Bwalya Penza is a financial inclusion and development professional with over 20 years of experience in gender, socio-economic development, and private sector development in Zambia and sub-Saharan Africa. Bwalya’s recent work has involved design, development and implementation of the Women’s and Youth Financial inclusion programme (WIN) at Financial Sector Deepening Zambia (FSD Zambia) where she has advocated and provided policy advice to Government (Bank of Zambia, Ministry of Finance & Ministry of General Education), the banking sector, MNOs and regulators. In addition, she oversaw research in financial markets in Zambia under the 2015 FINSCOPE Survey; as well as in the profile & productivity of Zambian businesses, in the first comprehensive Zambia Business Survey funded by the World Bank, FinMark Trust, Private Sector Development Reform Programme & Zambia Business Forum. She was also one of the key architects in Zambia’s first National Financial Education Strategy.

Bwalya Penza also runs her own children’s coaching business (Inner Safari Quest) which she developed through the mentoring support of the Cherie Blair Foundation Mentoring Women in Business Programme. Bwalya’s goal is to reach and empower as many children as she can, through as many channels as possible. Coaching is one channel, and her love for writing is another. In May 2021 Bwalya published her first book: Kasuba’s Inner Safari Quest. It is a self-help novel told using a safari as an analogy for how we navigate through the ups and downs of life.

In 2006 Bwalya was awarded the prestigious Chevening Scholarship through the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO). She has a Master of Sciences (MSC) in Gender, Development and Globalisation at the London School of Economics of Political Zambia (LSE); and a Bachelor of Arts (BA) in Business Studies (Finance) from the University of Westminster, London, UK.