André de Ruyter: What you need to know about Eskom’s outgoing silver fox

André Marinus De Ruyter was born in Pretoria, South Africa, in 1971 and celebrated his 50th birthday in 2021.

De Ruyter’s family life

While there’s scant public information about the now former CEO, apart from a Wikipedia entry, Eskom’s silver fox is apparently a happily married man with three children.

The family reportedly lives in Johannesburg, although we cannot confirm if they are affected by rolling black outs like the rest of us.

But given the family’s low profile, it is safe to assume they are plebs either living on a hospital line or with solar power.

We also know that De Ruyter is a Volvo man, who’s not a afraid to roll up his sleeves and clean his own car.

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The former CEO completed school in Pretoria, and went on to get a Bachelor of Arts degree at the University of Pretoria.

Later, he gained a Bachelor of Civil Law certificate and a Bachelor of Law degree from the University of South Africa, followed by a Master of Business Administration (MBA) degree at the Nyenrode Business Universiteit in the Netherlands.

Achievements

De Ruyter came from the petrochemical industry, where he worked over two decades.

Apart from South Africa, he has international experience after working in several countries, including Nigeria, China, Angola, and the USA, to name a few.

He has served in the following positions:

• General Manager of Sasol Ltd;
• The Senior Executive at Sasol Ltd;
• The CEO Designate and the Executive Director of Nampak Ltd; and
• The Chief Executive Officer of Nampak Ltd.

Net worth

De Ruyter’s net worth is estimated around $10 million, amassed from his work as CEO, director, and businessman over the years.

He was one of 142 candidates presented for the job of Eskom CEO, and took a considerable pay cut to lead the embattled parastatal.

ALSO READ: Power cuts are a necessary evil, and sacking De Ruyter won’t fix that

De Ruyter’s tenure at Eskom

De Ruyter’s three year tenure at Eskom, apart from being associated with the worst load shedding in the country’s history, had some gains.

He targeted coal theft syndicates still running their operations from various Eskom plants, much to the displeasure of Department of Mineral Resources and Energy Minister Gwede Mantashe, who said De Ruyter was like a “policeman” when it came to rooting out criminals.

There was also a scaling-up of planned maintenance, which had been neglected, to the detriment of the country’s energy supply and that of other countries, notably Botswana, Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia, eSwatini Zimbabwe, that depend on the now powerless parastatal.

But the planned maintenance also came under strain, as the old, ageing infrastructure and unpredictable breakdowns continued to exacerbate strained power supply.

Under his tenure, most notably, the shift away from coal to renewables began to take off rather swiftly.

He was pivotal to the formation of the Just Energy Transition Partnership. He was also vocal about ensuring the shift did not disadvantage workers dependent on the coal industry for survivial.

De Ruyter has agreed to stay on at Eskom until March next year, which coincides with the retirement of the power utility’s COO Jan Oberholzer, who is due to leave the industry in April.

Compiled by Narissa Subramoney

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