Mike Rosholt: Business leader who charted a new course 1920-2018
Former chairman of Barlow Rand fought for nonracial workplaces
● Mike Rosholt, who has died in Johannesburg at the age of 97, was the CEO and chairman of Barlow Rand for almost 20 years when it was South Africa’s second-largest conglomerate after Anglo American.
He presided over the company in the 1970s and ’80s during the darkest and most brutal days of apartheid. During this time he trod a fine line between opposition to apartheid and staying on the right side of the government.
He was one of the first business leaders to recognise black trade unions. He spoke out against detention without trial. In the group’s
1981 annual report he supported the dismantling of influx control. He called for training centres to be opened to all races, and for a common education system.
He worked with National African Federated Chamber of Commerce and Industry founder
Sam Motsuenyane to establish support structures for small black businesses in the mid-’80s.
He was a pioneer of nonracialism in the workplace. He demanded that his managers eradicate racism from the group’s labour practices.
He drafted a code of employment using as a blueprint the Sullivan Principles written by the African-American anti-apartheid activist Leon Sullivan as a code of conduct for US-owned companies in South Africa.
To say that Sullivan was unpopular among apartheid-supporting whites, not to mention the government, is putting it mildly. But while drafting his code Rosholt went to the US to ask for Sullivan’s input.
He said he wanted Barlow Rand to be known as an equal opportunity employer. His code promised that it would “move positively” towards the integration of all facilities.
In 1981 Barlow Rand spent nearly R24-million on training programmes for its black staff. These provided literacy training for 6 000 workers a year, and skilled apprentice training for employees who until then had been legally barred from such jobs.
He set Barlow Rand’s divisional managers a 1983 deadline to eradicate racial wage disparities. One of its major divisions raised its wage bill by R20-million in 1981 to reach that goal.
While pushing a progressive line, Rosholt did not want to be perceived as a political enemy of the government. He played golf with prime minister John Vorster in the ’70s. He was a major supplier of hi-tech military technology to the regime. He sat on PW Botha’s Defence Advisory Council.
He insisted that his support for black unions, opposition to influx control and practice of racial equality in the workplace was not political. It was driven by social and economic considerations, he said.
“I am not a humanitarian. I believe that people should be treated well, but I also believe it’s the way to run a business. It’s the only way you’re going to provide yourself with contented, trained people in the future.”
Rosholt was born in Johannesburg on November 13 1920. He spent his early years in Beira, Mozambique, where his father was a ship’s agent. He matriculated at Michaelhouse and began serving articles with a firm of accountants.
When World War 2 started he went to North Africa as a second lieutenant in the SA Artillery. He was captured in the Libyan desert and spent three years as a prisoner of war in Italy and Germany.
After the war he resumed his chartered accountancy studies and was top student in the country in his final exams.
He joined Barlow in 1960, became an executive director in 1963, MD in 1968, CEO in 1972 and
chairman in 1979, retiring in 1991. He was chairman of numerous educational and charitable trusts and organisations including the African Children’s Feeding Scheme, the Joint Educational Trust which he started, the Alexandra Community Education Centre and the Urban Foundation.
He was elected chancellor of the University of Witwatersrand in 1982 and again in 1989.
Rosholt was awarded the Order of the Baobab (Silver) in 2009 by then president Kgalema Motlanthe, “for his keen sense of justice, his indelible mark in fostering black trade unions and pioneering nonracialism in the workplace”.
He is survived by three sons. Beatrice, his wife of 63 years, died in 2010.