Farrah Naidoo

Farrah Naidoo is the Program Delivery Lead for Digital Earth Africa (DE Africa), responsible for coordinating the efforts of the DE Africa PMO to ensure the successful delivery of the DE Africa approved Annual Workplan and for maintaining operational governance. Before stepping into this role, she served as the Program Office Manager and was instrumental in managing DE Africa’s transition to the African continent in 2021.

With a career spanning over two decades, Farrah’s journey began at  the age of 17, working and studying her way up the ranks from a receptionist in 2000 to a Provincial Managing Director in 2017 for a large political organisation. She holds an MSc in Marketing from Edinburgh Business School, Heriot-Watt University, UK, and is a certified PRINCE II Project Management Practitioner. Her expertise lies in strategy formulation, program and project management, stakeholder and government relations, business development, and risk management.

Farrah has successfully managed large-scale programs in the ICT Research Environment, including at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR). She has also worked extensively in business incubation, corporate social responsibility and sustainability. Her leadership in operations and strategic planning has led to her successfully managing large scale budgets and increasing organisational profitability. She also designed and implemented the Operations, QA, and Blueprint framework for a 430-seat call centre across 43 sites, leading a team of over 195 employees.

Passionate about entrepreneurship and innovation, Farrah has been selected as a judge for prestigious initiatives such as the African Business Heroes Challenge, the Aerospace Cohort Graduation via the Innovation Summit, and the African Earth Observation Challenge. She also mentors emerging entrepreneurs through the TechTribe Accelerator’s Investment Readiness Programme.

At DE Africa, Farrah remains committed to driving impactful change by harnessing Earth observation data to support environmental sustainability and decision-making across Africa.