Lambeu prides itself with staff that has wealth of experience and knowledge in their areas of expertise. With a combined experience of over 60 years, no job is too big for the Lambeu team to deliver to successful completion. In the event where certain specialist skills are required for a particular assignment, Lambeu draws on its pool of external associates that is equally experienced and knowledgeable. Below are key staff members at Lambeu:
Mashudu Victor Siphugu – Chief Executive
Mashudu Victor Siphugu is a dynamic and resolute environmental management executive, with broad general business management and leadership experience. Mashudu has over 18 years of training and capacity building; and technical consulting experience in broad environmental management and biological sciences fields (a list of key projects he worked on is available upon request).
He has also over the past twelve years been involved in management of teams of consultants and overall business management at the Bembani Group of companies. His responsibilities include development and offering of sustainability training courses to diverse clientele throughout South Africa. He has been central in positioning Bembani to offer Sustainability Training throughout the continent. Over and above his training and capacity central in positioning Bembani to offer Sustainability Training throughout the continent. Over and above his training and capacity building functions, Mashudu has been responsible for carrying out Environmental Impact Assessments, implementation of ISO 14001 EMS and Local Agenda 21, assistance with Water Use Authorisations in terms of the National Water Act, 1998.
Mashudu also acquired an extensive training experience during his employment as a lecturer at the University of Venda, where he trained undergraduate and postgraduate students on a wide range of Biological fields as well as Environmental Education field. Mashudu has also been involved in part-time lecturing the Project Management Program of the Wits School of Governance, on areas of Environmental Management and Environmental Impact Assessments.
Mashudu holds a Masters degree in Environmental Management and Analysis from Potchefstroom University, and an MSc degree in Botany from Rhodes University. Mashudu’s Masters in Environmental Management mini-dissertation involved evaluating the quality of Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) reports in Limpopo Province. Mashudu also holds certificates in Environmental Law and Environmental Education from the Centre for Environmental Management (CEM) in Potchestroom and Delta Environmental Centre in Johannesburg, respectively.
Mashudu enjoys working as part of an energetic team, to learn and impart new experiences, but also has strengths to do individual work. Mashudu possesses excellent interpersonal, communication skills and ability to maintain mutually beneficial and lasting professional relationships.
Lufuno Charles Siphugu – Agribusiness Development Advisor
Siphugu Lufuno Charles is an agricultural graduate from the universities of Venda and Pretoria respectively who started his professional career in 1996 as a Teacher at Ramaano Training Centre in Venda, Limpopo province. He served for a year and decided to further his studies fulltime with the University of Pretoria in 1997. He completed honors degree in Agricultural Extension / Rural Development in 1998 and enrolled for another honors degree in Agricultural Economics which he completed in 2002. He is currently completing his Masters degree in Agricultural Economics.
He joined the “Young Agribusiness Entrepreneurial Development Programme” of the National Emergent Red Meat Producers’ Organisation (NERPO) as a Trainee Manager in 2003. After completing the first six months of his internship programme, he was offered the position of Assistant Manager: Farmer Support & Development for the remaining six months of the internship programme. He was then permanently employed by NERPO in 2004 as the Training Manager responsible for managing the Young Agribusiness Entrepreneurial Development Programme.
He served at NERPO until June 2006 when he joined the Agricultural Research Council (ARC) as the Training Manager responsible for skills development of emerging farmers within the biofuels incubation center (Mapfura Makhura Incubator (MMI)) based in Tompi Seleka Agricultural College in Limpopo. After the organizational restructurings in 2007, he was offered the position of the Business Development Manager responsible for project management, skills development, business development and marketing. Mr. Siphugu also acted as Chief Executive Officer for the period May 2009 – February 2010 until he was officially appointed as CEO in March 2010. He is currently responsible for strategy development as well as overseeing the overall day to day operations of the company.
Throughout his career, Mr. Siphugu was involved in the management of development programmes with emphasis on project management, skills and market development support. He interacted with various stakeholders from both the public and private sectors in the quest to provide sustainable livelihoods to the rural communities’ country wide. As a Business Development Manager, he interacted mostly with SMMEs and land reform projects of Limpopo province and provided strategic support to ensure the viability of the business enterprises. To date, more than two hundred farmers of Limpopo are considered established SMMEs supported by MMI under the leadership of Mr. Siphugu.
Built-up from his academic background and work experience, he is now amongst others most competent in project management, policy analysis, SMME development, budget development and control, report writing, providing strategic management to subordinates and overseeing the overall day to day operations of the entire organization. His interactions with different people of different levels made him open minded and more passionate to interact with people of different personalities. He is positive that he is capable of delivering every task at hand in the management level and is more passionate about the management of agricultural projects in the sphere of rural development.
Agribusiness Incubation and Mentoring including but not limited to:
- SMME development;
- New venture creation;
- Virtual Incubation;
- Tenant Incubation;
- Share Facilities/Equipments;
- Market Access;
- Technology Transfer; and
- Financial Services.
Training and Capacity Building:
- Technical Skills Training on Crop and Animal Production; and
- Business Skill Training on Financial Management, Record Keeping and Marketing.
Takalani Pascal Siphugu – Business Development Advisor
I currently hold the position of Head of Alternative Distribution at Mutual and Federal Insurance Company. Prior to that, I was Regional Manager at Absa Insurance with responsibility for a business generating in excess of R600m gross written premiums across personal and commercial product lines. In this role, I oversee all aspects of the operation of an insurance business either through SLA or directly through my management team responsible for different line functions. I have been in this role for 2 and half years and have been nearly six years as a senior manager in large insurance companies. Over these years, I have developed deep knowledge of the insurance market and have a good operational and first-hand experience of the entire value chain from claims management, sales, underwriting, channel development and general admin. Being responsible for the full operation has developed deeper appreciation and a keen eye for critical value drivers and aspects that create underwriting margin. My key achievement in this role has been starting this region from scratch and setting out processes and systems and creating a high performance business which exceeds objectives set.
Although technically competent in all areas, I consider my core competence to be in the area of business development/distribution and I have deep knowledge of how the different delivery channels ( UMA’s, Tied agents, emerging and national brokers, bank assurance, Affinity partnerships and white labeling arrangements) operate and the legislative requirements. My passion for distribution coupled with strong networking and relationship building skills and operations experience puts me at good stead for a role at a general management level. I am a strong leader with well developed people and inter-personal skills. My time as a senior manager has developed a good blend of strategic orientation and strong operational efficiency. I consider myself a strong system thinker who is able to understand and operate at both the high level strategic level but maintains operational efficiency. It is this rare skill that I believe prepares me adequately for the higher role at executive. I have experience with big budgets and proven track record of pushing up start up insurance ventures to full development. In my previous role, I had responsibility for the development of products to respond to different market segments and believe this experience would assist me hugely in my next role. I have good understanding of partnerships and matrix relationships which I think has become a norm in modern day business. I have a good education, clear mind, strong personal attributes and understand the complexity and have the experience of operating in a large corporate environment.
© 2017 Lambeu. All Rights Reserved | Design by EmjaycomConsulting.