Zena Mpenda is a lecturer, Deputy Principal and Head of the Department of Trade and Investment at the College of Economics and Business Studies (CoEBS) at Sokoine University of Agriculture (SUA). She majored in the economics of food safety standards in agro-food exports for developing countries. She has worked and done consultancy and assists SMEs in product development and processing specifically on dairy products, cooking oil, fish and vegetables. She has researched in the fields of agro-processing, international food standards, waste management, value chain development, SMEs internal competencies building, marketing and market competition.

She has published on issues of economics of food safety standards in agro-foods export. She currently teaches quality control and standards, entrepreneurship development, business strategy, econometrics, and mathematics for economics and statistics for graduate and undergraduate students. She was also involved in the African Agribusiness Academy (AAA), a project that supports the commercial activities of SMEs in East Africa by strengthening individual entrepreneurial capacities. She is also a country team lead on Policy Prioritization through Value Chain (PPVC) approach in Tanzania funded by BMGF under African Network of Agricultural Policy Research Institutes (ANAPRI)