Name: Vanessa Naicker
Role/Occupation: Systems Engineer at Anglo American
Country: South Africa
I managed to get a quick interview with Vanessa Naicker, a rather elusive trailblazer, who’s extremely difficult to get hold of, so you can imagine my excitement when I eventually did. It was well worth the wait and if you ever wanted to see what happens when ambitious business acumen meets innovative engineering then look no further than Vanessa Naicker. Naicker describes herself as somewhat of a veteran having successfully been part of the mining industry for more than 19 years, hence gems of experience and wisdom flowed easily from her throughout the interview.
After achieving a Metallurgical Engineering degree from University of the Witwatersrand (WITS), the fresh graduate began her journey at Sasol, Secunda. There weren’t that many female engineers in South Africa in the early 90’s, let alone black female engineers and moving to Secunda was a real eye opener in terms of harsh realities facing a person of colour living in South Africa at the time. However, the petrochemical industry was booming with growth at the same time and so provided her with many opportunities. She later joined the industrial giant, Anglo American and took her first step into the mining industry, where she was exposed to numerous geographies, mining across commodities and various technical, operational and business opportunities.
Coming from a struggle background, growing up in a poor marginalised community and being a student activist from an early age, has shaped her passion for empowering young people. This led to her involvement in Engineers without Borders - South Africa (EWB-SA) and she firmly believes that the future of South Africa lies in the hands of its youth. Coupling her technical expertise with her commercial acumen was a given when she became a non – executive director of the organisation, where she provides fiduciary support to the EWB-SA CEO and team as well as advisory support on a spectrum of topics.
In her professional capacity, she is working on attracting and retaining young people in the mining industry, an industry that has been relatively slack in mentoring and managing young professionals in recent years.
Naicker describes her experience as a woman in the engineering space as ‘jumping into the deep end and swimming hard’ and feels that her versatility and adaptability as a professional could be attributed to this determined, firm attitude.
Her valuable advice to aspiring engineers, “Often engineers feel that they need to be bound by their discipline, but understand that we are living in a messy yet connected world and being good at collaborating and integrating ideas is what is required going forward” and also always be true to yourself.
Naicker is surely a force to be reckoned with as a confident woman who can play in that special space where business and engineering meet.
Vanessa Naicker was interviewed by Dhruti Dheda, the founder of the African Steminist on behalf of Engineers without Borders- South Africa. The full interview can be found here.
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