Motswana clinches top CEO job in Canada
Brian Benza | Friday March 31, 2017 18:00
Boitumelo has been appointed president and chief operating officer (COO) of Diavik Diamonds, a mining operation in the Canadian remote Northwest region jointly owned by global mining giants, Rio Tinto (60%) and Dominion Diamonds (40%).
Announcing the appointment, Rio Tinto said Boitumelo was chosen for the job due to his extensive operational, stakeholder management and corporate strategy experience at a senior level across a number of businesses in the mining industry, including diamonds, soda ash and salts, nickel, iron ore, copper and copper by-products.
In Botswana, Boitumelo has previously worked for BCL, Botswana Ash and Debswana before joining Rio Tinto in 2011 in Palabora Mining Company South Africa for two years before Rio Tinto sold the mine to another company where he continued to work for the new owners.
He rejoined Rio Tinto just over a year ago as general manager of engineering and projects at Kennecott Utah Copper in Salt Lake City, Utah, USA. He rejoined Rio Tinto just over a year ago as general manager of engineering and projects at Kennecott Utah Copper in Salt Lake City, Utah, USA.
He will now relocate to Yellowknife, Canada from Utah and commence his new appointment at the end of July 2017. Rio Tinto Copper and Diamonds managing director operations, Nigel Steward said: “Patrick brings a wealth of experience to Diavik at an important time in its development, as we work towards safely bringing the A21 production on stream, alongside our existing underground mining operations”.
At Debswana, he worked under the industry ‘old hands’ such as head of strategy, Boyce Sebetela as well as of former finance manager and current managing director of Diamond Trading Company Botswana (DTCB), Tabake Kobedi.
Among his former bosses in Botswana include Gerry Ndlovu who is general manager at Boteti Mining, and former divisional manager at BCL and Matome Tsholetsa Malema who is board chairman at Water Utilities Corporation and former general manager of Orapa Mine.
“Patrick was always destined for big things. He is very ambitious, daring but professional. He possesses strong execution motive with profound commercial acumen at all times. His new appointment is a major achievement for Botswana and many young people who want to work outside Botswana,” Sebetela said.
At BCL, Boitumelo worked directly under former managing director Montwedi Mphathi who said he was not surprised that his protégé has managed to achieve such a feat. “He has always been a go-getter.
You need a person with his kind of aptitude in any organisation. At BCL he was doing business improvement before Debswana took him to do the same kind of job. I am proud that a Motswana has managed to scoop such a post in such a big company as Rio Tinto,” Mphathi said.
Boitumelo is joining Diavik at a time when the company is ramping up production by 14% to 7.6 million carats this year under a mine extension project. The mine is also located in the remote parts of Canada where managing stakeholder and community relations with the region’s native Aborigines would be key.
Diavik already has a socio-economic monitoring agreement with the government of the Northwest territories of Canada to formalise its commitments to provide training, employment, scholarship programmes, and business opportunities to local Aboriginal people.
Recounting her experience of working with Boitumelo, former BCL finance manager, Susanne Swaniker-Tettey said she first met Patrick when they both worked at BCL around 2004. She said what struck her at the time was his dedication to work and the way he went out his way to ensure that his team delivered as well as how well he knew the plant. “What we need to appreciate is that, it is quite difficult to break through some of these large international corporates as you tend to have people being appointed from within. H
ere you have someone who recently joined the organisation from outside, and from Africa, being appointed to such a senior position. That demonstrates the confidence that the organisation must have in him.
This to me indicates that we do have real potential in Botswana and to be honest, I do give some credit to BCL,” said Swaniker-Tettey, who is now the chief financial officer at Okavango Diamond Company.
BusinessWeek was not able to interview Boitumelo on his new appointment.