Africa’s mining story is changing. The sector’s pivot to critical minerals, digitalisation and local beneficiation is opening leadership opportunities beyond traditional frontlines, and a growing group of women are taking them. They’re not only CEOs and MDs; they’re country presidents for global miners, founders of high-growth resource firms, and leaders of the investment platforms that will shape who benefits from the energy transition.
Below are ten women, current CEOs, country heads and managing directors, whose leadership is already shifting strategy, operations and how the industry engages with communities across Africa. This list focused on verifiable, high-impact roles: chief executives of large miners and major mining subsidiaries, heads of influential investment vehicles and pioneering founders running sizeable operations on the continent.
1. Nompumelelo “Mpumi” Zikalala — Chief Executive Officer, Kumba Iron Ore (South Africa)
Mpumi Zikalala took the helm of Kumba Iron Ore, one of South Africa’s largest listed miners, on 1 January 2022 and quickly set a pragmatic, performance-first agenda. Her background (more than two decades across De Beers and Anglo American group companies) gave her credibility to push investments into processing and value-capture projects while navigating tough logistics conditions in South Africa. Under her watch Kumba moved to prioritise higher-margin premium ores and committed to large processing upgrades, a clear strategic shift from a volume-first model toward value and resilience. Her leadership style is operational and investor-focused: restructure to match rail and port realities, protect margins, and invest where the returns are predictable.
2. Mfikeyi Makayi — Chief Executive Officer, KoBold Metals Africa
Mfikeyi Makayi leads KoBold’s African operations, overseeing the company’s AI-driven exploration strategy across Zambia and neighbouring jurisdictions; her background in mining and engineering and experience at large-scale African copper operations has positioned her to translate machine-learning discoveries into practical exploration programmes. Under her leadership KoBold Africa has emphasised ethical, partnership-led exploration — working with host governments, local communities and international partners to fast-track critical-minerals projects while stressing transparency and responsible practice. Makayi’s role is notable for bringing high-end data science into African ground truthing: converting legacy datasets and remote sensing into actionable targets, accelerating timelines from target identification to field validation and helping to unlock copper and other battery-metal prospects that are vital to the global energy transition.
3. Albertinah Kekana — Chief Executive Officer, Royal Bafokeng Holdings (South Africa)
As CEO of Royal Bafokeng Holdings (RBH), the investment arm of the Bafokeng nation, Albertinah Kekana oversees one of the continent’s most consequential community-driven mining investment pools. RBH’s remit is to convert mineral wealth into diversified, long-term financial capital for a community that sits on platinum-rich land. Kekana’s leadership blends financial discipline with social purpose: she’s focused on local industrialisation, direct investment into beneficiation and using RBH’s balance sheet to catalyse regional jobs and procurement. That makes her role different from a commodity CEO’s, it’s a hybrid of sovereign stewardship and commercial execution.
4. Naseem Banu Lahri — Managing Director, Lucara Botswana (Karowe Mine)
Naseem Lahri’s appointment as Managing Director at Lucara Botswana was historic: she became one of the youngest, and among the first Motswana women to run a major African diamond operation. Lahri runs Karowe, a mine that has repeatedly produced some of the world’s largest and highest-value diamonds, and she has used local leadership to accelerate workforce localisation, strengthen supply chains and improve community linkages. Her operational stewardship is a case study in how national talent pipelines can be built into technical roles and senior operations management.
5. Marie-Chantal Kaninda — President, Glencore DRC (Democratic Republic of Congo)
Marie-Chantal Kaninda heads Glencore’s DRC operations at a moment when Congo is the pivot point for global copper and cobalt supply chains. As President of Glencore DRC and chair of joint-venture boards such as Kamoto Copper Company, Kaninda manages political-risk heavy assets and is driving investment to expand midstream capacity and technology adoption. Her role is intensely geopolitical: securing permits, negotiating with state partners, and rolling out safety and digital-tracking technologies that are now standard in DRC critical-minerals projects. That combination of stakeholder diplomacy and operational oversight is central to scaling African contribution to the energy transition.
6. Bridgette Motsepe Radebe — Founder & CEO, Mmakau Mining (South Africa)
Bridgette Radebe is widely recognised as one of South Africa’s earliest Black female mining entrepreneurs. As founder and CEO of Mmakau Mining, she moved from a single-mine entrepreneur to a diversified mining group with stakes in platinum, coal and gold, and a portfolio that includes contracting, shaft sinking and mining services. Radebe’s impact is less about a single asset and more about reshaping ownership structures: she’s been a leading voice on Black industrial participation, small-scale mining development and industry transformation policies. Her profile shows how entrepreneurial leadership can expand inclusion across the value chain.
7. Elizabeth Rogo — Founder & Chief Executive Officer, Tsavo Oilfield Services (Kenya)
Elizabeth Rogo leads Tsavo, a Kenyan firm originally focused on energy services that has expanded into broader subsurface and resource-sector support across East Africa. Rogo’s firm stands for a new generation of African-owned technical service providers: she builds partnerships with international OEMs, invests in local content and uses engineering capability as a route to capture a larger share of project spend inside Africa. Her model is especially relevant for miners and energy projects across East Africa that need dependable, locally-owned service partners as projects scale.
8. Angela List — Chief Executive Officer, Nguvu Mining / Adamus Resources (Ghana)
Ghana is a hotbed for mid-tier mining entrepreneurs and Angela List has emerged as a strong, vocal CEO in that space. Running Nguvu Mining and linked operations, she has promoted transparent procurement, local skills development and responsible small- to medium-scale mining operations. Ghana’s mining sector depends on this tier to stabilise supply to midstream processors and to create meaningful local employment; List’s work demonstrates how home-grown CEOs can professionalise smaller operators while meeting the compliance expectations of larger buyers and financiers.
9. Zanele Joyce Matlala — Chief Executive Officer, Merafe Resources
A chartered accountant (CA(SA)) who rose through senior finance roles to become Merafe’s CEO in June 2012, Matlala combines financial discipline with long-term corporate stewardship at one of South Africa’s important ferrochrome producers. Her leadership has prioritised operational resilience, balance-sheet rigour and transparent governance over acquisitive growth, while championing supplier development and community engagement to protect margins in a cyclical market. Visible across industry forums and boardrooms, Matlala acts as a bridge between corporate capital and public-sector development finance, using Merafe’s platform to support local procurement, skills development and broader transformation objectives.
10. Veronica Bolton Smith — Founder & CEO, Critical Minerals Africa Group (CMAG)
Veronica Bolton Smith runs CMAG, an investor-facing platform that connects capital with African critical-minerals projects and pushes a pragmatic agenda on beneficiation and industrial policy. She is not the CEO of a producing miner, but her role, convening investors, governments and miners around value-chain strategies, is exactly the kind of leadership the continent needs to turn resource wealth into manufacturing and jobs. CMAG’s work (policy advisory, investor roadshows and partnerships) helps reshape the conversation from extraction to industrialisation.
Why this collection matters
Ten is not a magic number. What matters is the trend: women are increasingly visible in the C-suite, running operations and shaping the strategic partnerships that determine the pace and quality of mining growth in Africa. Some of these leaders run large, listed miners; others head country operations for global groups; some lead investment platforms or pioneering domestic service firms. Combined, they move policy and practice: pushing localisation, insisting on technology adoption, and signing the deals that control how downstream value is captured.
Two realities stand out:
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Scale and diversity of roles matter. African mining leadership is not yet gender-balanced at the very top of the largest listed miners, but influence is real and growing through subsidiaries, national operations, sovereign-linked investment companies and entrepreneurial founders.
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Transformation is operational and political. Whether it’s Kumba’s processing investments or Glencore’s DRC expansions, female leaders are at the table where capital, community and state intersect. That’s the power lever for the continent.