Honoring Rebecca Bweupe-Siwale: Her impact and legacy will live on

The SME Mining & Exploration (M&E) Division would like to extend a heartfelt embrace to members of our community honoring Rebecca Bweupe-Siwale. Bweupe-Siwale was a second-generation miner in the Copperbelt in Zambia. Following in her father’s footsteps, she studied chemical engineering at Copperbelt University in Kitwe, Zambia. After graduating, she became the first woman engineer in Zambia and the first woman miner at Mopani Copper Mines. In 2010, she earned her MBA with an emphasis on operations management from Cleveland State University. Shortly after, she moved to the United States to work with Freeport-McMoRan prior to joining FLSmidth in 2012. Bweupe-Siwale served as a vice president and head of Digital Services for FLSmidth, where she managed a team of 90 individuals globally. Her team took the lead in driving the digital transformation of equipment across the mineral-processing value chain — optimizing operations, improving productivity and decreasing cost. In addition to her outstanding achievements in the professional space, Bweupe-Siwale was passionate about inclusion and diversity in all aspects of industry. She was a founding member of the Women in Mining Utah (WIM UT) chapter and served as its vice president from 2020 to 2021. Bweupe-Siwale was selected as the inaugural chair of the SME Inclusion & Diversity (I&D) Ad Hoc Committee for her passion and advocacy for women in the mining industry. She was key in helping define the focus, goals and objectives of an SME Inclusion & Diversity Standing Committee. Under her leadership, the ad hoc committee conducted an organizational survey to gather information about I&D programs, best practices, benchmarks and barriers in the industry. This information shaped the charter, action plan and her board presentation that led to the approval of the I&D ad hoc committee as a standing committee by the SME Board of Directors at the MINEXCHANGE 2021 SME Annual Conference & Expo. She graciously agreed to continue as the chair of the new Inclusion & Diversity Standing Committee in 2021, when the committee worked on strategic alignment, programming and communication efforts to instill I&D into SME’s culture. Bweupe-Siwale continued a leadership role in the committee as the Communication Subcommittee Chair, the Cindy Moore Courageous Impact Award Committee Chair, and a vital contributing member of the Women of SME Breakfast Committee. Additionally, she joined WAAIME in 2018 and was elected to the WAAIME Executive Committee in November 2023. Bweupe-Siwale was named one of the “100 Global Inspirational Women in Mining” as part of the global recognition in Women in Mining UK’s WIM100 in 2022. We are so grateful to have had Bweupe-Siwale touch our lives and support us in our journey. She is survived by her three strong and beautiful daughters: Suwi, Willa and Hannah. Her impact and legacy in our industry will continue to live on. To learn more about her digitalization team, visit https://www.flsmidth.com/en-gb/solutions/digitalization.

Honoring Rebecca Bweupe-Siwale: Her impact and legacy will live on

Authored by: Emily Rose, Rock in the Box Editor

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