Italia Boninelli
Senior Vice-President: Human Resources
Gold Fields
Tel: +27 11 644 2465
www.goldfields.co.za
Italia Boninelli was appointed senior vice-president, human resources at Gold Fields in January 2007. She is also the chairperson of the Gold Fields Leadership and Business Academy. Her career has focused primarily on human resources and marketing. Before joining Gold Fields, she was group human resources director of the private healthcare organisation Netcare.
She had been MD of her own business, Itabo Consulting, and, prior to that, had more than 20 years’ experience in human resources, marketing, communications, customer relationship management and business transformation in a variety of industries. She is a registered industrial psychologist with a master’s degree in psychology from the University of the Witwatersrand and a post-graduate diploma in labour relations from Unisa. She has lectured and published extensively and is the co-author of two books, Building Human Capital and Conversations in Leadership: South African Perspectives.
Fikile de Buck
Non-Executive Director
Harmony Gold
Tel: +27 11 648 0146
www.harmony.co.za
A chartered certified accountant, Fikile de Buck is a fellow of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (FCCA) (UK) and a member of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) (UK). In 1990 De Buck won the Stuart Crystal Prize, awarded to the best accounting student at the Birmingham Polytechnic in the UK. She was the chief operations officer and chief financial officer of the Council for Medical Schemes in South Africa, where she held various positions after joining in September 2000 until her departure in February 2008. Prior to that, she was treasurer at the Botswana Development Corporation. She was appointed as a non-executive director on Harmony Gold’s board in March 2006.
May Hermanus
Director
Centre for Sustainability in Mining and Industry
University of the Witwatersrand
Tel: +27 11 717 7422
Email: [email protected]
Before assuming the directorship of the Centre for Sustainability in Mining and Industry, Professor May Hermanus was chief inspector of mines for the Department of Minerals and Energy, responsible for overseeing health and safety both in the mines and in communities affected by mining activities. She earlier worked for Samancor as group health and safety manager; before that post, she was coordinator of the health and safety unit for the National Union of Mineworkers.
Hermanus has contributed substantially to the development of policy and legislation in the health and safety field, both in mining and in industry in general. She holds a bachelor’s degree in geology and a master’s degree in physical metallurgy from the University of the Witwatersrand and is a Takemi Fellow in the School of Public Health at Harvard University.
Lindiwe Montshiwagae
Corporate Finance and Investor Relations Manager
Merafe Resources Ltd
Tel: +27 11 783 4780
www.meraferesources.co.za
Lindiwe Montshiwagae spent five years at Nedbank Capital in the sponsor unit, part of corporate finance, and two years with BoE Merchant Bank before joining the JSE-listed Merafe Resources Ltd as corporate finance and investor relations manager. She is also a member of Merafe’s transformation committee. She has a BCompt honours degree from Unisa and is completing a master’s in finance. She says what is most rewarding is being part of a team that creates value for its investors.
Smangele Mngomezulu
Having begun her career in the mining industry as an assistant information retrieval officer at Anglo American, Smangele Mngomezulu has risen to her current position through entrepreneurship and marketing. She holds diplomas in management and community development and has received several awards for marketing and franchise operations, as well as for her leadership role in promoting women in business.
She cut her teeth on fundraising while at Anglo, where she assisted in raising money for supplementary education programmes. After a brief spell in a joint venture cleaning and security company, she established her own business, Thandekile Industrial Cleaning Services, operating in the mining sector.
Mngomezulu is managing director of NESA Mining, which conducts sweeping and vamping underground and reclamation of redundant material. The CEO of the South African Women in Mining Association and the acting CEO of South African Women in Mining Investment Holdings (Pty) Ltd, she serves on the advisory committee of the minister of minerals and energy and represents the women’s group on the Exxaro board.
Khanyi Ntsaluba
Financial Director
Mvelaphanda Resources
Tel: +27 11 325 5323
www.mvelares.co.za
Khanyi Ntsaluba completed her articles in 1995, then joined Adcock Ingram Critical Care as a project accountant. In 1998 she was employed by Standard Bank as financial manager for commercial banking (Gauteng). She moved on to Johnnic in May 2000 as financial and planning manager, primarily responsible for M-Cell (now the MTN Group), then joined the Industrial Development Corporation in 2001 as senior account manager for the Media and Motion Pictures’ strategic business unit.
She is financial director of Mvelaphanda Resources. Ntsaluba has a BCom from the University of Durban-Westville and a BCompt (honours) from Unisa. She also holds a higher diploma in tax law from Rand Afrikaans University (now the University of Johannesburg). From 2001 to 2004 Ntsaluba served as an external audit committee member for the Gauteng provincial government.
Cathy Reichardt
Senior Lecturer
School of Mining Engineering
University of the Witwatersrand
Tel: +27 11 717 7419
www.wits.ac.za
Senior lecturer in Wits University’s School of Mining Engineering and biophysical programme coordinator at the Centre for Sustainability in Mining and Industry, Cathy Reichardt has 20 years’ experience in mining and mineral processing. With a BSc in geology and an MSc in hydrogeology from University College, London, she develops industry-focused courses to build non-financial risk management capacity.
She came to South Africa in 1987 and worked for a consultancy and a mining company before establishing her own consultancy, which provides water-related services to the industry. Between 2000 and 2004 she was environmental manager for AngloGold’s East and West Africa region and in 2002 and 2003 served on the reference group for the International Finance Corporation’s compliance advisory office/ombudsman function.
She is a director of the Interim Joint Venture Board appointed to implement the pooling and sharing agreement between Alexcor and the Richtersveld community and is a founder director of renewable energy company On Sun Solar Technology. She is on the judging panel for the ACCA awards on sustainability reporting.
Bridgette Radebe
MD
Makau Mining
Tel: +27 11 880 0206
www.mmakaumining.co.za
Bridgette Radebe decided to become a mining lawyer in response to the injustices of the exploitation of her community’s mineral rights and non-payment of royalties. Her business experience has encompassed a broad spectrum of commerce and industry, ranging from manufacturing to aviation. She became the first black South African deep-level, hard-rock mining entrepreneur in the 1980s.
The prime focus of her company, Makau Mining, is investment in sustainable mining ventures through community-driven involvement. Radebe is president of the South African Mining Development Association and vice-chairperson of the Minerals and Mining Development Board that advises the minister of minerals and energy. She participated in the design of the mining charter and current mining legislation and is a founder, board member and trustee of the New Africa Mining Fund. Radebe serves on the Sappi board, among others.
Sibongile Radebe
Executive Director: Corporate Affairs
Pamodzi Gold
Tel: +27 11 417 5960
www.pamodzigold.co.za
Sibongile Radebe, who served on the Pamodzi board as an independent non-executive director from December 2006, was appointed to her current post in January 2008. She came to Pamodzi from Nedbank, where she was head of group internal and external communications. She has also been director of public relations and communications at Southern Sun Hotels and spent at decade at BMW SA, where she fulfilled a range of responsibilities, from market development to government relationsÂ.
Elize Strydom
Chief Negotiator
Chamber of Mines
Tel: +27 11 498 7100
www.bullion.org.za
Dr Elize Strydom, the chief negotiator at the Chamber of Mines, is one of the few women negotiators who is making her presence felt inside South Africa’s bargaining councils. A lecturer at Unisa for 10 years, Strydom joined the Chamber of Mines in 2001 as an industrial relations manager. In 2002 she was promoted to the position of industrial relations deputy adviser.
She took over as chief negotiator at the chamber from Frans Barker in 2003. She holds a BA degree in law from the University of Pretoria and a master’s and a doctorate in law, with a specialisation in company law, income tax law and labour law, from Unisa. Apart from her position as the chamber’s chief negotiator, Strydom also represents the mining houses within Business Unity South Africa and represents business at Nedlac.
Marian van der Walt
Executive Manager
Harmony
Tel: +27 11 411 2037
www.harmony.co.za
Marian van der Walt, an executive manager of Harmony Gold Mining, was appointed to the executive committee in October 2005. She is responsible for legal, compliance, risk management, internal audit and Sarvanes Oxley compliance. Her appointment to the board came two years after she assumed the post as Harmony’s company secretary.
Van der Walt holds a BCom (law), LLB and a diploma in corporate governance from the University of Johannesburg, a higher diploma in tax from Unisa, a diploma in insolvency law from the Association of Insolvency Practitioners and Administrators and a certificate in business leadership from the Wits Business School.
She has 11 years of legal experience; she completed her articles at Routledge Modise Attorneys and was admitted as an attorney and conveyancer in 1998. She then joined Deloitte and Touche as an insolvency practitioner and administrator. She also held the positions of legal adviser, credit manager and structured finance consultant at Standard Bank of South Africa Ltd in the commercial properties division.
Patti Wickens
Environmental Manager
De Beers Group
Tel: +27 21 673 1246
www.debeersgroup.com
Dr Patti Wickens studied marine biology at the University of Cape Town and gained her doctorate in 1989. After a number of years researching the population dynamics of seals on the West Coast and their interactions with fisheries, and involvement in the development of the national fisheries policy, she joined De Beers Marine in 1996.
She researched deep-sea impacts and recovery, established partnerships with key research organisations and helped support undergraduate and postgraduate student projects. She implemented the ISO14001 environmental management system at De Beers Marine, achieving certification in 1998 — the world’s first diamond mine to be certified.
She was integrally involved in De Beers’ participation in the World Summit on Sustainable Development in 2002. She moved to De Beers corporate headquarters, where she was responsible for environmental management at mines on Southern Africa’s West Coast. Since 2004 she has headed environmental management at De Beers. In 2006 she was appointed to serve on the Council of the Cape Peninsular University of Technology and still serves on that council and the Senate.
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