Michael Solomon Teke was born on the 15th August 1964 in the township of Kwa Thema near Springs. Raised by his maternal grandmother, Dorothy Teke since his mother died when he was young. His primary school education was completed at Fred Habedi School and his High Schooling was completed in 1983 at Kenneth Masekela High School. Michael(Mike) studied at the University of the North(Limpopo) from 1985-1989, completing a BA(Education) and a B.Ed. In 1996 he completed and Honours degree at the Randse Afrikaanse Univerisiteit(University of Johannesburg) and In 2002 completed an MBA through Unisa School of Business Leadership and the Open University- London. His working career began in 1990 as a school teacher at Kennethe Masekela High School and in 1991 he joined Elida ponds, a Unilever subsidiary, as Training Officer and later as HR officer. In 1994 he joined Bayer in the HR function and in 1999 resigned to join Samancor Manganese(a subsidiary of Billiton, which later merged with BHP to create the world’s biggest mining group BHPBilliton) as HR Manager at Metalloys, in Meyerton. In 2001 he moved to Head office to join the Manganese team and later moved to Ingwe Collieries as VP:HR. In 2005 he resigned and joined Impala Platinum as HR Executive and in 2007 left to be part of the founding of Optimum Holdings and became its CEO. He was part of the listing of Optimum Coal holdings in 2010 and later the company was bought by Glencore. Mike is presently the Chief Executive Officer of Seriti Resources, a Coal Mining Company based in South Africa, operating three mines, namely, New Vaal, New Denmark and Kriel. Mike was Non-Executive Chairman of Optimum Coal Holdings until 2015. Mike has been active as Director of companies since 1995 and these include;
- Continuing Education Programme(1995-1998);
- BHPBilliton South Africa(2002-2004);
- Ingwe Collieries(2001-2005);
- Impala Platinum(2006-2008)
- Zimplats(2005-2008)
- Optimum Coal Holdings(2008-2012)
- Richards Bay Coal Terminal(2010- to date)
- Anchor Capital(2014- to date)
- Rolfes(2013- to date)
- Seriti Resources(2016-to date)
And others. Mike has a passion for Social Development specifically, great education and healthcare for the citizens of the country, hence, his involvement at the University of Johannesburg as Chairman of Council.