Maenge Shipiki-Kali

Maenge Shipiki-Kali
Vessel Manager, De Beers Marine Namibia

I have been vessel manager for the Debmar Atlantic and the Grand Banks mining vessels for the last three years.  It is a job that I really love.  I have grown tremendously in this position and I am more confident in my abilities and what I can achieve as an engineer and manager. 

I have been with the De Beers Family of Companies for fourteen years.  After I graduated from the University of California at Berkeley, I joined Namdeb.  I chose to join De Beers because at university it was the only recognisable African global company. 

I consider my initial years as the time I spent building strength of character and defining the type of engineer that I wanted to be.  Most importantly I had to build relationships with people who have come from completely different cultures and background to mine.  People that I thought I did not have much in common with.  After so many years in the same industry, I can stand my ground, and I can also coach and mentor others.

As a child I was always fascinated by the science of how things work, and how they all fit together in a technical way.  I chose engineering because it allows me to dream about endless possibilities, I can work in an office with highly creative and motivated people and when I get bored I can go out to sea and interact with the team that makes it happen.
 
When I first joined the Family of Companies, I used to think it was unrealistic to expect to stay more than 5 years at the same company.  But 14 years later I fully appreciate why people can stay with the same company for so long. 

The job is simply never the same.  In every position that I have held from being a commissioning engineer, to managing a production plant, to being a team leader on a project, to being metallurgical superintendent, to my current role as a vessel manager; the responsibilities have all been different in their requirements. 

I love the fact that I can work in Namibia, Botswana, South Africa and Canada.  In 2001 I got a great opportunity to go and run the Victor project sampling campaign.  It was a truly international team that was involved - Canadians, Namibians, South Africans, Australians and Brazilians.  I was in charge of the sampling plant, and it was very exciting to work with so many people from such diverse backgrounds. 

In 2000 Chris Rowan (one of the great leaders in the process engineering discipline in my opinion), invited me to go and work for him for a two year period in Johannesburg at CHQ.   My job required me to travel to all the mines in South Africa, Botswana and Namibia, and I came to appreciate the wealth and skills that the Family of Companies has.  I was very appreciative that I was exposed to some really talented and highly skilled individuals. 

I never dreamt that I would one day dive to 120m with a small submarine to study the seabed., but in 2005 De Beers Marine Namibia got a submersible to study the seabed around Atlantic 1 in order to understand the marine environment where we are mining.  I was granted the opportunity to dive with the Jago, and of course I spent more time simply fascinated with the sea life than with the mining area!  I consider myself very fortunate to have had such an experience.

Because of the exposure that I have had to some really high calibre exceptional people, I have grown more as a person.  Last year for instance I spent 6 months in Cape Town whilst two of the vessels that I am responsible for were undergoing extensive maintenance work.  I was inspired by the De Beers Marine INPORT team which was carrying out the repairs.

I have never come across a group of people who had such an uncompromising stand on quality, a work ethic which is just difficult to match, a willingness to teach others and to top it all they are all really decent human beings who seem to enjoy working together.

There is also a Chief engineering officer, Ionel Popa, who works on one of the vessels.  He is very committed to his career as an engineer.  He is 57 and seem to be on a continual path of learning and forever mastering his engineering craft.  That is inspirational for me, and I am striving to become a great technical leader in whatever environment I am in.

There is no question in my mind that there are very few companies that spend so much money on developmental and leadership courses.  I am appreciative of the idea, that my environment continuously requires me to assess my strength and weaknesses.  And once identified the company enables me to get the necessary courses or technical exposure.  There are very few times when I ever feel like I am not being stretched.

Because a lot of the people who work for De Beers have been with the company for many years, I feel privileged to learn from them.  I have grown tremendously as a confident professional and hopefully I can utilise the skills that I gain in my professional life to good use in my community.

At De Beers there is a great deal of tolerance and compassion – it’s a company that embraces different people and cultures with open arms.  The values that are required from it’s leaders are the values that I naturally live by.  Building trust, transparency, good relationships and leaving a positive legacy in those communities in which we operate are really important to me.  

My children are Wetu, my oldest son who is turning 13 this year (he is entering the teenage phase and seem to think he knows everything), Ndeshi is turning 11 this year (he is a real bookworm and loves snakes!), and madam Kandali who is turning 2 this year.  She is the boss of the house! 

I am a well confessed bookworm, but with a very active toddler I hardly get time to even finish a magazine. 

Photography is a hobby that I just love because it allows me to look at the world with wonder.  Working for a global company such as De Beers enables me to travel to South Africa, Botswana, Canada and London.  I use these opportunities to use my old faithful manual Pentax camera to capture the vibe in these places.

Hiking is another hobby that I have and fortunately, Namibia is a great country with beautiful hiking trails.  I have hiked the Fish River canyon and hope to take on other challenging trails.

I naturally love mentoring and coaching younger people who are still trying to find their feet in the corporate environment or just young people that I encounter socially. 

I am a social activist at heart and I have an inherent strong sense of justice.  Having grown up poor with a mother who was a housekeeper and a father who was a factory worker, I have always been inspired by their work ethic and the commitment that they had to their employers.  And I have always held the belief that employers must surely reward their employees by improving the quality of their lives.  Especially when it came to programs and scholarships that provided education. 

As individuals and companies we must strive to assist communities to break their cycle of poverty.  I strongly relate to the values of leaving the communities in which we operate in a better state than we found them.  Building real trust and ensuring that we are transparent in our interactions with the communities.  Our intentions must embody the purity of diamonds.

One of the advantages of working for the De Beers Family of Companies is that the company creates an environment for personal growth, exposure to high calibre working colleagues and I am especially appreciative of the fact that the environment embraces diversity. 

Being a woman and black it is important for me to work in an environment where I am empowered and where I can thrive as a professional.  I feel that De Beers is one of the best companies to work for and I am very proud to be part of it.