Pink gin, canapés and a punch-up
AT least the current spate of boardroom battles is dispelling the myth of stuffed shirts attending meetings just for the pink gin, canapés and posh lunch. Now we know that you can catch a spot of tabletop WWE wrestling as well.
It turns out that boardrooms can be pretty hairy places — but, then, they should be.
You would expect a group of decently paid individuals with a lifetime of corporate history behind them to make their opinions heard in a place where strategies are thrashed out in the best interests of the company. Of course, they should not, however, descend into personal battlegrounds where egos run out of control and scores are settled.
Since Brutus plunged the final dagger into a dying Julius Caesar, executives have been watching their backs. It goes with the territory.
Next time you ponder a move up the corporate ladder, pause and ask yourself if you are really up for the kind of fight exposed by the implosions of the boards of SAA , HCI and PPC in recent weeks.
No sooner had the dust settled at HCI than the hornets’ nest at PPC erupted in all its glory.
Perhaps mindful of its proud legacy of boardroom battles and eager not to be outshone in this regard by the private sector, SAA suspended its CEO, Monwabisi Kalawe, in a turf war between chairwoman Dudu Myeni, also chairwoman of the Jacob Zuma Foundation, and Public Enterprises Minister Lynne Brown.
Unlike the public fights that engulfed HCI and PPC, however, the SAA fight has been characterised by secrecy, conjecture and a lack of public disclosure.
Troubles in the SAA boardroom are nothing new.
This time, rather than be fired at the airline’s AGM, six directors recently hurriedly quit as the chairwoman turned her sights on Kalawe. Myeni, who industry sources say has been notable by her absence from the corridors of SAA this year, defied an instruction by Brown to reinstate Kalawe, who remains officially on “sick leave”.
Meanwhile at PPC, the company finally gave its version of events in its five-week battle with former CEO Ketso Gordhan, effectively branding him a petulant martinet with a flair for drama.
Gordhan has been lobbying shareholders to return him to the CEO position, claiming that the company is dragging its feet on calling an extraordinary general meeting. He also made allegations this week that a $200-million (about R2.2-billion) financing deal for the highly geared PPC was at risk as it was dependent on his tenure.
Senior managers and staff, he claimed, want him back and shareholders would be mad to support the current board over him. (Investors will make their call on this score in the second week of December.)
PPC now wants Gordhan declared a delinquent director, claiming that he breached confidentiality linked to his severance agreement.
Executive chairman Bheki Sibiya cast an image of Gordhan as a CEO illequipped for the governance rigours of a private sector job — though it would have been Sibiya who had appointed him chairman of the company since 2008.
Gordhan’s resignation was not his first at PPC. In a previous boardroom altercation, he stormed out of the room, quitting verbally, but returned 20 minutes later after being placated by a nonexecutive director. When the board backed financial director Tryphosa Ramano over him, he quit in writing. He tried 36 hours later to retract it, but was rejected.
Gordhan claimed that Ramano — who is also a former finance director at SAA — was obstructive to his PanAfrican growth strategy, but the board said the reasons for his wanting her removed were spurious: she had a bigger office than he did, had wanted a dedicated parking bay and had refused to participate in Gordhan’s voluntary salary sacrifice scheme, designed to reduce the gap between highest- and lowest-paid workers.
Head-hunters must be rubbing their hands in glee: soon the SABC will need another chairman, SAA could have two top jobs to fill and there is a boardroom of opportunity lurking at PPC. The big question is whether recruitment firms will go near the likes of Gordhan and former HCI chairman Marcel Golding — both of whom claim to be poster boys for transparency and good governance.
Bottom line is, boards are afraid of mavericks. More’s the pity.
Whitfield is an award-winning broadcaster and writer