Zukiswa Sithole has been praised highly for her role in South Africa’s Renewable Energy IPP Procurement Programme (REIPPP), one of 2012’s leading developments in the region. ‘The biggest challenge has been ensuring the team operates as one, particularly during the peaks of the IPP Programme, which demanded quite an enormous amount of time and attention’, she says.

Heading a four-lawyer team, she gains particular satisfaction from the variety of her role. ‘I still do some of my own transactional work and oversee the work of others so I enjoy interfacing with other lawyers in negotiations’. When it comes to external counsel, Sithole raises the common issue of fee flexibility as an area for consideration.

‘I think that external law firms need to start thinking about creating relationships with their clients that are not mainly based on meeting budgetary constraints, but rather relationships that are sustainable and based on trust and optimal output for the client’.