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Advisory Board

Leila is currently the Director of the Sustainable Energy Markets (SEM) Department, in the Energy Directorate of the City of Cape Town local municipality.

SEM, a fairly new department set up in mid-2017, aims to partner with City departments, businesses and residents to implement innovative projects and processes that achieve secure, affordable and clean energy services within a customer-centric, fair, and resilient energy system.

For 5 years till 2014, Leila was the Director of Development and Operations at Mainstream SA, a renewable energy development company based in Cape Town. Mainstream SA won 6 renewable energy tenders in the first 2 windows of the SA government’s Renewable Energy Independent Power Producers Programme (REIPPP), making it the most successful company in the programme at the pioneering stages of the Programme in 2011-2013.

Leila has worked in the energy sector since 1998.

Prior to joining Genesis Eco-Energy and Mainstream SA she was an independent sustainable energy policy specialist and preceding that the Managing Director of Sustainable Energy Africa, a leading energy NGO in South Africa focusing on the energy, poverty and sustainability nexus.

Leila has a long association with NGOs, volunteer and activist groups in the environment and energy sector and has a passion for building capacity in people and organisations in the fields of sustainable development as well as pioneering new ways of tackling inherent challenges. Previous to her work in energy Leila worked for research organizations, local governments and consultancies in the land, environment and development field.

Leila studied environmental science, development studies and energy studies and was on the board of a number of institutions including The South African Wind Energy Association, Sustainable Energy Africa, the Environmental Monitoring Group, the Sustainable Energy and Climate Change Partnership and The Cape Town Partnership.