Suspended Exxaro CEO Nombasa Tsengwa quits with immediate effect

Suspended Exxaro CEO Nombasa Tsengwa resigned with immediate effect on Wednesday, 5 February after fewer than three years at the helm of the coal miner. 

Daily Maverick has obtained Tsengwa’s resignation letter, dated 5 February 2025, in which she cites being formally charged by Exxaro for conflict of interest and a breach of duty as one of the reasons for her immediate resignation. She has also resigned as a board member of Exxaro.

As a member of Exxaro’s social, ethics and responsibility committee on the board, Tsengwa would have had to submit her resignation to Geoffrey Qhena, the company's board chair, who would accept or reject it. 

Exxaro confirmed Tsengwa resignation on Thursday, 6 February to its shareholders on the JSE’s stock exchange news service. Exxaro’s finance director, Riaan Koppeschaar, has been appointed acting CEO.

Qhena said Exxaro has accepted Tsengwa’s resignation.

“We will initiate an expedited process to identify and appoint a new CEO who will continue to drive growth, excellence, and innovation within our business. The board and management team will continue to drive Exxaro’s strategy of maximising the value of its current assets and continuing its measured and responsible transition into a diversified minerals and renewable energy solutions business that will thrive in a low-carbon future,” said Qhena in a statement.

Tsengwa’s resignation follows days after she was unsuccessful in court challenging her suspension by Exxaro. The challenge was overturned and she was ordered to pay costs of the legal action. 

Read more: High court dismisses Exxaro CEO’s urgent application against suspension by board

Exxaro mandated law firm ENS to conduct an investigation into Tsengwa after some of the company’s employees accused her of corporate bullying and instilling a culture of fear at the company. 

On 4 December 2024, Exxaro placed Tsengwa on “precautionary suspension” pending the outcome of an independent investigation into allegations related to workplace conduct and governance issues. 

In her resignation letter, Tsengwa said that on 3 February 2025 she was issued with a charge sheet by Exxaro, in which she was accused of a “conflict of interest and breach of duty of good faith”. 

The charges, according to Tsengwa, are related to her “late boyfriend” and her allegedly advancing business interests and favours to him when she was the Exxaro executive. 

“As at the 3rd of February 2025, I received a charge sheet, which accuses me of: conflict of interest. [This is] underpinned by gross misconduct whereby I am accused of advancing business interests of my late boyfriend’s company; specifically, I am accused of advancing payment of his companies’ invoices by Exxaro, gave phone numbers of Exxaro employees to him, and facilitated purchase of 150 books from his company by Exxaro,” Tsengwa’s resignation letter reads.

“Breach of duty of good faith, underpinned by instructing my then driver to assist my late boyfriend carry out his errands.”

Tsengwa also detailed the evidence that Exxaro and ENS had allegedly obtained to support the charges against her. She said the evidence is largely based on WhatsApp conversations between her and her late partner.

“All these allegations and their printed-out evidence of many pages are derived from more than a 1,000 WhatsApp private messages between myself and my late boyfriend from June 2023 till recently,” she wrote.

“It is clear to me that a narrative that is not so clear to me from these romantic WA [WhatsApp] messages has been somehow created by the investigators hell-bent to prove my ‘breach’ of Exxaro policies. It is clear to me that I must be defenestrated and labelled as corrupt as I fly through the window, and as if that is not enough, I must face this humiliating process whereby my private and intimate information is aired without shame and no regard to my dignity. Defenestration alone is a sentence and add humiliation to that is inhuman.”

Tsengwa said the ENS investigation against her had morphed from focusing on her conduct of allegedly bullying Exxaro employees and creating a toxic culture of fear, to focusing on her private life and her “late boyfriend”. 

“Based on the way this investigation has been conducted, including the inhumane interrogation I went through at the ENS offices 2 weeks ago, just demonstrates that there is a predetermined outcome which I refuse to subject myself further to,” she said. 

This had informed her decision to resign as CEO and director with immediate effect. DM