Vumile Celiwe Ribeiro

Vumile Ribeiro is the Director of Environmental Management Services at Niara Environmental Consultants (Pty) Ltd. Vumile has 18 years of professional and international experience in Environmental Assessment and Management primarily in the minerals resources and energy sector. Her roles include the operational management responsibilities of Niara Environmental Consultants, project management, report writing, client liaison, as well as business development.

Having worked for multi-disciplinary advisory firms and environmental consultancies, Vumile has a competent understanding of the work effort and cross collaboration required for a successful multidisciplinary organisation. Vumile has been involved in a number of Environmental Impact Assessments and has a particular interest in health impacts assessments, water resource management, mining, energy and stakeholder engagement. Vumile has considerable experience across a range of developmental and environmental sciences and has worked in South Africa, Mozambique, Sierra Leone and Liberia and is familiar with Regulatory Environmental Legislation in other parts of Africa. 

Vumile is very well versed in the IFC Environmental and Social Performance Standards (including IFC PS 2012) and the associated Equator Principles, which have informed the approach and standard for a number of ESIA processes that she has been involved in. Vumile is skilled at organising and driving effective project teams at a scale relevant to the project’s requirements. She has technical experience and is able to quickly identify the most pertinent issues of a particular project whilst focussing on driving project success by rigorously implementing project management tools. Vumile’s special interest areas involves understanding the systemic nature of factors that pose threats and opportunities in terms of establishing healthy, resilient communities, and exploring the use of various data types, approaches and methodologies to enable effective change.