Power utility Eskom has announced the appointment of four new executives, with plans to add three more, as it moves ahead with repositioning itself as a significant player in a competitive energy market.
Eskom Group CEO Dan Marokane said the appointments would “further address the current business challenges and future-proof the organisation”.
The appointments are effective from November 1 and include group executive of corporate services Portia Mngomezulu, who will focus on streamlining controls and capacitating the unbundled entities to ensure an efficient corporate support service.
Nontokozo Hadebe has been appointed as group head of strategy and sustainability and will be responsible for adapting strategy and aligning the research & development focus to solve Eskom’s current and future sustainability challenges and options.
Roman Crookes has been appointed at group head of capital and is responsible for refocusing the business on driving efficiency in execution of capital projects and appropriately capacitating the unbundled entities.
Len de Villiers is the chief information and technology officer on a three-year contract to focus on Eskom’s digitalisation and use of artificial intelligence, and to bolster its cybersecurity.
“Eskom recognised that it needed to bring in some new skills at the executive level to guide its teams in the business so it can execute strategic initiatives in a competitive market faster, more efficiently, and in areas which are new to the utility,” Marokane said in a statement.
“In just five months we have closed critical positions at Eskom. I have been impressed with the volume and calibre of applicants who were willing to be associated with our brand.
“We must now more than ever remain focused on delivery and changing the way we do things, not how we are structured, to the benefit of our customers who will increasingly have a choice of energy provider as the market reforms take place. It is our intention to remain a critical player in SA evolving future energy market, and we will move at pace to recover lost ground.”
Eskom’s new strategy, released in June, sets out goals that will be executed over the next 36 months. They include improving the energy availability factor to 70% in the next 12 to 36 months and returning more than 2.5GW in capacity to the grid by March 2025; developing an executable initial pipeline of at least 2GW of clean energy projects by 2026; re-baselining the cost trajectory and improving efficiencies; resolving municipal debt; unbundling the distribution and generation divisions; and implementing a just energy transition.
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