Yvonne Mkefa
About Yvonne
Yvonne joined Eskom as a graduate intern in 2001. She completed her articles at Kathdrada Norval Rice and Patel Attorneys and retained as an Associate. She moved to Parrott van Niekerk & Woodhouse Incorporated as a Senior Associate where she independently managed her practice, which was largely comprised of litigating in the Labour Court. Amongst the clients that Yvonne represented are both 2 of the biggest FMCG retailers in South Africa (Shoprite and Makro) and mining companies (De Beers and Anglogold Ashanti).
In 2008 Yvonne joined Cliffe Dekker Incorporated as a Senior Associate. Later in 2008 Yvonne took her first non-practice role as an Employee Relations Consultant at Pebble Bed Modular Reactor (Pty) Limited, a subsidiary of Eskom SOC Limited.
In 2010 she moved to South African Airways SOC Limited as an Employee Relations Specialist and HR Legal Advisor. When Yvonne joined SAA she was placed in the acting HoD position in the Employee Relations department while the recruitment process was underway. After 5 years, in 2016, Yvonne moved to Cape Town to join Old Mutual Limited as a Senior Human Resources Manager: Industrial and Stakeholder Relations. In 2018 she was promoted to Group Employee Relations Executive responsible for Employee Relations, Ethics Management and Human Capital Litigation. In 2020 Yvonne acted in the Human Capital Director position.
In 2021 Yvonne's portfolio was expanded to include Employment Equity. She was also formally appointed onto the Group Legal's Executive Committee as the Legal Executive responsible for Human Capital matters with a dual reporting line to Old Mutual's General Counsel, hence the change in the naming convention of the role to Group Employment Relations Executive.
Yvonne re-joined CDH in 2024 as a Director in the Employment Law Department, providing strategic and tactical partnership with clients on major projects and complex employment law and human resources matters.
Areas of expertise
Experience
Chairing and/or lead wage, and terms and conditions negotiations.
Unfair discrimination, Sexual Harassment, Workplace Violence, Incompatibility.
Mediation between organizations and senior leaders or executives, drafting the relevant agreements either at the initial stages to enable mediation and/or at the end of the process to record the outcome of the process.
Participate in the onboarding, training and annual attestation of board of directors for some businesses outside of South Africa.
Facilitating and leading of wage and terms and condition negotiations in Southern and Western Africa, as well as the UK.
Leading of recognition agreement negotiations in the aviation and financial services sectors.
Facilitating and leading of large-scale restructuring / retrenchment processes.
Reviewing the annual ethics attestation process, championing the Ethics Management Maturity Assessment process with the Ethics Institute, introducing the new code of ethics which was dubbed the Maadili Charter – which is ethics in Swahili and outside interest and gifts policy for a listed company.
Participating and chairing crisis management committees, a cross-functional team, for state-owned entities and a listed company. Leading the vaccination policy implementation team, including the legal team that managed internal dispute resolution process and external litigation.
Providing legal support in the implementation of the vaccination policy, including engagements with trade unions and other stakeholders.
Credentials
Education
- Bachelor of Arts (Law; Linguistics & English Languages) – Rhodes University
- Bachelor of Laws (LLB) – Rhodes University
- Postgraduate Diploma in Leadership Development – Stellenbosch University
Memberships
- The Ethics Institute
LANGUAGES
- English
