Building Legacies : Property, community and trust with Thompson developments CEO | Jonathan Thompson
Most people cross a border chasing opportunity. Jonathan Thompson crossed one to build it.
He grew up poor in America, selling door to door at eleven to pay his own way. He trained as a minister, married a Zimbabwean, and moved to Chipinge in 1999 to pastor a church and work with an orphanage. He stayed through the land invasions and the hyperinflation. Then in his forties, in a city he had only just moved to, he wrote real estate exams by hand and started his career over.
Today he runs Thompson Developments and is Executive Director and part owner of Chas Everitt Zimbabwe. His team helped deliver Hopeville and King City, a development roughly ten times the size of the Bulawayo CBD. Weeks before this recording his company won the national Best Emerging Business award from the Zimbabwe National Chamber of Commerce.
This is not a masterclass on property margins. It is a conversation about resilience, about what happens to your identity when you completely swap ecosystems, and about how you build a legacy when the ground beneath you keeps shifting.
IN THIS EPISODE
The moment he realised his business was profiting from Zimbabwe's decline, and what he did about it
Why he sat exams in his forties after twenty years of experience
How to check an estate agent before you send a single dollar home
Why he believes home ownership is what holds a community together
Practical ways into property when you do not have capital
Victoria's Court, and the loss that reshaped how he sees the work
CHAPTERS
0:00 The developments that took the money and never delivered
4:24 Selling door to door at eleven
9:01 How they protect diaspora money
11:24 The hyperinflation years
12:12 The conversation with his wife that changed the business
12:34 Writing real estate exams by hand in his forties
13:55 Hopeville, learning the trade on a job that barely paid
14:14 King City, ten times the size of the Bulawayo CBD
16:52 The one tip for the diaspora
22:18 Why home ownership keeps people from leaving
26:32 The career pivots, from the pulpit to property
30:15 Winning the national Best Emerging Business award
34:34 Victoria's Court, building in his daughter's memory
41:29 Cyclone Idai, and the houses they built
52:36 You have to put back into people
1:00:49 Thompson Developments and Chas Everitt explained
1:06:46 The partner who died, and why he built his own thing
1:10:06 The dream, the baby giraffe, and choosing Zimbabwe
1:14:22 How to actually start investing in property
1:20:42 Fire round
Recorded in Bulawayo, the City of Kings, on the HUMHR Career Insights Across Borders Tour 2026. Watch the video version at https://youtu.be/odXT9bG2vA0
GUEST
Jonathan Thompson: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathan-thompson-24730a22b/
HOST
HUMHR Career Insights is hosted by Batje Chibafa, a certified career coach and HR consultant.
https://humhr.org | https://linktr.ee/humhr | https://www.patreon.com/c/HUMHRCareer
Studio provided free of charge by Educate. Educate, funding the future.
DISCLAIMER: The content in this podcast and on this webpage is not intended to constitute or substitute for specialized professional advice, including legal, financial, medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Never disregard relevant professional advice based solely on the information presented in this podcast or channel. Furthermore, all opinions expressed by guests are their sole views and do not represent those of the channel or its host.
Nothing here is financial or investment advice. Figures reflect the speaker's own experience at the time of recording. Markets change. Consult a registered financial advisor and a registered estate agent before you invest, buy or transfer money. Recorded 21 July 2026. Copyright HUMHR 2026.