Ido Lekota sat down with Zutari Africa’s newly appointed CEO Tlhabedi Christopher Ralebitso for a chat about everything from being an Afrocentric consultancy to future-fit infrastructure development.
Infrastructure development is foundational for Africa’s sustainable future due to its role in driving economic growth, reducing poverty, promoting regional integration, and improving the overall quality of life.
In that regard, Zutari Africa stands out as a trailblazer delivering impactful, innovative, and integrated infrastructure solutions tailored to the continent’s unique challenges and opportunities. The leading infrastructure engineering and advisory firm focuses on sustainable solutions across various sectors, including water, transport, energy, resources, and built environment.
With a workforce of around 2 000 professionals, mostly engineers, technologists, and scientists, Zutari leverages deep local knowledge and experience to design and deliver fit-for-purpose, sustainable infrastructure solutions across Africa and the Middle East.
Leadership spoke to Zutari Africa’s newly appointed CEO Tlhabedi Christopher Ralebitso about his new role in the company and his possible contribution to increasing its footprint in the communities it serves.
How do you envision embedding people-centred development into Zutari’s infrastructure projects across diverse African communities?
I believe that infrastructure should improve lives, not just deliver physical assets. It must ultimately serve the needs and aspirations of people. That’s why our approach, grounded in Zutari’s leading expertise in sustainability, goes well beyond community consultation. We are committed to designing and delivering solutions that are socially inclusive, culturally respectful, and economically empowering. A key part of this commitment is accelerating our investment in local engineering capacity. By strengthening skills and capabilities on the ground, we aim to ensure that engineering excellence is informed by a deep understanding of local socio-economic dynamics, enabling long-term value for the communities we serve.
Given your background in engineering and investment, how will you balance economic growth with sustainable and responsible infrastructure development through the project lifecycle?
With a background in both engineering and investment, I understand the importance of making infrastructure projects financeable, both in terms of technical soundness and their ability to deliver clear economic returns. Balancing economic growth with sustainability starts with designing projects that meet the needs of communities while also aligning with the requirements of governments and financial investors. At Zutari, we focus on integrating long-term value into every stage of the project lifecycle. This includes reducing lifecycle costs, building climate and operational resilience, and ensuring that infrastructure supports inclusive social and economic outcomes. These factors are increasingly essential to securing funding, whether through public budgets or private capital.
By applying strong engineering, sound financial thinking, and a clear understanding of risk, we help clients develop projects that are not only bankable but also responsible and ready for the future. This approach allows governments to achieve development goals while giving funders and investors confidence in the long-term performance and value of the infrastructure.
Zutari positions itself as an Afrocentric consultancy. How do you see yourself ensuring that local knowledge and cultural relevance shape your solutions while maintaining global best practices?
For me, this means ensuring that our teams are drawn substantially from the communities we serve. We must draw on indigenous knowledge, lived experience, and local expertise to inform every stage of our work. At the same time, we hold ourselves to the highest global standards of quality, ethics, and technical excellence. I see local insight and global best practice not as opposing forces, but rather as complementary strengths. By combining them, we can deliver infrastructure that is world-class and truly rooted in the places and people it is meant to serve.
What role do you see technology and digital transformation playing in delivering sustainable, impact-engineered infrastructure under your leadership?
Technology is a key enabler for us to deliver more efficiently, accurately, and at scale. It must help us translate our deep technical expertise into outcomes that have greater impact on the ground faster and more cost effectively. From advanced modelling and data analytics to digital collaboration platforms, we use technology to improve decision-making, reduce waste, and accelerate delivery timelines. I also see technology as a service, and Zutari has already progressed well in this regard. For example, we are already employing digital tools to support the ongoing management, performance, and improvement of assets long after they are built. This allows us to add value over the full lifecycle of infrastructure, not just at the point of delivery. I am pleased to note that at Zutari, we see digital not as a parallel stream, but as a powerful enabler of our purpose.
How do you measure and maximise social and environmental impact in Zutari’s projects, particularly in underserved and vulnerable regions?
At Zutari, we have a long-standing and highly capable sustainability practice that is central to how we deliver projects and how we support our clients. This in-house expertise allows us to embed sustainability from the outset. I must point out that this is not just as a compliance step, but it is a driver of long-term value. We measure social and environmental impact through tools such as impact assessments, opportunity mapping, and project-specific sustainability frameworks. In underserved and vulnerable regions, we focus on outcomes such as improved access to services, climate resilience, local livelihoods, and community wellbeing, and we track these using a mix of data, community input, and lifecycle evaluation. To maximise impact, we prioritise early intervention, inclusive design, and practical solutions that are locally grounded and scalable. Just as importantly, we use our experience to help clients set, achieve, and report on their own sustainability goals to strengthen impact well beyond our direct project work.
With increasing global focus on ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) standards, how do you see yourself aligning Zutari’s strategy to meet these expectations across Africa and the Middle-East?
I see it as essential that Zutari not only aligns with these standards but continues to lead in applying them meaningfully across our work. Our strong sustainability practice and commitment to growing homegrown talent and expertise in all our regions, position us well to embed ESG in practical ways into both our internal operations and the solutions we offer clients. Importantly, we see ESG not just as a compliance exercise. It is a tool for driving better infrastructure outcomes. Specifically, we must apply the standards to develop infrastructure solutions that are more resilient, inclusive, and trusted.
What innovative approaches do you see yourself implementing to promote inclusivity, gender equity, and local economic empowerment within your projects and supply chains?
I believe that driving inclusivity, gender equity, and local economic empowerment starts with who is involved in shaping and delivering our projects. At Zutari, we actively create space for women, homegrown talent, and local enterprises, not just to participate, but to lead. This isn’t just about empowerment; it’s about delivering solutions that are more relevant and grounded in local realities. We prioritise sourcing from local and women-led businesses and invest in their growth so they can scale with us. Internally, we are attracting more diverse engineering talent, especially women, supported by structured development, training, and exposure. I’m also focused on embedding mentorship and career guidance, leveraging our expanding multinational footprint to diversify experience and open doors. Looking ahead, we are working to inspire the next generation by exposing young people, especially girls, to STEM careers through outreach, role modelling, and visibility of African engineering success.
How does Zutari approach collaboration with governments, local communities, and other stakeholders to co-create sustainable infrastructure solutions?
We see collaboration as fundamental to delivering sustainable infrastructure. Our approach is rooted in trust and genuine partnership, working closely with governments, local communities, and other stakeholders to co-create solutions that are technically sound, socially responsive, and locally owned. We start by listening. Ongoing engagement helps us understand priorities, constraints, and lived realities. From there, we work to align infrastructure design with broader development goals, whether that is improved service delivery, economic inclusion, or, increasingly, climate resilience. We also bring technical and facilitation skills to help bridge the gap between policy, planning, and delivery. This includes navigating complex stakeholder environments and ensuring that local knowledge and participation are central to project outcomes.
What are the major challenges you foresee in scaling responsible infrastructure on the continent and how are you preparing Zutari to overcome them?
Scaling responsible infrastructure across Africa, as with other markets, comes with real challenges. These include funding gaps, economic volatility, regulatory complexity, in addition to delivery constraints, especially in critical sectors like energy, transport, water, and urban development. At Zutari, we understand that the need for large-scale infrastructure is a long-term imperative. Accordingly, we are shaping our business to take a long-term view, ensuring we are resilient to emerging challenges. Our multinational footprint allows us to learn from diverse local and regional experiences and apply those insights to deliver solutions that are both practical and sustainable. Importantly, we are deepening partnerships across sectors, investing in local talent, and using digital tools to improve how we deliver. Combined with our technical depth and contextual understanding, this positions us to co-create infrastructure that meets today’s needs and supports future growth.
How do you plan to leverage Zutari’s expertise to drive resilience and future-fit infrastructure development in the fact of climate change and urbanisation?
Climate change and rapid urbanisation are putting pressure on infrastructure across Africa. At Zutari, we are using our technical expertise, sustainability knowledge, and local understanding to help deliver infrastructure that is resilient and supports growth. Through our sustainability team, which works across all our disciplines, we focus on identifying climate risks early in a project and designing with those risks in mind. This includes using tools like climate risk assessments and nature-based solutions to build systems that can adapt over time and continue to serve communities under changing conditions.
As cities grow, we also need smarter, more inclusive infrastructure. We are using digital tools and data to design systems that are efficient, scalable, and reduce environmental impact. By combining strong engineering with a clear understanding of local needs, we aim to build infrastructure that can handle future challenges and help create more liveable, sustainable communities.
Ralebitso is a highly experienced African engineering and business leader with a strong background in infrastructure development and strategic investments. He holds a Bachelor of Engineering in Mechanical Engineering and began his career with technical roles at Eskom and South African Breweries. He has held several senior executive roles, including a decade at Vodacom Group where he managed mergers and acquisitions, investor relations, and led Vodacom Ventures. In 2017, he founded Ralco Investments and established Vulatel, a telecommunications infrastructure company.
Ido Lekota is a media practitioner and an independent socio-political commentator.
