Today, we are crushing on the awesome Vere Shaba; the founder of Shaba & Ramplin Green Building Solutions. This 29-year-old leading lady has been the one to watch since 2010, when she was a part of the winning team for the international design competition on Peace and Environmental Studies by Nobel Laureate Wangari Maathai.
“In 2008, while still a student, I did my mechanical engineering practical training at the Volkswagen South Africa plant in Uitenhage and watched as the rolling blackouts and load shedding affected their productivity. When the power went off, the machines would come off and thousands of workers would sit outside in the sun,” says Shaba.
She became an entrepreneur out of frustration.
“The frustration came when I kept on being put in a box. Having graduated as a mechanical engineer, I was either seen as a green building consultant or a mechanical engineer but never both.”
In 2016, Vera resigned from her job and founded a company that uses the Integrated Green Design approach in engineering. Today, Shaba & Ramplin Green Building Solutions has become a multi-disciplinary consulting firm specializing in Engineering, green buildings and interiors services.
Shaba was selected as one of 10 Top Women in Engineering for the annual Standard Bank Topco Top 100 Women in Business & Government, Mail & Guardian’s 200 Young South Africans for Environment, the Kingdom of Netherlands’ Inspiring 50 Women in South Africa in STEM, and most recently, has been selected as a finalist for the inaugural Gauteng Premier’s Women Excellence Awards for Young Achievers.
“I still sit in boardrooms as a minority in the boardroom, as the sector is still quite white male dominated, but I know that every day I am in the boardroom is changing mind-sets and creating a platform for the future generations,” she says.
Culled from Forbes Africa
