Sipho Nkosi
Sipho Nkosi served as an Executive Director of Exarro Resources Limited in November 2006, and become its Chief Executive Officer in September 2007. He held this position until his retirement in March 2016.
He founded Eyesizwe Coal in 2001 as the first major black-controlled coal mining company in South Africa, and was Eyesizwe’s Chief Executive until its merger with various other mining companies to create the Exarro group.
In his early career, he spent six years at Ford Motor Company in South Africa as a market analyst, and moved to Anglo American Coal as a marketing coordinator in 1986. In 1992 he joined Southern Life as Senior Manager, Strategic Planning. In 1993 he was appointed Marketing Manager: New Business Development at Trans-Natal Coal, which later became Ingwe Coal. He joined Asea Brown Boveri South Africa as Vice President Marketing in 1997, becoming Managing Director of ABB Power Generation (SA) and then Country Manager of ABB/Alstom Power.
He was appointed as an independent non-executive Director of Sanlam Limited in 2006, and has been a director of Tronox Limited since 2012. During his career, he has also served as Chairman of African Life, and a non-executive director Eqstra Holdings Limited, eXtract Group Limited, Anooraq Resources Corporation, and Great Basin Gold Limited. He is Chairman of Talent10 Holdings.
Sipho is a past President of the Chamber of Mines of South Africa (now Minerals Council South Africa), and is Vice-Chairman of the Small Business Institute. He is a member of Council of Witwatersrand University, and a director of the KZN Philharmonic Orchestra.
Sipho holds a Bachelor of Commerce (Honours) degree in Economics from the University of South Africa and a Master of Business Administration from the University of Massachusetts in the United States. He also has attended the Advanced Management & Leadership programme at the University of Oxford.
Mike Levington
Mike Levington has over 25 years experience of structuring and marketing commodity and energy transactions in London, New York and South Africa.
In 1998, he became Head of Commodities for Rand Merchant Bank, a leading South African investment bank. Within that portfolio, Mike was also responsible for managing RMB’s interest in NUFCOR International Ltd, and the Marketplace Company, a company that specialised in establishing electricity markets and managed the New Zealand and Singapore wholesale electricity markets and the New South Wales gas market. Mike established an energy practice for RMB that advised clients, including large corporates and BEE companies, which were interested in investigating opportunities in the South African energy sector.
In 2005, he became Chief Investment Officer of Worldwide African Investment Holdings (now Pembani Holdings), a leading BEE investment house that focused on the sub-Saharan energy space. He successfully implemented Worldwide’s entry into the coal-mining sector and served for a number of years on the Coal Industry Task Team, a committee representing stakeholders in the coal mining and beneficiation sector.
Mike established Navitas Holdings (Pty) Ltd in 2008 as a BEE investment and development company. Since 2010, he has been heavily involved in the reviewable energy sector, through Navitas Holdings’ investment in Kabi Solar (Pty) Ltd, which develops utility-scale solar PV projects.
Mike served as Vice Chairman of the South African Photovoltaic Industry Association (SAPVIA) from its foundation in 2010 until 2017. He has also been board member of the South Africa Renewable Energy Council (SAREC), and represented the renewable energy industry on the BUSA Energy Task Team. He was a member of Minister Joemat-Pettersen’s Ministerial Advisory Council for Energy.
Mike has a BSc (Honours) degree in Chemistry from the University of Leicester.
Leslie Maasdorp
In June 2015, Leslie Maasdorp was appointed as Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of the New Development Bank, established in 2014 by the five ‘BRICS’ nations. Based in Shanghai, China, he is responsible for the bank’s treasury, portfolio management, finance and accounting functions.
Prior to this, he occupied senior leadership roles in both private and public sector. His investment banking career over a 13-year period included four years as President of the Bank of America Merrill Lynch business for Southern Africa. From 2006 until 2010 he served as Vice Chairman of both Barclays and Absa Capital, playing a leading role in building Absa Capital into a full-service investment bank. In 2002 he was the first African to join the Advisory Board of Goldman Sachs International, and served as International Adviser for four years leading the growth and expansion of the bank into new markets.
Before moving into investment banking, he played senior leadership roles in the South African Government. After the transition to democracy in 1994, he was appointed as Special Adviser to the Minister of Labour, Tito Mboweni. In 1999 he was appointed a Deputy Director-General in the Department of Public Enterprises responsible for restructuring of state-owned enterprises, and he was instrumental in the privitisation of Telkom Limited. From 2001 to 2006, he served as Chairman of the Trans-Caledon Tunnel Authority, a state-owned entity established to finance and implement bulk raw water infrastructure.
In 2007 he was designated as a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum.
Leslie has served on the Boards of several listed and unlisted companies including as Chairman (and for a time, Chief Executive Officer) of ADvTECH Limited, and a director of Absa Group Limited, Hosken Consolidated Investments Limited, Telkom Limited and Pangbourne Properties Limited.
He holds a BA degree in Economics and Psychology from the University of the Western Cape and a Master of Science degree in Economics from the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London.
Phil Edmunds
Phil joined Navitas in January 2009, after a 12-year career in investment banking with Rand Merchant Bank. From 1996, he served in the RMB Resources and Corporate Finance divisions, advising on various corporate actions in the resources industry. At the same time, he managed RMB’s equity exposures in various small resource sector companies, principally in coal and mining exploration.
In 2002, he jointly established a team to advise clients on energy-related matters. He subsequently joined RMB’s Infrastructure Finance team in 2006, where he focused on financing projects in the power and energy sectors. During this time, he dealt extensively with clients in both the conventional power and renewable energy sectors.
Phil is a Chartered Accountant. Prior to joining RMB, he spent two years with Arthur Andersen in Perth, Australia where he was engaged in various audit and consulting assignments in Australia, Indonesia and Palestine. He served his articles with KPMG in Johannesburg, during which time he was seconded on extended audit and due diligence projects in Zambia and the United Kingdom.
He also has a BSc (Honours) in geology from the University of Cape Town, and a Graduate Diploma in Mining Engineering from Witwatersrand University.
Juliet Mxhakaza
Juliet Mxhakaza is currently the managing member of Zinanthi Property, a wholly black female owned company, with its core business being property investment, development and maintenance.
Juliet served for four years as an executive director of Amazwi Power Products, an engineering company producing mining equipment and power generation products. Prior to this, she held various management positions in the engineering, petrochemicals and retail Industries.
Before joining the private sector, Juliet worked for the Department of Education as a teacher for several years.
She has a Bachelor of Arts degree, Project Management Diploma, Management Advancement Programme, and a Masters in Business Administration from North-West University. She is currently studying towards a PhD in Leadership & Complexity.