Vedanta Resources PLC parent company to Zambia’s Konkola Copper Mines and Vedanta Zinc International SA had its regional Chief Executive Deshnee Naidoo make it to the top 100 list of women in mining (WIM). Deshnee features on No.73 in the latest Women in Mining (WIM) magazine released last week. Deshnee took over the Zambian operation succeeding Steven Din.
“When your existing mining industry has historically depended on a large workforce of unskilled or semi-skilled people, mechanization and digitisation are seen as threats. We have to ensure that these changes are understood as opportunities for up-skilling and development, allowing employees to do their jobs more effectively. We have to make sure we do not leave people behind,” Naidoo said.
Deshnee Naidoo’s journey from what she describes as a “hard background” to the CEO’s office began in 1994, when she was awarded the JCI/Anglo Platinum bursary to do a BSc in Chemical Engineering in Durban, South Africa.
She stayed at Anglo for nearly 20 years, at one point managing two commodities (thermal coal and manganese) across three geographies (South Africa, South America and Australia) as CFO Anglo American Thermal Coal. At Vedanta for the last four years, Deshnee is in the middle of one of the biggest challenges of her
Deshnee took the Gamsberg project from unexplored asset to fully operational zinc mine. It’s a journey that has veered through “quite literal blood, toil, tears and sweat” and back again. But on the verge of producing the first truckable concentrate, it all feels worthwhile.
For Deshnee, mining isn’t just a career, it’s a life-changing opportunity for herself, her country and region. “We are not a sunset industry or a historical oddity. Mining can and indeed does make significant contributions to a host country’s GDP, to employment, to industrialization.”
Source: Women in Mining (WIM)
