Dr. Tsakani Mthombeni

Executive: Sustainable Development Implats

Dr Mthombeni is Executive: Sustainable Development at Implats, a PGMs mining company based in South Africa with operations in Zimbabwe, South Africa and Canada, where he is responsible for developing and implementing the Group’s Sustainable Development strategy. Prior to this role he was Vice President: Group Head of Carbon and Energy at Gold Fields, leading Gold Fields’ energy management and climate change strategy and supporting its execution across eight gold mining operations in four countries – South Africa, Ghana, Australia and Peru. Dr Mthombeni also spent five years sourcing and funding pre-commercial new energy technologies in South Africa as the General Manager: Energy, at the Technology Innovation Agency. Mthombeni was also with Anglo American as group Senior Energy Engineer, implementing energy management initiatives across the diamonds, coal, iron ore and platinum assets. Mthombeni also worked at South Africa’s power utility, Eskom as a technical specialist, following a research officer stint at the University of Cape Town. Dr Mthombeni studied BSc at the University of Cape Town (South Africa), then Clarkson University, Potsdam, New York, USA for MSc and PhD, both in electrical engineering. He served as an external examiner at the Universities of Pretoria, Cape Town and Stellenbosch University. He was the Chair of the Energy Intensive Users Group (EIUG) of South Africa, with membership contributing just over 20% to the GDP and employing ca700 000 people in South Africa. He also served on the Presidential Task Team on Eskom Sustainability (under President Ramaphosa, 2018/2019) and was a co-ordinator of the Eskom Ministerial Technical Review Team (under the late Minister Pravin Gordhan, 2019). Dr Mthombeni sits on the Eskom Holdings Board. An avid runner who completed nine iconic Comrades marathons (annual 90 km single day road running race in South Africa).