Pierre van der Berg graduated at the University of Pretoria with a B Eng (Civil) Cum Laude in 1988. He started working in the Geotechnical section of the then Van Wyk & Louw Inc (now Zutari) in 1994. He completed his B Eng Honours (Civil) at the University of Pretoria in 1992 and continued to complete his M Eng (with distinction) at the University of Pretoria in 1994.

Pierre joined Jones & Wagener in 1994 as a geotechnical engineer and was involved on numerous geotechnical investigations, but also gained experience with the design of mining related infrastructure and tailings dams. In 1996, Pierre and his wife moved to Guildford (England) to study further in Geotechnical Engineer.  He obtained his PhD at the University of Surrey in 1999.  The title of his thesis was “Measurement and prediction of ground movements around three NATM tunnels”.

Pierre returned to Jones & Wagener in 1999 and continued working as a geotechnical engineer. Pierre was promoted to Associate and then to Director in 2004.  In 2014 he was appointed as the CEO of Jones & Wagener, a responsibility which he is continuing to fulfill to date.

Pierre’s involvement in mining infrastructure related projects includes bulk earthworks, haul roads and dragline walkways as well as mine infrastructure areas. His experience in applied geotechnical engineering projects ranges from dams, foundation engineering, excavations, tunnels and Mine Residue Facilities. His expertise is in infrastructure design, numerical modelling, soil-structure interaction and instrumentation, as well as project management. More recently, Pierre became instrumentally involved in mine closure planning, rehabilitation and mine closure risk assessments.

Pierre published 22 publications (of which he co-authored 18) ranging from technical papers, dissertation and articles.

Pierre received the J E Jennings Award for best South African paper published on a Geotechnical subject in 2004.

Pierre is a Fellow of SAICE and a member of SANCOLD.