Blackie Marole, Managing Director
Blackie Marole, the current Managing Director of Debswana Diamond Company is a towering business and administration figure in modern day Botswana.
For well over 30 years now, Marole has played a pivotal role in Botswana’s economy, having started his career as an Assistant Economist in the Ministry of Works, Transport and Communications way back in June 1979.
Marole has been closely involved with the diamond industry for more than 21 years before joining Debswana as Managing Director in 2004.
His unique perspective of the industry has been gained through his seven-year tenure as Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Minerals, Energy and Water Affairs.
During this time, he was intimately involved with the formulation of policy impacting on the industry, which is Botswana’s primary producer of wealth.
After leaving government for the position of Executive Director of the Diamond Trading Centre in 2000, he spent two years coordinating the company’s Executive Committee affairs, controlling staff development programmes and overseeing the company’s involvement with Kimberley Process as well as external relations generally in Southern Africa.
Marole has received many awards and plaudits for his leadership and intellectual capabilities, including a Presidential Honour bestowed on him by the President of the Republic of Botswana in 2005 in recognition of his contribution to Botswana’s political economy.
This was after Marole had graced the boardrooms of most Botswana’s important companies and parastatals.
A current Chairman of Barclays Bank, Botswana, Mr. Marole also chairs the Board of PEEPA which was created to advise government on the privatisation exercise. Few can doubt that it was Marole’s experience and a trusted pair of hands that brought him the most powerful job in Botswana’s corporate world.
In varying capacities he has also served on the boards of Botswana Power Corporation, Water Utilities Corporation, Soda Ash Botswana, BCL, Diamond Trading Company and De Beers Centenary AG, among others.
A man of the people, Marole is as comfortable among the business elite as he is among the ordinary folks in the rural areas. Scholarly and possessing a strong moral code, he is known never to take instant, knee-jerk decisions. His strategy is always to immensely inform himself by filtering through all sources before reaching a decision.
The man who heads Botswana’s most powerful and most important company was born in Semolale, Bobirwa Sub-District, in 1955.
After passing Standard 7 with flying colours and earning himself a much coveted government bursary, Marole moved to Gaborone Secondary School in 1970 where he quickly established himself as one of the country’s best brains, an endowment that saw him easily win yet another government scholarship for further education.
Marole, a humble and circumspect man, holds a Bachelors and Masters degree in economics, having studied at the University of Botswana as well as at the Williams College, Massachusetts.
Marole is married to Phelelo and they have been blessed with two children – a boy and a girl.