Pursuant to the departure of the former GCE Mr Phakamani Hadebe at the end of July, 2019, the Board set out to commence the recruitment process to find a replacement.
In line with Eskom policies, the recruitment process took two forms, a head hunting process and a public advert placement for external and internal participation.
The following process was followed:
1. The search agency received a list of 142 potential candidates, including eight Eskom employees.
2. First shortlist of 17 individuals was formulated and interviewed by the agency. From that 17, eight potential candidates withdrew as they did not wish to make themselves available.
3. The Board interviewed 6 candidates
4. Four candidates were requested to undergo competency tests
5. The final interview process was undertaken, after which the panel ranked three candidates from six.
6. After further interviews a list of three candidates, with the indication of a preferred candidate was submitted to the shareholder in terms of the Memorandum of Incorporation (MOI) between Eskom and the government.
6. The president appointed a team of cabinet ministers to consider the Boards recommendations
7. The Ministers concurred with the Board’s recommendation.
Accordingly, I am pleased to announce Mr Andre de Ruyter as the new Group CE. he will commence duties at eskom on 15 january, 2020.
He is currently CEO at Nampak, the continent's largest packaging company.
A holder of various qualifications, including an LLB and MBA, the Pretoria-born Mr De Ruyter is an accomplished CEO with deep and wide experiences in creating and managing highly-performing businesses.
He spent more than 20 years with petrochemicals group Sasol in a number of senior management roles that gave him significant global exposure in the energy and chemicals industries. His portfolio included overseeing work in the US, Nigeria, Angola, Mozambique, Germany and China.
I would like to thank Mr de Ruyter for not only accepting this position at a difficult time for eskom, but, given Eskom current financial situation, also agreeing to a lower compensation package than the position currently pays.
He will work with the Eskom board, management and the government to spearhead the re-organisation of Eskom, which includes the separation of Eskom into three entities: generation, transmission and distribution, as well as the creation of Eskom Holdings.
As things stand I am reassured that there is committed and capable leadership at Eskom in the Chief Financial Officer (Calib Cassim), the Chief Operating Officer (Jan Oberholder), the Group Executives for Generation, Transmission and Distribution (Bheki Nxumalo, Segomocco Scheppers and Monde Bala), the Group Executive for Human Capital (Ms Elsie Pule) amongst others, who have all been working tirelessly under the leadership of Mr Mabuza over the past few months. I am confident that he will lead a committed and capable management team that will work with him and the Board to take Eskom forward. I would like to thank the whole leadership team, including the board and management, for holding fort in these difficult and challenging times.
I am grateful to the Board of Nampak for agreeing to release Mr Ruyter. To us this again is a show of partnership approach between all stakeholders to make any and every contribution towards a successful and sustainable turnaround of Eskom. Solving our current problems as a nation indeed does require a partnership approach and I am more than encouraged that we are all working as partners with everyone doing their part to help.
Congratulations to Mr De Ruyter, and I offer him my best wishes as he takes the helm of this important national asset.
The government is working to bring back the engineering skills and experience of competent and ethical professionals, that have been lost to Eskom over the years due to state capture and other incidents of malfeasance. We remain committed to strengthening the Board with the necessary skills set - this is being prioritized and further announcements will be made in this regard in due course.
Enquiries;
Sam Mkokeli
Cell: 082 084 2051
