Simon Baloyi brings new energy to Sasol

SECUNDA – Mr Simon Baloyi believes that no matter how bleak things appear at the moment, it can still change for the better.

Growing up in Suurman near Hammanskraal, a small area with its dusty roads, has taught the recently appointed Senior Vice President (SVP) of Sasol Secunda Chemicals Operations to be hopeful, reliant on others and very flexible.

All the trials and problems he faced growing up have shaped him into the person he is today. Mr Baloyi is married to Miranda and they are blessed with two boys Akani and Hlayisani, and a daughter named Lulu.

He is a very optimistic, spiritual person and puts his hope in Jesus Christ. His passion is to teach Sunday school at the Light House church in Secunda. Mr Baloyi is also an enthusiastic sportsman and a member of the Sasol Marathon Club. He has, to date, completed six Comrade Marathon races and has his sights set on completing at least four more.

Mr Baloyi matriculated in 1994 from Hans Kekana High School in Majaneng. “I hold both a Bachelors and Masters Degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg and a Masters Degree in Engineering Management from the University of Pretoria. I further completed a management programme at INSEAD. I am a registered professional engineer with the Engineering council of South Africa (ECSA) in the Chemical Engineering Category (Pr. Eng. Chemical).”

Simon has more than 17 years’ experience and held a broad range of positions and accountabilities as an engineer, researcher, designer, engineering manager, operations manager, general manager and now as Senior Vice President.

He possesses excellent stakeholder management skills and is highly successful in helping to define teams’ directions, achieving goals and optimising the business.

Mr Baloyi has the ability to keep a level head at all times, nurture and grow a business, evaluate opportunities and risks and also deliver innovative new solutions to challenges.

“I am a results-orientated leader with experience in building and leading high performance teams to on deliver business results. I have a proven track record of successfully increasing business efficiency and productivity whilst reducing costs and inefficiencies.”

Mr Baloyi’s career began at Sasol in 2002 as assistant process engineer (engineer in training), process engineer and senior process engineer at the gas circuit plant. He was then given the chance to work at Particulate Solid Research Inc based in Chicago (USA). Later, he received another opportunity to work for KBR as a process design engineer in London (UK) in 2005. He was then transferred to Sasolburg where he was the lead FT engineer responsible for the High-Temperature Fischer-Tropsch (or HTFT) pilot and was involved in the catalyst research thereof. He was appointed as engineering manager in 2009.

He worked on many projects like the FT wax expansion project, wax column placements, Infrachem Lab, SGEP Heat Integration and Meerkat Cobalt Catalyst plant, to name a few.

Mr Baloyi was appointed as the business operations manager for the SCCM Business in 2012. He was based in Sasolburg, but also had duties to fulfil in Rosebank. In 2013 he returned to Secunda and had many roles over the past six years as operations manager, general manager and later Vice President at Water and Ash and Engineering and Centralised Maintenance.

He has great enthusiasm and his vision for Secunda Chemicals Operations (SCO) over the next two years is to ensure SCO is the place where everyone will want to work. “Our aim is to fully engage our employees for world class delivery.

We need a workforce that is self-motivated, with team members who value others above themselves.

With these types of leadership skills we will be well on our way to doing remarkable things, which will be the start of making a mark to inspire generations to come.”