Joanne Bate
Chief Operations Officer
Industrial Development Corporation of South Africa (IDC)
Speaker at:
- Country Spotlight: South Africa's Green Hydrogen – Commercialisation Strategy and the Critical Minerals Value Chain
16:30-
Responsible for overseeing the IDC’s core functions of lending and investments including the entire transaction value chain from deal origination, due diligence and deal structuring, credit and investment evaluation, deal team negotiation and transaction closure. Responsibilities include driving continuous improvement operations and optimising client experience; overseeing delivery of emergency funding responses to support business recovery (including COVID, unrest response and flood relief) ; and building sustainability capability, driving alignment to sustainable development goals and building just transition approach for the corporation.
In addition, Joanne is responsible for the Industry Planning function which aligns with the South African government’s master plan and Just energy Transition Investment Plan priorities including launching a paper at COP28, Transitioning to Sustainable Industrialisation, with a focus on economic transitioning and not limiting decarbonisation to the energy sector. The Industry Planning is responsible for implementing the Green Hydrogen and New Energy Vehicle chapters of the South African Just Energy Transition Implementation Plan tabled at COP28.
Driving the critical minerals value chain which is a bi-directional plan focused on unlocking the mining, beneficiation, industrialisation and recycling of critical minerals to support industrialisation and green growth.
Additional responsibilities include:
– Commissioner of the Presidential Climate Commission which advises government on the new nationally determined contribution targets, serves to drive alignment between civil society, private sector and government around climate change and the just transition.
– Chairperson of Green Hydrogen Commercialisation Panel established by the Minister of Trade, Industry and Competition and comprising CEOs from companies in the energy, automotive, mining and hard to abate sectors, with the Green Hydrogen Commecialisation Strategy being approved for implementation by Cabinet in October 2023;
– Participated in securing the just transition commitment, the first of its kind deal where the Global North have committed to fund a just transition to renewable energy for a deeply coal-intensive Global South country like South Africa;
– Serving on Presidential Climate Finance Task Team serving to finalise negotiations on the climate deal and identify and negotiate further concessional funding support for transition to net zero. Output at COP28 of the Just Energy Transition Implementation Plan;
– Participating in Harvard Green Growth Lab (including podcast) on green growth opportunities in the South African economy.
Joanne is a Chartered Accountant and started her career at the IDC in 1996 where she headed up both the Corporate Finance and Project Finance teams and participated in and lead numerous transactions including the USD1.1 billion Mozal transaction in Mozambique together with Mitsubishi Corporation and BHP Billiton. She also spent more than a decade in investment banking including Corporate Finance at HSBC and various portfolios at Absa Capital (initially Barclays Capital). She established and lead the Client Innovation team at Absa Capital which focused on unlocking disruptive client opportunities which presented positive social and environmental impact.
