Mahogany row comes to the glass-walled boardroom

● Not for the first time in recent months, a senior partner at an embattled corporate giant is sitting in Magda Wierzycka’s minimalist glass-walled boardroom.

Wierzycka is the CEO of Sygnia, a successful asset management company, but one that is small by international business standards. So why is an exec from a multinational asking her advice on damage control linked to the state capture web it has found itself in?

Several corporate bigwigs have come to Wierzycka in search of help on how to clean their noses. Not because Sygnia as an asset manager can assist in any business dealings, but because she has become an outspoken powerhouse.

People like you and me, governments new and old, and international investors are paying attention to Wierzycka.

She has taken on companies accused of malfeasance, drawn up a 10-point plan to fix South Africa, and tweeted that it would have taken 30 minutes to work out the fraud on Steinhoff’s books.

The multinationals know that if this small territory sneezes the word “malpractice”, the international company gets a reputational cold — or pneumonia.

For the senior partner of the embattled firm who has come to see her, there is a lot of money at stake, much more than the Asset Forfeiture Unit’s pay-back-themoney ticket handed to global consultancy McKinsey for its dealings with Eskom and Gupta-linked Trillian.

Wierzycka’s advice for the executive is simple. He has wasted a vast sum on an audit by “25-year-old graduates” at a prestigious law firm who have spent their festive season trawling through documents to find the rot.

“You will only get 60% to 70% of the answers,” she tells him. “Go to the people whose signatures are on the documents, to ensure they uncover all the wrongdoing. Once they have the information, they must come clean and make restitution, such as donating all ill-gotten gains to civil rights organisations. Don’t try to cover things up, because the South African public is too angry to listen to excuses.”

Asked why people are coming to her, she laughs and says: “I am not an oracle on corporate governance. To me what has happened is inexplicable, but since I have been doing what I’m doing, people seek you out because they want to fix their bad name.

“The reputational damage is immeasurable here. Or they don’t have a voice but want information in the public domain. There are many whistleblowers who want to come forward and who want to have a voice.”

There is a reason the Sygnia brand focuses on transparency — its corporate artwork consists of X-rays, a sign that it states its fees upfront.

But what is Wierzycka’s long-term goal for getting involved in the murky waters of South African business and politics?