Natasha Ramkirpal

Group Lead: Water Security & Optimisation, Coca-Cola Beverages Africa

Natasha Ramkirpal is a seasoned process engineer and industrial water security strategist with 18+ years leading engineering, risk governance, and infrastructure strategy across Africa's manufacturing sector. As Group Lead for Water Security and Optimisation at Coca-Cola Beverages Africa, she directs multi-country water security strategy across 11 African markets, integrating hydrological risk modelling, source vulnerability assessments, and climate adaptation into board-level decision-making, while governing water quality and compliance systems across 38 plants.

Natasha holds a BSc in Chemical Engineering, a BCom in Management, and an MEng in Technology and Innovation Management (cum laude), and is completing a PhD at the University of Pretoria on technology-enabled public-private partnerships for water security transitions in Africa. She founded PI Engineers (a research and innovation company), sits on the Manufacturing Circle's Executive Committee shaping national ESG and water policy, and serves as an IWRA High-Level Speaker and Special Advisor to the Islands Water Task Force. She also activately participates with the Women in Water Diplomacy Network. She co-chairs SWPN's private-sector water and wastewater management sub-group and contributes to VUKA Group's water security advisory board.

Her work sits at the intersection of engineering rigor and structural justice: she views water security as inseparable from questions of African resource sovereignty, equitable infrastructure finance, and decolonized governance. Across corporate strategy, PPP structuring for NRW, desalination and reuse projects, and academic research, she works to translate technical water risk into bankable, accountable, and community-anchored infrastructure outcomes.