Mathanga has a first degree in business administration and a master's degree in leadership and management.[1]
She was the chair of the board at the Electricity Supply Corporation of Malawi (Escom). In 2017 she gave evidence to the Anti-Corruption Bureau concerning a procurement worth 4 billion Kwacha. It is alleged that the information was false.[2]
She and Escom's CEO John Kandulu were arrested in 2020 regarding the procurement which the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) said was done without paperwork.[3] Her lawyers tried unsuccessfully to argue that the case was outside the ACB's jurisdiction because ESCOM was not a public body. The court said that ESCOM was wholly owned by the state and it was therefore a public body.[4]
Mathanga was a commissioner with the Malawi Electoral Commission before she worked for a Malawian political party. She became the Democratic Progressive Party's National Director of Elections.[1]
In 2025 she and three others were to be tried by High Court Judge Violet Chipao concerning the 2017 pronouncement. The evidence was said to go back to 2011.[2][3] In the same year, she was appointed to be the minister of Energy and Mining by the newly re-elected President Peter Mutharika on 30 October 2025.[5][6][7]
In February 2026, High Court Judge Violet Chipao called on Malawi's Director of Public Prosecutions to account for why they stopped a financial case against Jean Mathanga (and others) was stopped. The judge ordered that the reasons be given to the Legal Affairs Committee of the National Assembly within ten days.[8]
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