In the landscape of supply chain management, where efficiency meets strategy and operations intersect with national economic interests, few leaders embody the transformative power of procurement quite like Kwanele Mtembu. Her journey began not with supply chain ambitions, but with dreams of becoming an auditor. Yet sometimes, the most profound careers emerge not from following a predetermined path, but from embracing unexpected opportunities with curiosity and commitment.
Fresh out of university with a Bachelor of Commerce in Accounting, Kwanele joined Msukaligwa Local Municipality in Ermelo as a Financial Management Intern in 2003. While her original aspiration was cost accounting, limited internet access at the time made pursuing the required online assessments impossible. This seeming obstacle became a doorway to discovery.
During her rotation through the Finance Department, Kwanele was exposed to supply chain management just as the department was being established. What captivated her was the analytical diversity of the work. Unlike the repetitive nature of revenue and income sections, procurement offered something refreshingly dynamic: analyzing different goods and services, each requiring thoughtful strategy despite consistent underlying principles.
By 2005, working with the City of Mbombela in Nelspruit, Kwanele found herself at the heart of something extraordinary. Working alongside the Senior Manager of Supply Chain Management, she gained exposure to the complete procurement cycle. Her capabilities caught the attention of senior leadership, including the Municipal Manager who publicly acknowledged his confidence in her abilities after she successfully facilitated the procurement process for the first tender of Mbombela Stadium in preparation for the 2010 World Cup.
“What I liked about supply chain management was analyzing the different goods and services although the procurement principles were the same,” Kwanele reflects. “I was intrigued by the pre-procurement process of analysis that allowed me to develop an ideal procurement process upon having insights on the commodity itself, the market, price benchmarking and more.”
This analytical approach, this hunger for understanding the why behind every procurement decision, would become the hallmark of her career. It was not merely about executing transactions but about developing strategic solutions that genuinely fulfilled business needs.
BUILDING EXPERTISE ACROSS SECTORS: A CAREER OF CONTINUOUS EVOLUTION
Kwanele’s career trajectory reads like a masterclass in diversified experience. From municipal government to consulting powerhouse PricewaterhouseCoopers (2006-2008), she gained exposure to varied organizational cultures and procurement challenges. Her tenure at Eskom Holdings as Senior Buyer and later Senior Advisor for Localization (2008-2013) provided deep insights into one of South Africa’s most critical infrastructure entities.
The entrepreneurial chapter followed with Mthembu Empire Consultant, where she served as Director and Tender Writing Specialist (2013-2014), developing intimate knowledge of the supplier perspective. Subsequent roles at Transnet SOC Ltd and CEF SOC Ltd, including an acting Group Procurement Manager position, further refined her strategic capabilities.
Perhaps most significantly, her six-year stint as Director of Transversal Contracting at the Department of National Treasury (2016-2022) positioned her at the intersection of policy and practice. This role provided unparalleled insights into government procurement frameworks, compliance requirements, and the delicate balance between regulation and operational efficiency.
During this period, Kwanele’s excellence was recognized with the Best Cross Functional Teamwork award in 2023 for mobile communication services—a project she remarkably encountered on her birthday, June 7, 2016. This award highlighted her ability to build collaborative partnerships that deliver exceptional results across organizational boundaries.
Each position added another layer to her expertise. Each organization taught her something invaluable about procurement’s role in driving organizational success. By the time she joined Transnet National Ports Authority in 2023 as Regional Procurement Manager for the Central Region, Kwanele brought nearly two decades of battle-tested experience spanning public sector, private consulting, and state-owned enterprises.
CONFRONTING CRISIS: FOUR PROBLEMS, ONE STRATEGIC SOLUTION
When Kwanele arrived at TNPA to oversee procurement for three Eastern Cape ports (East London, Ngqura, and Port Elizabeth), she walked into a perfect storm of procurement dysfunction. The organization faced four critical challenges that threatened both operational effectiveness and financial sustainability.
First, a troubling trend of non-awarded tenders was undermining capital expenditure. Projects stalled, budgets went unspent, and port infrastructure improvements languished in procurement limbo. Second, the Annual Procurement Plan existed largely on paper, disconnected from actual execution realities. Third, procurement strategies remained predictable and limited, with diverse approaches to awarding underutilized. Fourth, procurement timelines stretched interminably, creating a vicious cycle where delayed processes resulted in budget underspending, which in turn threatened future allocations from the Ports Regulator of South Africa.
These were not merely procedural inefficiencies. They represented fundamental threats to TNPA’s ability to fulfill its mandate as landlord and regulator of South Africa’s eight commercial ports. In the Eastern Cape alone, ports that should have been engines of economic growth were struggling to execute basic capital improvements.
Kwanele’s response demonstrated the strategic thinking that sets exceptional procurement leaders apart from competent administrators. Rather than addressing symptoms, she diagnosed root causes. Rather than accepting inherited processes, she reimagined procurement strategy from first principles.
THE FIRE TRUCK BREAKTHROUGH: PRECISION IN PROJECT DEFINITION
The case of the Fire and Emergency Service Vehicles project exemplifies Kwanele’s methodology. This capital project, worth over R74 million and covering five ports (Cape Town, East London, Ngqura, Port Elizabeth, and Saldanha), had already suffered two consecutive non-awards. Money was allocated, need was urgent, yet procurement kept failing.
Kwanele identified the fundamental problem immediately. The project description read “For the Manufacture, Supply and Delivery of Fire and Emergency Services Appliances.” This vague, technically inaccurate description confused the market, attracting wrong suppliers and creating ambiguity that made evaluation nearly impossible.
She introduced a transformed project description: “Supply and Delivery of Fire and Emergency Service Vehicles with Appliances and Accessories for the Ports of Cape Town, East London, Ngqura, Port Elizabeth, and Saldanha.” The difference appears subtle but proved transformative. The revised description accurately reflected requirements, eliminated confusion, and enabled suppliers to respond appropriately.
Beyond description, Kwanele developed an optimal procurement and awarding strategy that balanced supply security against performance risk. Rather than awarding to a single supplier for all five ports (maximum efficiency, maximum risk), she structured the award to minimize the danger of non-performance while maintaining economies of scale.
The project was successfully awarded and is now nearly complete, with only one vehicle outstanding for delivery. This achievement earned Kwanele recognition at the 2024 Pan African Supply Chain Awards, but more importantly, it demonstrated how strategic thinking in procurement could unlock stalled capital expenditure.
REWRITING THE RULEBOOK: PROCESS STANDARDIZATION THAT WORKS
Kwanele’s broader strategy for the Central Region SCM teams centers on working smarter, not just harder. Traditional procurement operates sequentially: complete stage one, move to stage two, finish stage two, advance to stage three. This linear approach builds in massive inefficiencies.
Her innovation involves parallel processing where feasible. After identifying qualifying bidders during technical or functionality evaluation (stage two), she launches the preference point system evaluation (stage three) simultaneously rather than waiting. Similarly, commercial, financial, and probity stages commence while previous stages are still in progress. Activities run in parallel streams rather than sequential queues.
“Instead of waiting for each evaluation stage to be fully completed, from the second evaluation stage which is typically technical or functionality, you let the subsequent stage which is typically preference point system to start in the middle of stage two once the qualifying bidders can be identified,” Kwanele explains.
The impact shows in the numbers. Traditional procurement cycles for capital projects at TNPA stretched for months, sometimes over a year. Kwanele established new benchmarks: three months from business case receipt to purchase order issuance. For one urgent tanker berth rehabilitation project, she achieved an unprecedented one-month cycle time, setting a record that demonstrated what strategic procurement could accomplish.
She complements process redesign with systematic training. Rather than generic workshops, she tailors sessions to address specific gaps identified through reviewing team members’ work, reports, and market invitations. Each training intervention targets identified weaknesses, building competency systematically across the regional teams.
THE N-BERTH TRIUMPH: SPEED, STRATEGY, AND SUBSTANTIAL IMPACT
Perhaps no single project better illustrates Kwanele’s impact than the N-Berth deepening and strengthening at the Port of East London. This capital project, conceived in 2014, had languished for nearly a decade without procurement progress. When Kwanele arrived, the Port of East London had no procurement manager and only one resource for strategic sourcing.
She stepped in personally and concluded the project in three months flat, from business case receipt to purchase order issuance. This represented the first procurement process for a capital project completed in such compressed timelines at TNPA, establishing a new standard for what was possible.
The project’s strategic importance extended far beyond procurement efficiency. N-Berth deepening and strengthening aimed to increase berth capacity at the automotive terminal, enabling the port to accommodate new generation car carrier vessels. The enhancement would allow the Port of East London to berth two car carriers along the West Quay simultaneously, directly increasing port capacity and revenue generation.
The completed N-Berth, commissioned in 2025, stands as physical testament to what effective procurement enables. Infrastructure that spent a decade on paper became operational reality in under a year from procurement commencement. Revenue that couldn’t be captured due to capacity constraints now flows into the port and broader Eastern Cape economy.
In her first seven months at TNPA, Kwanele concluded three capital projects worth R171.8 million combined. This achievement dramatically reversed the capital expenditure underspending that had plagued the Central Region ports in previous financial years. Budget allocation threats evaporated as actual spending demonstrated capability and need.
CRISIS UNDER PRESSURE: THE TANKER BERTH EMERGENCY
If the N-Berth project demonstrated Kwanele’s capabilities under normal circumstances, the Port of Port Elizabeth tanker berth crisis showcased her performance under extreme pressure. On June 7, 2024 her birthday during a docking process, a Liquid Petroleum Gas vessel collided with the tanker berth, causing catastrophic damage. “That was my birthday,” Kwanele reflects, “a blessed gift to perform a miracle.”
Dolphin D overturned and settled at the revetment’s foot. Dolphin E displaced from its rock foundation. Steel walkways and platforms between Dolphins C, D, and E collapsed. The steel access and pipe support bridge from revetment to Dolphin D crumbled. Firefighting equipment and ancillary services were destroyed. The berth closed completely, creating an immediate crisis for fuel supply chains serving the Eastern Cape and beyond.
Kwanele’s response exemplified crisis procurement at its finest. Within one month of receiving the business case, she had issued a purchase order for design and build services to reinstate operations. This shattered her own three-month record and demonstrated that strategic procurement could respond to emergencies without sacrificing due process.
The tanker berth was reinstated ahead of schedule, minimizing disruption to regional fuel supply and preventing the price increases that threatened Nelson Mandela Bay Metro. What could have been an extended crisis with cascading economic impacts became a testament to effective crisis management through procurement excellence.
BUILDING CAPABILITIES: LEADERSHIP THROUGH EMPOWERMENT
Kwanele’s leadership philosophy centers on understanding before acting. When she takes responsibility for a team, her first priority involves comprehending how they currently perform their duties. She reviews their work products, reports they generate, invitations to the market they develop. Through this forensic analysis, she identifies specific gaps requiring attention.
Critically, she also engages team members directly about their own understanding of high performance. What does excellence mean to them? What level do they believe they’re operating at? What gaps do they perceive? This collaborative diagnostic approach ensures that improvement initiatives address real needs rather than assumed deficiencies.
“It is important to get to understand from the SCM teams what is high performance according to them as that assists to know at what level they are, and which gaps must be closed,” Kwanele explains. “Their inputs are valuable as they have insights on their experience and their struggles.”
Based on identified gaps, she designs tailored training and awareness sessions. These interventions ensure alignment and standardization while respecting the contextual knowledge team members bring. Rather than imposing external standards, she builds capacity that enables teams to excel within their specific operational contexts.
Her approach to continuous improvement similarly emphasizes focused attention. Rather than overwhelming teams with comprehensive change programs, she tackles issues one at a time. Each challenge receives dedicated focus through training, one-on-one sessions, and shared learning. She regularly shares tips on different supply chain management topics, building institutional knowledge incrementally.
GROOMING THE NEXT GENERATION: MENTORSHIP AS LEGACY
Kwanele speaks with particular passion about mentorship. “Oh I wish I had a mentor from day one of my supply chain career,” she reflects with candor. “Having one including a coach has been valuable professionally and personally. I got to grow especially on emotional intelligence, leading people and driving my work. If I had the luxury, I would have a mentor or coach all my life.”
This personal experience of mentorship’s transformative value drives her commitment to developing others. She currently mentors two procurement managers in her region, another procurement manager from a different port, and maintains a mentoring relationship with a professional she has never met physically, connecting through LinkedIn.
Her mentorship philosophy emphasizes the bigger picture beyond operational efficiency. “I am developing them the way I wish to have been developed as most times one focuses on operational efficiencies and forgetting the bigger picture of supporting the organization strategy,” she explains.
In her regional teams, women outnumber men among subordinates. While her direct reports are currently men, she actively grooms female team members to advance in their supply chain management careers, creating pathways for women’s progression in a field where gender parity remains elusive at senior levels.
INTEGRITY AS FOUNDATION: ETHICS IN PUBLIC SECTOR PROCUREMENT
Operating in public sector procurement presents unique ethical challenges. The imperative for transparency and fairness must coexist with the practical need for supplier relationships. Kwanele navigates this tension by leading through example.
“Being ethical, leading by adhering to the supply chain management policies and procedures makes one to be an example to the SCM teams,” she states. Her membership in the Chartered Institute of Procurement and Supply (CIPS) commits her to upholding rigorous ethical standards, and she encourages her teams toward similar professional membership as a mechanism for reinforcing ethics.
In public sector contexts, maintaining appropriate distance from suppliers protects integrity while potentially complicating relationship management. Kwanele’s approach ensures that robust procurement processes onboard reputable and capable suppliers, creating the foundation for end users to develop necessary working relationships without compromising procurement integrity.
The balance requires constant vigilance. Every transaction must preserve integrity. Every supplier interaction must withstand scrutiny. Every decision must serve the organization’s best interests rather than personal or external influences. This uncompromising stance on ethics establishes trust both within teams and among stakeholders.
MEASURING WHAT MATTERS: SUCCESS BEYOND COMPLIANCE
At TNPA, procurement success ultimately comes down to two critical outcomes: capital expenditure spending and secured marine services for organizational customers. These metrics capture procurement’s core purpose: enabling the organization to execute its strategy and serve its customers effectively.
The challenge, as Kwanele identifies it, involves achieving both procurement efficiency and budget execution within the same financial year. A successfully facilitated procurement process has limited value if the end user cannot implement and spend allocated budget before the financial year closes.
“In a financial year one must have successfully facilitated a procurement process, end user to implement and spend in the same financial year, that is the evaluation of success and efficiencies in marine operations,” Kwanele explains.
Current obstacles to achieving this ideal stem largely from planning inadequacies. Supply chain management cannot have procurement-ready needs considering all prerequisites at a financial year’s start when end users have not completed necessary planning. This remains work in progress at TNPA through ongoing collaboration with end users to improve planning integration.
Beyond metrics, Kwanele’s work has generated tangible economic impact. The infrastructure projects she has enabled directly increase port capacity and revenue generation. The N-Berth expansion allows larger vessels and simultaneous berthing, capturing business that would otherwise go to competing ports. The tanker berth restoration prevented fuel supply disruptions that would have rippled through regional economies.
DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION: ANALYTICS AS ENABLER
Looking toward procurement’s digital future, Kwanele sees technology transforming how organizations plan and execute strategy. She envisions analytics providing robust insights into how supply chain management departments strategically support corporate plans across all organizational areas.
“With analytics, the organization will have robust insight into how supply chain management department is strategically supporting its strategy on all the areas of the organization and should capacitate it, empower it as it is an enabler for the organization and affects the bottom line,” she explains.
This vision positions procurement not as a cost center requiring efficiency improvements but as a strategic function requiring investment and empowerment. Analytics will demonstrate procurement’s value contribution, justifying the resources necessary for procurement to truly enable organizational success.
The digital transformation extends beyond analytics to automation, artificial intelligence, and predictive capabilities. These technologies promise to handle routine transactions, freeing procurement professionals to focus on strategic activities: supplier relationship management, risk mitigation, innovation partnerships, and value creation initiatives.
SKILLS FOR THE FUTURE: BEYOND COST REDUCTION
When asked about capabilities future procurement leaders must cultivate, Kwanele’s response reveals sophisticated understanding of the profession’s evolution. Traditional cost-focused mindsets must give way to strategic value creation. Tomorrow’s procurement leaders need competencies spanning multiple domains.
Strategic thinking tops the list, requiring ability to align procurement goals with broader business objectives plus proficiency in portfolio management and long-term value creation. Data analytics and digital literacy drive informed decision-making in increasingly complex environments.
Risk management emerges as critical, with procurement leaders needing to identify, mitigate, and manage supply risks in every facilitated procurement. Supplier relationship management expertise enables collaborative partnerships that deliver mutual value. Environmental, social, and governance criteria increasingly shape procurement decisions, requiring leaders who understand sustainability beyond compliance.
Change management capabilities prove essential for leading transformation initiatives and driving adoption of new processes and technologies. Agility and adaptability allow quick responses to market disruptions or internal shifts, ensuring supply security regardless of external turbulence.
“Future procurement leaders must evolve beyond traditional cost-focused mindsets to become strategic value creators,” Kwanele emphasizes. “They should cultivate to remain relevant and effective in a rapidly changing global landscape by being strategic thinkers by having an ability to align procurement goals with broader business objectives.”
Underlying all technical competencies, she identifies critical mindsets: constantly seeking new ways to improve processes and add value, collaborating with internal stakeholders to tailor procurement solutions to their needs, fostering cross-functional teamwork to break down silos between SCM and end-user departments, upholding integrity, transparency, and fairness in all dealings.
A VISION OF PROCUREMENT EXCELLENCE: ENABLING ORGANIZATIONAL STRATEGY
Kwanele’s long-term vision for the procurement profession centers on a fundamental shift in how practitioners understand their role. She envisions supply chain practitioners who deeply comprehend their contribution to fulfilling organizational strategy. With this knowledge, each practitioner would drive procurement excellence and effectively enable organizations to achieve strategic objectives.
“My long-term vision for the profession is for supply chain practitioners to know and fully understand their role in fulfilling the organization’s strategy,” she states. “With that knowledge each supply chain practitioner would drive procurement excellence and effectively enable the organization to achieve its strategic objectives.”
This vision requires transformation in how procurement education, professional development, and organizational positioning occur. Procurement cannot remain a transactional function focused primarily on compliance and cost reduction. It must evolve into a strategic enabler receiving investment, authority, and organizational commitment commensurate with its impact.
Her personal legacy ambition reflects this vision: “My personal legacy is to create more leaders like me or even better than me to enable organizations to fulfill and exceed their strategic goals. A supply chain practitioner should be able to pinpoint the work achieved through adding value to the organization.”
This focus on developing others, on creating systemic capability rather than individual heroics, distinguishes truly transformational leaders. Kwanele’s greatest impact may ultimately lie not in the specific projects she has delivered but in the procurement professionals she has developed who will carry forward her principles and approaches.
THE ROAD AHEAD: BUILDING ON MOMENTUM
Kwanele’s achievements at TNPA since 2023 have fundamentally transformed Central Region procurement capabilities. From confronting four critical problems to establishing new benchmarks in procurement cycle times, from unlocking stalled capital expenditure to managing crisis response, she has demonstrated what strategic procurement leadership can accomplish.
The statistics tell one story: R171.8 million in capital projects concluded in seven months, procurement cycles reduced from months to weeks, infrastructure commissioned that languished for years, crisis response measured in weeks rather than months. These quantitative achievements matter tremendously in an environment where budget execution determines future allocations and infrastructure gaps constrain economic development.
Yet perhaps the more profound impact lies in changed mindsets and elevated capabilities. Teams that now understand working smart through parallel processing. End users who recognize procurement as strategic partner rather than administrative obstacle. Organizational leaders who see procurement enabling strategy rather than merely executing transactions.
The recognition has followed: Pan African Supply Chain Awards in 2024, media coverage of transformative projects, industry acknowledgment of pioneering approaches. These external validations matter not for personal glory but for amplifying the message that procurement excellence drives organizational success.
As South Africa’s ports navigate competitive pressures, infrastructure needs, and economic development imperatives, the procurement function will prove increasingly critical. Ports that can efficiently translate capital allocations into commissioned infrastructure will capture market share and drive regional growth. Those that cannot will face declining relevance and reduced investment.
Kwanele Mtembu’s work at TNPA demonstrates that procurement transformation is achievable even in complex public sector environments with layered accountability requirements. Her journey from financial intern to strategic procurement leader shows that curious minds committed to continuous learning can create extraordinary impact regardless of starting points.
The future she envisions, where supply chain practitioners fully understand their role in organizational strategy and drive excellence accordingly, becomes more tangible with each project delivered, each team member developed, each standard elevated. This is procurement as it should be: strategic, enabling, value-creating, and foundational to organizational success.
In the end, Kwanele’s story reminds us that transformation begins not with grand strategy documents but with leaders willing to diagnose root causes, reimagine inherited processes, develop team capabilities, and maintain unwavering commitment to doing the right thing. These principles, applied consistently across nearly two decades, create the foundation for sustainable excellence.
