Tshidi Mndzebele

Tshidi is a business executive, entrepreneur, director and professional technologist engineer. Her record is one of astute leadership and management in roles in the Mining, Manufacturing and Engineering sectors. She is also the co-founder and CEO of AvenirHoldings, a built environment and infrastructure projects company. Ms Mndzebele started out studying Industrial Engineering at the University of Johannesburg where she completed a National Diploma and BTech degree. She has since added an MBA through the Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) to her list of qualifications.

Her early working years were spent at IBM, DaimlerChrysler and Standard Bank. In 2007 she joined Sasol as a Procurement and Category Specialist; and in 2010 she started a 5-year journey with Anglo American, managing a spend of R1.5bn and delivering multi-million US Dollar cost savings. She then played a lead sourcing role at Gibela-Rail Consortium, where she also co-founded the “Gibela Women Network”.

A special landmark year was 2016 when Tshidi took on the role of CEO of AvenirHoldings full time. Since taking the reigns she has grown sales by 300%, achieved the “Triple ISO Certification” for Avenir, has been a Guest Speaker at the Sasol Entrepreneurship Conference and a panelist at Finance Indaba. As a passionate nation builder and developer of people, at Avenir, Tshidi spearheaded the creation of the Avenir Skills Development Academy and the Avenir Community Development Foundation.

Her leadership style is decisive. She inspires collaboration, accountability and action. She drives constant improvement, good corporate governance and she develops those around her. Her ‘in-the-trenches’ experience as an Engineer; her enthusiastic, positive and entrepreneurial mindset and her dedication to improving her colleagues and her community make her a valuable asset wherever she goes.