Staff Reporter
Windhoek-Rössing Uranium Limited’s managing director Werner Duvenhage has confirmed that Liezl Davies has been appointed as the mine’s general manager of operations. Davies is the first female professional to hold the position in the mine’s more than 41 years of operations.
She will be taking over from Martin Tjipita, as from February 1, who will be leaving Rössing to take up a senior executive role of leading the Namibian operations of an international company involved in the resources sector.
Davies, a born Namibian, studied industrial psychology, specialising in human resources management, and started her career at TransNamib, and then joined Namdeb and De Beers Marine in various human resource-related areas, specifically focussing on training and development, organisational effectiveness, performance management and strategic planning.
She joined Rössing in July 2012 as manager: organisational effectiveness and in 2013 became the manager: business improvement.
In August 2014 Davies was tasked to take up the manager: processing role to lead the plant and processing department, with the aim to develop optimal processing operational plans and guide safe, efficient operations.
Davies moved to her current role of manager: productivity in October 2016 where she was responsible to oversee the portfolio of improvement work that is designed to achieve sustainable production.
With over 20 years’ experience in the mining industry, Davies is extremely passionate about making a difference and contributing to people’s lives in a positive manner.
Rössing Uranium is part of the Rio Tinto Group which secured the rights to the Rössing deposit in 1966. Ten years later, in 1976, Rössing Uranium, Namibia’s first commercial uranium mine began operating and celebrated its 40th year of production in 2016. Rio Tinto is a leading international mining group headquartered in the UK, combining Rio Tinto plc, a London and NYSE listed company, and Rio Tinto Limited, which is listed on the Australian Securities Exchange.
Rio Tinto’s business is finding, mining and processing mineral resources. Major products are aluminium, copper, diamonds, energy (coal and uranium), gold, industrial minerals (borax, titanium dioxide, salt) and iron ore. The group’s activities span the world but are strongly represented in Australia and North America, with significant businesses in South America, Asia, Europe and Africa.