A communicator gets all the messages right
Lesedi Ntuli
Communications Specialist at De Beers Venetia Mine
Lesedi Ntuli’s love for telling stories helped her to carry out one of the most important tasks of taking employees through a change management journey. She was asked to put together an integrated communication strategy that would engage and inform the mining employees of big operational changes, which included working in an underground mine.
The new development to extend the life of the Venetia Mine in Musina, Limpopo, involved its transition from an open pit mine to an underground mine — one of the biggest investment projects undertaken by Anglo American in recent history.
When the new operating model was implemented at Venetia, Ntuli was part of a team charged with developing an effective change communications strategy that would deliver the right information, at the right time and in the right way. One of her ideas was to use visual representations to create relatable stories, which made a big impression on the employees.
“I have learned through this project that there are many ways one can be a catalyst for change. As young people, we have a responsibility to start actively participating in conversations around how we can shape a better future and collaboratively formulate solutions that will enable us to get there. We can no longer sit back with folded arms.”
Her ideas resulted in the exteriors of some buildings on site being branded with graphics and simplified messaging about the change and how it was going to affect employees.
“If there is one particular aspect of my job that I enjoy more than anything, it is telling stories that people care about, and providing information that matters. Since joining De Beers’ Venetia mine, I have gained a better understanding of the strong linkage between social performance and reputation management. Key to my responsibilities is telling those authentic stories — through our Venetia Voice newsletter, which I spearhead — about the good we do, in ways that matter for both the organisation and our communities.”
Ntuli, who is now a Communication Specialist at Venetia mine, started her career at De Beers Sightholder Sales South Africa.
“As an organisation we are at an extremely exciting point in our growth trajectory having recently celebrated the safe closure of open-pit operations and ramping up of underground operations. I am especially excited about the continued positive impact that this project is bringing to our communities. Whether it is constructing roads, supporting medical facilities, or providing finance and mentorship to small businesses, Venetia mine is playing a crucial role in the development of South Africa and in particular, its communities.”
Outside of work, Lesedi’s great passion is community service. She works with the Christian Women’s Ministries Children’s Project, an NGO in Musina, which provides care to vulnerable children and — since she started working there — also gives the caregivers psychosocial assistance.
True leadership in a time of uncertainty and fear
Molau Sefara
Workshop Engineering Officer at De Beers Marine
At the height of the Covid-19 pandemic Molau Sefara had to lead a team working on the Mafuta Replacement Crawler — a 300-tonne, 28m long, 7.8m wide machine which forms an integral part of De Beers Marine’s AMV3 project, a dedicated diamond recovery effort.
As the project manager, Sefara also had to oversee the assembly of this complex subsea mining equipment.
The crawler is connected to a surface vessel by a 16-tonne umbilical cord. It must constantly be positioned in coordination with the vessel, despite storms that form ocean swells more than four metres high and wind speeds in excess of 166kph.
The job required daily numerical reasoning of the work undertaken — whether it was project schedules, interpretation of data packs or adjudication of suitable vendors to assist with specialist functions.
For the project to be successful, it required implementation of safe work instruction, and constant analysing of findings on formal and informal elements. The formal aspects comprised vendor selection or technical solution discussions that required getting designers and clients to reach mutual decisions. The informal aspect — the one which would really demonstrate and test Sefara’s leadership skills — was managing and motivating the teams performing this intricate work.
When the crawler project was successfully completed, he was assigned the Sea-Bed Tool overhaul project for the SSN vessel. Not only did this project deliver on its mandate, and set budgets, quality standards and time frames, Sefara was also able to successfully manage the volatility of the pandemic and still produce the required outcome.
In his career at De Beers, he has worked with various business units such as De Beers Marine Projects and Venetia Mine. The interactions and information sharing allowed him to acquire technical knowledge and skills, in combination with supervisory and management exposure.
He is now furthering his studies and engaging with peers around the world in the project management domain, which creates awareness of trends that are relevant in today’s ever-changing world.
Sefara’s leadership abilities have served him well. He is trusted by his team, and encourages its members to develop their knowledge and careers.
Reducing lighting-related injuries sparks safety innovation
Oratile Marope
Professional in Training (Electrical Engineering) at Kumba Iron Ore
South Africa has one of the highest incidences of lightning-related injuries and deaths in the world — more than 200 deaths on average each year. Worldwide about 2 000 thunderstorms occur and produce about 100 lightning strikes each second (eight million strikes each day).
Born in Morokweng village in North West and schooled in Rustenburg, Oratile Marope knew firsthand that weather forecasts for rural communities were not broadcast by television and radio stations, placing rural communities at risk.
As a top performer at Grenville High School, he entered the Eskom Science Exposition for Young Scientists with a project to develop a Portable Weather Station Device capable of forecasting weather conditions for rural areas. His project won a silver medal at the national round of the competition, after winning first prize at regional and provincial levels. This success, together with an excursion to the University of Pretoria, ignited his passion for engineering and for developing systems that benefit people’s lives.
He was invited back for the university’s EBIT programme, a four-day holiday programme designed to offer learners insights regarding all the engineering and built environment programmes available, to help them make better career choices.
In 2015 Marope registered to study Electrical Engineering at Wits University and was awarded Golden Key membership in his first year, after acquiring an average of 70% for all modules.
In 2019 he secured a bursary sponsorship from Kumba Iron Ore to continue his studies. In 2022 he completed his degree in Electrical Engineering and is currently a Professional in Training at Kumba Iron Ore.
As part of his honours degree, he conducted an investigative project to assess if machine learning is capable of predicting lightning strikes around Johannesburg’s city centre. Machine learning-based warning systems have the advantage of being relatively cheaper to commission and maintain than country-wide sensors.
Marope’s paper has been presented at the South African Universities Power Engineering Conference, and was published in IEEE (Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineering) Xplore.
For many years, South Africa had no detection or observation technology for lightning events. This was until early 2005, when the South African Weather Service installed and operated a country-wide lightning detection network with 19 sensors. The number of sensors has since been increased to 25 in an attempt to improve the accuracy and reliability of the network.
This initiative allowed the weather service to provide lightning forecast information to the public with a 90% prediction efficiency and 0.5km location accuracy. However, despite these developments, large parts of rural South Africa (and Africa at large) remain vulnerable to lightning, as they don’t receive lightning forecasts and warnings at a local level.
Mining runs in his veins
Dawie Jacobs
Mining Engineer at Kumba Iron Ore
Dawie Jacobs’s success as an innovative mining engineer comes as no surprise. He grew up in the mining town of Kathu in the Northern Cape, went to school there, and got his first job there as a blasting assistant at Anglo American’s iron ore business, Kumba Iron Ore.
Today he is the mining engineer responsible for tactical sequence planning and mine activity designs for Kumba Iron Ore’s Sishen mine.
In 2020, during his Professionals in Training (PIT) programme, Jacobs used his engineering skills to assist in solving the problem of finding an alternative to timber supports in narrow reef stopping. Timberless mining reduces fatalities, increases logistical efficiencies, reduces material handling injuries, and reduces fire risks underground — all while increasing productivity.
Jacobs’s PIT project was timberless mining, which he implemented at Tumela mine in Thabazimbi. Timber behaves badly when blasting takes place, but has been the support method of choice in mines because no other solution was practical and feasible — until timberless happened.
“My training commenced at Sibanye Stillwater’s Kloof gold mine in some of the most extreme mining conditions in South Africa. Upon receiving my Blasting Certificate of Competency in 2021, I was transferred to Anglo American Platinum’s Tumela mine, where I had the opportunity of taking charge of production sections as a miner. Six months later, as a shift supervisor, I could implement the changes that are revolutionising the conventional underground mining industry.”
In 2015 he started his Mining Engineering studies at the University of South Africa, while working as an operator at Sishen mine as part of the commissioning and operations team of Sishen’s Jig Discard Modular Plant. In 2019 he was given the opportunity to complete his BTech in Mining Engineering at the University of Johannesburg, as a bursar for Kumba Iron Ore.
“My career in mining engineering started in a rather unconventional way, as a blasting assistant at Sishen mine in 2014, where I had the opportunity to dive deep into the world of mining. I was fascinated by the scale and complexity of the operation, the wide spectrum of opportunities created inside and outside of it, and even the professionals it employed — from miners, engineers and surveyors, to doctors, accountants and psychologists. I became determined to invest my career in playing a part in this difference and finding ways to do it in a more efficient, safe and environmentally friendlier way.”
Passionate about ensuring a positive impact for all
Nthabiseng Maseko
Capital Excellence Reviewer – Anglo American Platinum
Business analyst Nthabiseng Maseko is a capital excellence reviewer who not only spends her days figuring out how best Anglo American Platinum can run its business. She is also committed to ensuring that this is done to benefit the company, the environment and the people of South Africa.
In addition, she is actively involved in making mining — a traditionally male-dominated industry — safe and accessible for women.
To do this, Maseko has to make sure each and every project includes commitments to inclusive and social performance. “This requires immense focus, to ensure our projects have a positive impact on the communities we work with.”
This continuous push to find improvement opportunities and streamlining of the capital project approval process has resulted in a 75% efficiency savings generated by her team, through scrubbing and optimisation of capital projects. These efficiency savings are then reallocated, to be spent on the right projects at the right time, to increase shareholders’ value.
“My vision of the future is one that is green, sustainable and carbon neutral. I am passionate about playing my role in ensuring that Anglo American makes strides and accelerates its transition towards being a business that aligns with the Sustainable Development Goals and meets the ESG objectives.
“I translate the company strategy with regards to ESG by ensuring that options have been considered in projects and the selected solutions are optimised to not only provide net zero impact, but take it a step further and positively impact ESG from the lens of Energy, Water, and Livelihoods. I play a pivotal role in influencing and optimising capital allocation by making recommendations to the Platinum Investment Committee and Platinum Management Committee on projects that will meet business objectives.”
Maseko places great emphasis on ensuring that the project teams have considered all options to have a net positive impact on energy and water, and have also identified local suppliers and labour to onboard into their projects. This ensures a positive impact in the company’s host communities, and keeps the company competitive and profitable so it can pay taxes, create jobs and add value to the country.
As a woman in the mining industry, she is well aware that more needs to be done to make it a safe and comfortable space for women, and she is working hard to ensure that, through her role in the Women in Mining committee under the Safety and Wellness portfolio.
“I am a strong advocate for the inclusion of women and driving greater representation of women across the business. I envision a future where women are empowered, accepted as equal contributors, and feel safe to bring their whole selves to work.”
Maseko tries to ensure that all capital projects take women into account. On the ground, this means building proper changing rooms, to meet all the requirements for an inclusive physical environment for the women in the organisation.
Chemical Engineer by day, inspirational podcaster by night
Tafadzwa Ndlovu
Chemical engineer at Anglo American Platinum
During the dark days of the Covid-19 pandemic, chemical engineer Tafadzwa Ndlovu decided to launch a podcast to talk to young people about their dreams and aspirations.
Working as a Chemical Engineer at Anglo American Platinum’s Mortimer Smelter near Northam in Limpopo, Tafadzwa launched the podcast — impact.co — to reach young people with educational and inspiring stories at a time when the future seemed so uncertain.
Three years later, the podcast is still going strong. The podcast has a listener base of about 300-500 people depending on the podcast and has three podcast streams: Impact Inspire, Impact Finance and Impact Tech with a team running them. Ndlovu has two staffers joining the venture and has also broadened the scope of the podcast. Impact Education is designed to bridge the gap between education and career success by giving young people practical advice, career guidance and insights from corporate professionals and entrepreneurs.
Leadership comes naturally to this young man, who was head boy at both Trinity House Preparatory School and St Stithians College. He also captained the 1st XV Rugby in his matric year, a year after serving as the Interact Club President. He served on the House Committee and as a sub-warden for Smuts Hall at the University of Cape Town.
After school and university, Ndlovu joined Anglo American in Group Processing in 2019 as a graduate process engineer. He then joined Platinum in 2020 as a fully qualified Chemical Engineer at the Anglo Converter Plant.
Besides his passion for his chosen career, Tafadzwa’s loftier ambition is helping young people find their voice and greatness. He is an entrepreneur who is passionate about servant leadership.
Through his podcast, he shares the stories of diverse individuals from various fields so that they can provide valuable insights to the young people listening.
“The philosophy behind impact.co revolves around the belief that everyone, including ourselves, can derive knowledge from anyone else and discover their own greatness through their willingness to listen and learn.
“Dream, learn, question and understand the fundamentals. Whether you’re in school, starting work or seeking employment, dream big, innovate and reimagine. Our country requires these qualities to move forward,” says Ndlovu.
Cash for trash – future leaders innovating to make sustainability real
Anglo American SDG Innovators
Turning the concept of sustainability into something tangible requires some real out-of-the-box thinking, and it’s precisely what four young innovators have achieved.
Anglo American innovators Donett Larkens, Zamantshali Mtshali, Ryno Strydom and Olebogeng Koatlhai were challenged to take the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) on conservation to the next level.
Their project took a long, hard look at the things our society discards in massive amounts — plastic and glass bottles, aluminium cooldrink cans, yoghurt containers and milk cartons — and how to recycle these items in a new and innovative way.
The result of their thinking is reverse recycling. Anglo American, as a result of these innovators creating an eco-platform, has partnered with Imagined Earth — a green technology and recycling infrastructure provider.
The company now uses Imagined Earth’s cutting-edge reverse vending machines (RVM) at their headquarters in Johannesburg.
By depositing plastic, metal, aluminium, glass, or yoghurt and milk containers into the RVMs, community members get a rebate for the waste inserted and that rebate is paid into their digital wallet on the Imagined Earth app. Those using the RVMs can also qualify for rewards, and circular or redeemable coupons.
The community RVM project is largely due to Circulab, an Anglo American incubator programme that encourages employees to innovate new ways of working that contribute to a circular economy.
Circulab’s funding of the community RVM project is the result of the effort and determination of the four youth innovators and has resulted in a six-month pilot project, running up until October 2023, to unpack RVM viability and usage in community schools, as well as at the company’s business unit sites.
Through innovation, dedication and forging partnerships with key players, the young innovators’ team continues to make a positive impact on Anglo American’s conservation efforts toward the company’s ESG objectives.
This is what the project means for the young innovators:
Donnet Larkens:
“Working on the project has taught me that every idea, no matter how small or how trivial, can be a catalyst for change. By voicing our idea to teach financial literacy through reverse recycling, we set off a chain of events that will hopefully uplift and create thriving communities in the areas where we operate.
“The programme significantly impacted my career outlook by fostering awareness, giving purpose, teaching skills and introducing me to a network of like-minded individuals who align with the growing demand for a sustainability-oriented outlook in how we work and live. It opened diverse opportunities and equipped me with the tools to make a meaningful contribution to a more sustainable world.”
Zamantshali Mtshali:
Working on the SDG Innovators programme opened my eyes specifically to the bigger SDG goals as to how and why business impacts and is affected by sustainability in its entirety. Our solution for the challenge we selected was unique in a way that it is aimed at solving sustainability issues faced by the communities we operate in. The programme shifted my mindset on sustainability issues and how I can have an impact on the daily material risks faced by Anglo American. The programme gave me a chance to engage purposefully with individuals from around the organisation. This project can be scaled at different levels of the organisation as well as within the South African context.”
Ryno Strydom:
“Working on this project has given me a great appreciation for just how integrated the SDGs are across our businesses, communities and lives. Purposeful sustainability innovation can have far-reaching impacts, way beyond what was originally envisioned. The programme has changed my thinking around how we can continuously integrate sustainability considerations into the way we work, live and engage with others. The programme has shifted my career outlook by exposing me to a variety of exciting developments on the sustainability front across the business, while equipping us with great skills to carry forward our purpose of re-imagining mining to improve people’s lives.”
Olebogeng Koatlhai:
“One of the key concepts we were taught during the UN Global Compact programme was that we need to fall in love with our problem. Our team’s focus on waste was a challenge that spoke to us within our different disciplines. Through the key principles of sustainability that we learned during the programme we were able to think about the impact on a massive scale. This has contributed to my ability to innovate in my own space and has given me the opportunity to introduce concepts of sustainability and agility within the project management space in which I work. Through the guidance of our various mentors, we have conceived the reverse vending machine model to be one that can be scaled and adapted in many contexts within our operations and in our communities. The sky’s the limit when it comes to how big an impact we can make through our project.”