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Experience where it counts
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Charlotte Mathews
Financial Mail
Friday, July 09, 2010
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Patience and diplomacy are needed to reconcile the sometimes hotly divergent interests of government, labour and mining companies. As new CEO of the Chamber of Mines, Bheki Sibiya’s long career in business, human resources and heading various industry organisations will come in handy.
Sibiya started work at the Chamber this week, but outgoing CEO Mzolisi Diliza, who turns 61 this year, will remain with the chamber until the end of the year for a hand-over period. Sibiya will take on the position formally from January 1 2011.
Sibiya has no experience in the mining industry, but nor did Diliza when he joined the chamber as its first black CEO in 1998. Both have similar qualifications: degrees in business and MBAs. Both have worked in human resources and held senior positions at the Black Management Forum.
Sibiya says the recruitment panel was looking for leadership skills, executive experience and the ability to think strategically, engage with various stakeholders and ensure members’ interests were promoted and protected.
“I believe my previous experience, especially at Business Unity SA, where I was founding CEO, will help me to understand what needs to be done and deliver to their expectations,” he says.
He says he will spend his first three to six months in the role getting to thoroughly understand the position and where the different interests of the various stakeholder groups need to be reconciled.
Sibiya is leaving Wits Business School, which he joined as dean in December, as he says academia was very different from what he had expected.
He holds a BAdmin degree from the University of Zululand and an MBA from Western Michigan University in the US. His first job was as a graduate trainee at the Ford Motor Company, followed by a stint as a small business adviser for the Urban Foundation in Port Elizabeth. He has worked in the human resources divisions at SA Breweries, Tongaat Hulett Sugar and Transnet.
As MD and president of the Black Management Forum in 1994 and 1995, he was involved in giving input in drafting the Employment Equity Act.
With Patrice Motsepe and Attie du Plessis, he helped to merge the Black Business Council and the mainly white Business SA into Business Unity SA in 2003, and became the first CEO. He has also chaired various industrial and financial groups.
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