South African to lead regional port association

New PMAESA Secretary General Nozipho Mdawe.

MOMBASA: The Port Management Association for Eastern and Southern Africa (PMAESA) will get its first female secretary general following the appointment of South Africa's Nozipho Mdawe.

Ms Mdawe will lead the Mombasa-based secretariat starting July this year. She was appointed during a special council meeting held in Windhoek Namibia on May 9th, 2015.

According to PMAESA e-news letter, Ms Nozipho takes over from Franklin Mziray of Tanzania, who has held the position since March 2013 in an acting capacity following the departure of Jerome Ntibarekerwa, from Burundi, in 2012.

"She comes to PMAESA with a wealth of experience from Transnet, South Africa's giant freight logistic chain Transnet Freight Rail (TFR)," reads the letter in part.

Prior to her appointment, Mdawe was the General Manager for the Mineral Mining and Chrome Business Unit at TFR.

She had served in Operations and Human Resource over many years in various senior management positions, including as the Business Unit Executive at Transnet Port terminals, where she got the Leadership Award for the transformation of two diverse terminals.

She was promoted to the position of General Manager for the Mineral Mining and Chrome Business Unit in March 2012, where she was tasked with starting and leading a new business unit.

DECORATED MANAGER

Some of her achievements in the unit include bagging the Chief Executive Award in 2013 for efficiency improvement through the successful implementation of cost containment initiatives.

Mdawe is credited with piloting the Transnet Value Chain Co-ordinator concept in 2013, which was subsequently adopted by the Transnet Group for a number of key corridors.

She will be the eighth PMAESA Secretary General since the association's inception in 1973.

The new secretary general is a doctoral student at South Africa's Gordon Institute of Business Science.

She holds an MBA (2004) from the same institution and has since done courses on Global Executive Development Program; Advanced Strategic Management Program IRSMI Management Development Program at the University of France between 2008 and 2009 and a course in Finance for Non-Finance Program from Witwatersrand Business School in 2007.

She is described as a 'dynamically applicable management professional' with a distinctive ability to customise and personalise service delivery.

"She utilises logic to identify various strengths and weaknesses of the alternative solutions, conclusions or approaches to continuous business challenges," says the letter.

Mdawe has previously been involved in developing freight transport operational strategy, improved efficiency and minimising costs.

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