Durban Chamber of Commerce and Industry is proud to welcome Dumile Cele as the new Chief ExecutiveOfficer. Dumile is a passionate leader with anenergetic enthusiasm for all she does. Her strong sense of vision, planning and hard work have seen her through the challenges she faced from the time she was born in rural KwaZulu-Natal, Eshowe, through her education and onto her career while establishing a family of her own. Possession of first class communication skills enables Dumile to build lasting relationships and to articulate her thoughts and views well both in writing and when speaking in public. She has extensive corporate experience at senior
management levels, which together with her qualifications has equipped her with business management skills within the broader socio-economic and political environment. Her corporate experience is coupled with experience in the small, medium and micro enterprise sector. As a certified director, Dumile also has a full appreciation of the intricacies of corporate structure. Chamber Experience Dumile joined the Durban Chamber in January 2013. Her portfolio has included Business Services Manager and International Trade and Business Information Services. She has also managed the SMME Department for a year in the absence of an enterprise development manager. This experience has given Dumile knowledge and understanding of the chamber movement and the role of organised business.
Small Business, NPO Experience Earlier in her working career, Dumile decided to leave the corporate world and become selfemployed in order to create more flexibility while raising a young family. During this time Dumile completed an executive coaching course with the Coaching Centre based in Cape Town. She has since gained experience coaching people at various levels. She also did much business consulting and skills development during this time. Dumile was involved in various BEE investment initiatives including being part of the Bidvest empowerment deal. She at times attended board meetings with the Bidvest board which had the likes
of Mr Brian Joffe - here she gained invaluable experience concerning
the strategic directing of very large corporates. In 2005, Dumile founded a nonprofit
organisation for women development and empowerment. The organisation aims to move women out of the peripheral of our society into the socioeconomic main stream. Branches have grown from Durban to Newcastle, Piet Retief, Eshowe, Pietermaritzburg, Port Elizabeth and Cape Town.

Senior Management Experience - Portnet

After being head hunted in 1996, Dumile joined Portnet as business development manager. This position gave her exposure to the entire port authority operations
and specifically port business. Dumile traveled extensively around Europe studying international best practice in a number of sea ports in countries such as Germany,
Netherlands, France, Belgium and the UK. She also studied logistics management in Antwerp, Belgium. During her tenure with Portnet she gained experience in port operations management and even acted as Durban Port Manager.
Later Dumile became the road transport services manager and managed a profitable business within Portnet. She had a staff of approximately 350 people including
a multi-discipline management team to support her drive a critical service within the economy of our country. She controlled an operating budget of approximated R50 million and a capital budget in access a R100 million. Other positions Dumile held in
Portnet included transformation consultant, responsible for business processes reengineering and container operations consultant, responsible for implementing a container terminal operating system in all seven ports in South Africa. Later, with her maritime business experience she became manager for the Port Academy (now known as the School of Ports), a training institution responsible for skills development in all South African ports. Dumile was responsible for turning the Port Academy from
being a cost centre, operating at a loss, to becoming a profit centre. She achieved this through the implementation of various business strategies including taking the skills development offering of the Academy to ports in the SADC region and further into Africa. While there she also delivered the Ship Handling Simulator for marine operators' training - a flagship contribution toward skill development in the