Munashe Mhemba
At PeopleDem property we believe in celebrating our community by spotlighting black excellence in property. Today we are celebrating Munashe Mhemba.
Munashe is a Graduate Planner at Marrons Design, Planning & Development Consultancy and the Building the Future Young Planner of the Year 2025. She is currently completing a Level 7 Chartered Town Planner Degree Apprenticeship at the University of Birmingham, combining academic study with hands-on experience on complex urban planning projects.
Working within the development management team, she supports clients across all stages of the planning process from preparing and submitting applications to post-submission negotiations. She collaborates closely with clients, technical consultants, legal teams, and local authorities to deliver well-informed and effective planning advice.
Munashe’s journey into the property industry began while studying Real Estate at Nottingham Trent University. During her first year, she was introduced to the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) as part of a module. She found it both engaging and intellectually stimulating, particularly the way it challenged her thinking. This experience sparked her interest in planning, especially the balance between policy, problem-solving, and shaping places. As a result, she chose to pursue a career in planning.
Although naturally self-driven, Munashe credits early mentorship as a key influence in her development. This support helped build her confidence, challenged her thinking, and enabled her to translate theory into practical, real-world applications. It provided a strong foundation that has allowed her to grow steadily in both confidence and capability.
In her current role, Munashe has gained experience managing change-of-use applications for HMOs, as well as supporting a wide range of planning submissions, including householder applications, retrospective applications, planning appeals, and complex regeneration schemes. She has contributed to residential projects of varying scales from small extensions to larger apartment developments involving demolition, new builds, and public realm enhancements. Her proactive and detail-oriented approach supports the delivery of timely, positive planning outcomes while ensuring alignment with planning policy and local authority expectations.
Munashe is motivated by the impact planning has on how people experience places day to day. She enjoys working through complex challenges balancing policy, constraints, and client ambitions and turning them into clear, deliverable solutions. She is continuously building her knowledge across policy, design, and technical disciplines to add increasing value to her work over time.
As she explains:
“I’ve always taken pride in what I do and put real energy into doing things properly. Whether through my work in planning or how I approach opportunities more broadly, I want to be remembered as someone who is committed, proactive, and focused on making a meaningful impact.”
This proactive mindset, combined with thorough and critical thinking, is what Munashe considers her “superpower.” She approaches each project with a strong sense of ownership, thinking ahead and considering all angles to ensure nothing is overlooked. She is comfortable challenging assumptions, exploring alternatives, and pushing ideas further to achieve the best outcomes. Her genuine passion for planning and improving places drives the energy and commitment she brings to her work, ensuring she consistently delivers to a high standard.
This approach has already led to significant achievements early in her career. One of her proudest milestones is winning the Building the Future Young Planner of the Year award just over a year into her career particularly given the strong competition from more established planners. The recognition validated not only her work but also her dedication and passion for the profession, reinforcing that she is on the right path.
Looking ahead, Munashe has ambitious goals. In the next 10 years, she envisions herself as a confident and well-established planning professional with a strong track record of delivering high-quality projects. She hopes to play a more strategic role, shaping decisions and influencing outcomes in a meaningful way. Ultimately, she aims to be trusted for her judgement and known for delivering work that positively impacts places and communities.
In the longer term, Munashe aspires to become a trusted voice in planning someone who can confidently shape projects and contribute to creating better, more thoughtful environments. Achieving this will involve continuing to build her expertise, gaining diverse project experience, and positioning herself to influence decisions at a higher level.
Alongside her professional role, Munashe is actively involved in Building the Future, where she advocates for early-career professionals and promotes stronger cross-disciplinary collaboration across the built environment. She is particularly passionate about making planning more accessible, transparent, and outcome-focused.
When asked what she is currently looking for, Munashe shared:
“I’m always keen to connect with individuals or organisations seeking planning support or advice whether that’s early-stage feasibility, navigating the application process, informing design, or liaising with local authorities. I enjoy bringing clarity to what can often feel like a complex system and helping clients move their projects forward with confidence. Working as part of a multidisciplinary team at Marrons, we’re able to support projects across planning, design, heritage, transport, and economic development, which allows us to deliver well-rounded solutions.”
It is an honour to share Munashe’s story. There are many young Black women who aspire to shape the cities they live in, and professionals like her demonstrate that this path is both possible and attainable. She is only a few steps ahead, making her journey especially relatable particularly when roles like Principal Planner can feel daunting from the outside. It will be exciting to see what she achieves in the future.
