Leadership

Assore Holdings Board

Desmond Sacco
Chairman
BSc (Hons) (Geology)

Des qualified as a geologist and joined the Assore group in 1968. He was appointed to the Assore board in 1974 and, on the retirement of his father, Guido, in 1992, was appointed Chairman and Managing Director. In that year he was also appointed Deputy Chairman of Assmang Limited and in 1999 he became Chairman of Assmang. He is a fellow of the Institute of Directors (IoD) and of the Geological Society of South Africa (GSSA).

Edward Southey
Deputy Chairman and Lead Independent Non-Executive Director
BA, LLB

Ed was admitted as an attorney, notary and conveyancer in 1967 and practiced as a partner of Webber Wentzel until his retirement as senior partner of that firm in 2006. He remains an executive consultant to the firm. He is a former president of the Law Society of the Northern province and of the Law Society of South Africa. He is a director of a number of companies. He joined the Assore board as a non-executive director in January 2009, and was appointed as Deputy Chairman and lead independent director in November 2010. He is the chairman of the group’s Audit and Risk, and Remuneration committees.
Sydney Mhlarhi
Independent Non-Executive Director
BCom, BAcc, CA(SA)

Sydney qualified as a chartered accountant in 1998 following the completion of his articles at Ernst & Young in 1997. He co-founded Tamela Holdings Proprietary Limited (Tamela) in 2008, which holds investments in various industries. Sydney has held various senior positions in the investment banking sector, including those of divisional director at Standard Bank and Chief Investment Officer of Makalani Holdings Limited, a mezzanine financier which listed on the JSE in 2005. Sydney was appointed to the board on 15 October 2012 and serves on the group’s Audit and Risk Committee. He has been appointed as a member of the Remuneration Committee.
Eric Mackeown
Independent Non-Executive Director CA (SA)

Eric is a Chartered Accountant and registered auditor with 30 years as a partner at PWC. Eric has extensive experience working with JSE listed companies, in mergers, a trustee, audit committees, risk committees, risk and investment committees and various partner roles culminating in Partner in Charge at PWC Johannesburg for 12 years. Eric was appointed to the Assore board.

Charles Walters
Chief Executive Officer
BSc (Mech) Eng, BCom, PMD

Charles qualified with a B.Sc. (Mech) Eng in 1989 from the University of Cape Town. He obtained a B.Com in 1992 from the University of South Africa and completed the Programme for Management Development at Harvard Business School in 2001. Charles began his career with Anglo American in 1991 as a Graduate Engineer and following engineering and management training at Anglo American, he joined Mondi as Marketing Manager for Exports in 1996. In 2002, he was appointed as Managing Director of Mondi Sales International, based in Dublin, Ireland. Upon returning to South Africa in 2006, he was appointed as the Managing Director of Bearing Man, a division of the Invicta Group. He was appointed deputy CEO of Invicta Holdings in 2013 and as its CEO in 2015. He joined the Assore Group on 1 April 2017 as CEO-designate and was appointed as CEO on 1 July 2017, upon the retirement of Chris Cory.

Patrick Sacco
Deputy Chief Executive Officer
BA (Indus Psych), MA (Marketing)

Pat joined the Assore group in 2003 after completing a master’s degree at the University of Colorado (USA). He was appointed a director of Ore & Metal, the selling and marketing agent for all the group’s products, in 2007, and as from 1 March 2016, has been appointed as its Managing Director. Pat was appointed as a director of Assmang in 2008, and is on the board of Oresteel Investments Proprietary Limited, the ultimate holding company of Assore. On 1 July 2015, he was appointed as a director of the International Manganese Institute (IMnI).

With effect from 1 January 2019, he was appointed as Deputy Chief Executive Officer.

Ross Davies
Chief Financial Officer
B Compt (Hons), CA(SA)

Ross qualified as a chartered accountant in 1994, following the completion of his articles at KPMG Aiken and Peat in 1992. He then worked at Sappi Limited, holding various financial positions over 14 years, including managing the accounting functions in Europe (Brussels) for two years and in South Africa for 8 years. In 2008, he joined the group as Group Accountant in 2008 and was appointed as Chief Financial Officer in February 2017 and to the board on 20 February 2018.

Bastiaan van Aswegen
Group Operations & Technical Director
BEng (Metallurgy), BCom, MEng

Tiaan obtained a BEng (Metallurgy) from the University of Pretoria (UP) in 1982 and later obtained BCom (Unisa) and MEng (UP) degrees. After working for Iscor and Samancor in production and on projects, he was appointed by Samancor as General Manager of the Palmiet Ferrochrome Operation (Mogale) in 1999. He joined Assore in 2003 as Consulting Metallurgist and is a member of the Assmang Operations Committee. In September 2012, he was appointed Group Technical and Operations Director of Assore and a director of Assmang. In June 2014, he was appointed as Chairman of Assmang subsidiary, Sakura Ferroalloys Sdn.Bhd, Malaysia.

Kieran Daly
Executive: Growth & Strategic Development
BSc (Mining) Engineering, MBA

Kieran joined Assore in 2018 having spent more than 10 years in investment banking at UBS, Macquarie and Investec. Prior to that he spent 15 years at Anglo American plc’s Coal Division (Anglo Coal) in a number of operational and commercial roles.

Bongani Phakathi
Executive: HR & Public Affairs
BCom, PG Dip IR

Bongani joined Assore in 2018, from Barclays Africa Group/ABSA. where he spent 4 years, initially as Executive Manager for Retail Business Banking and then as HR Director for Technology, Data and Security. Before ABSA, Bongani spent 6 years as the Head of HR at Growthpoint Properties. Bongani has also worked for Arcelor Mittal, the Human Sciences Research Council and South African Breweries.

Mandla Tobela
Executive: Legal
B.Proc, LLB, LLM, MBA, and Prospecting and Mining Law postgraduate certificate

Mandla was admitted as an attorney in 2000 and as a notary public and conveyancer in 2002. He joined the Assore Group in 2015 as Group Manager: Legal and was appointed Executive: Legal in 2019. Mandla has now spent almost 15 years in the mining industry having previously worked for African Rainbow Minerals and Lonmin. He is a Director of Assmang and Dwarsrivier Chrome Mine.