Her mornings begin with Douwe Egberts and 94.7. Her days involve billion-rand water infrastructure decisions. Andisa Zinja, CFO of the Trans-Caledon Tunnel Authority, leads with humour, humanity and the occasional well-placed meme.
The figures Andisa signs off daily may not make the evening news. Yet, her work has a direct impact on the country’s access to water.
As CFO of the state-owned bulk raw water infrastructure entity at the Trans-Caledon Tunnel Authority (TCTA), Andisa oversees the financial architecture behind the financing and implementation of bulk raw water infrastructure critical to South Africa’s water security.
Number fluency is a non-negotiable with finance professionals, but Andisa’s second and often underrated soft skill lies in her ability to connect with people.
In fact, her ability to connect with team members forms a large part of the Gqeberha-born chartered accountant’s meteoric rise in public sector finance. “I like to empower people while building systems around the business; build the people and then systems,” she explains. Further adding that the systems she builds must be able to sustain the organisation even after her departure.
It’s an approach that has shaped her leadership style over a 19-year career. “You can get more out of people if they can relate to you on a human level.”
Finding her path
During her childhood career paths were never really discussed at home and Andisa had no idea what she wanted to do or become. Even with universities visiting schools as part of career counselling, she was unclear about what she should do.
“I went into accounting because a teacher told me to do higher grade accounting and said that I would be great at the subject. I always said my path was a bit of luck or divine intervention,” she recalls.
The newly qualified student did not have the money to complete her honours and was on her way to sign an employment contract when HR from PwC called.
“They offered me a bursary to do my honours and I hadn’t signed any contract so I went back to Rhodes to complete my studies.”
While tackling her post graduate studies, PwC asked her to complete her articles in-house and she landed her first job shortly thereafter at the Auditor-General of South Africa (AGSA) in East London.
Humour, humanity and boundaries
Throughout her career, Andisa was able to seamlessly transition in and out of new institutions. She achieved this by taking ownership of systemic problems, connecting with peers and building the ecosystem around their strengths and capabilities.
In fact, Andisa makes it a point of meeting with new team members to get to know them and the lay of the land, while being upfront about her lack of institutional knowledge when she is new to a position. “I’m open to saying I don’t know, I am curious, I just came in,” she explains.
Her witty sense of humour is often punctuated with references to popular internet culture making her more approachable in the office.
“I just arrived,” she says jokingly, referencing a popular South African meme.
The mother of fraternal twins keeps her social media profiles private, limited to family and trusted friends and she is careful to keep her personal life off the screen.
“I don’t comment on videos, that’s for my kids, but I have to restrain them from doing this on my accounts. What we post on social media we can never take back so we need to be mindful at all times.” she says more seriously.
Professional stakes
Within a year of her appointment at the TCTA in April 2025, the organisation had received news from the National Treasury that TCTA would have to change its financial reporting framework from IFRS to GRAP.
While the news had been a long time coming, the finance team at TCTA were dreading the change. “We’ve been exempt for a number of years now by the National Treasury who allowed us to use IFRS and not GRAP, but now we found out we had to move by March 2026,” she explains.
There were also several senior leadership contracts ending, so the pressure was on for the new executive cohort to plunge into the deep end and lead the transition. “The biggest push for us is that the board would like us to get a clean audit. Obviously, that would also be a positive for us when it comes to the funders and the work that we do as TCTA,” she says.
For Andisa, the mandate was clear. She held her hands up in mock surrender, smiling as she acknowledged the enormity of the situation. When asked what her plan was, she responded that they would simply have to make it happen.
“We got the news on a Friday, and we only had a week to process it. So, I told the team we would take the weekend to cry and then return on Monday to see how we can work towards it,” she adds.
And with that, the work began.
Strategic leadership in action
First, she notified the executives, the AGSA and the board of the migration, before organising GRAP training for the team.
“We were also able to pick two institutions to see how they transitioned and what their financials looked like so the whole process wouldn’t seem as scary,” she explains.
“People who don’t even know you are willing to help you,” she adds.
But despite the challenging terrain that lay ahead, Andisa is no stranger to the pressure to perform.
Turning pressure into results
Andisa had arrived at her previous job as CFO for the Council of Medical Schemes (CMS) amid a media storm. The CMS was in the middle of investigating allegations of unfair treatment of healthcare providers by medical schemes and administrators. Its finance department also did not have a CFO.
“I remember having my first discussion with the CEO and he said it was imperative that I bring the team together.”
Andisa immediately got to work and by the time her contract was over, she was able to pass the torch to the next CFO with a well functioning team, improved financial position and audit outcome.
It was an approach she would return to repeatedly, albeit with some differences.
At CMS, staff went to the office three times a week. But at TCTA, the teams meet once a week, which proved slightly challenging for Andisa who thrives on human interaction.
That said, she values the hybrid working model, saying the flexibility to work from home gives her more time to fulfill parenting duties in the week, like taking her 12-year-old twins to school, attending their events, and being more present at home.
Off the clock
Andisa enjoys downtime either scrolling the digital streets or settling down for a Netflix series binge-watch, her favourite show currently being Stranger Things.
She also likes to keep active. “I love CrossFit, I started doing it from East London days – I love it!” she declares.
“I don’t want to talk too much about it because people always say when you start a conversation with someone, the first thing you learn about them is that they do CrossFit, it’s like a cult,” she adds laughing.
Her typical day begins with a strong cup of black coffee, her preference being Douwe Egberts. While Andisa is not a lover of podcasts or long form audio productions, she enjoys good old fashioned daily radio, tuning into 94.7 morning and afternoon shows.
