Zanele Benya | Project Manager
IPP Office

Zanele Benya is a Senior Project Manager and PMI-certified Project Management Professional with over 15 years’ experience delivering complex energy and infrastructure programmes across South Africa’s power sector. Her career spans nuclear, coal, IT and renewable energy, with deep expertise across the full project lifecycle. She currently serves as a Project Manager in the IPP Office hosted by the Development Bank of Southern Africa, where she manages national IPP procurement programmes on behalf of the Department of Electricity & Energy. Her work includes bid process design, preferred bidder appointment, commercial and financial close, and construction oversight. Notably, she has successfully led five projects to Commercial Close under South Africa’s first Battery Energy Storage Programme Previously, Zanele held senior energy roles at Eskom and Siemens South Africa, where she managed large-scale generation and outage projects, complex EPC contracts under FIDIC and NEC, and stakeholder engagements across major power stations including Medupi and Koeberg Nuclear Power Station. She is widely recognised for her strong governance approach, risk management capability, and ability to deliver energy projects in highly regulated environments.