organization.

Despite his government position, Mutembwa might have a lower profile in his country than his wife, Priscilla, who’s the chief financial officer of Cargill Cotton Zimbabwe. The couple has two daughters, one of whom, Mutsa, attended college on a field hockey scholarship at Indiana University and went on to win a Rhodes Scholarship in 2009.

-Steve Straehley

To Learn More:

Winning Ways: Mutsa Mutembwa Scores the Rhodes Scholarship (by Lesa Petersen, College Magazine) (pdf)