Dr. Kana Mutombo
Dr. Mutombo is currently Port Consultant with The World Bank in the United States of America, leading and providing technical support on port related projects mainly in West Africa and Pacific Islands. His experience in transportation infrastructure development spans over 20 years in numerous countries over 3 continents. He has held various positions in public and private sectors on road, rail and port development projects, mainly on the African continent. He managed a major port expansion programme of over USD 300 million over a 7 years horizon. His last position with Transnet National Ports Authority (TNPA) was acting Executive head of Research and Development (R&D) unit. In this capacity, he was responsible for establishing and operationalising the R&D unit and also led one of TNPA flaship development project of exploring the possibility of an offshore port facility as a plausible futuristic green port developement solution for South Africa. In addition, he led the exploration of a deep seaport development in Ondo State, Nigeria.
Dr Mutombo completed his PhD studies at the World Maritime University in Sweden. His PhD research was the first step in understanding the climate resilience of large-scale port systems, and an attempt to study cyclical patterns of growth, collapse, and renewal of such resilience.
In addition, Dr Mutombo hold a MBA degree from the University of South Africa and he is also a certified European Professional Engineer. He was a contributing author to the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) special report 2020. He has published several papers in leading international journals and has also participated in numerous international conferences as guest speaker. He fluently speaks french and english.