For Anglo SA it’s been a long walk to transformation
● More than a decade ago, Norman Mbazima, Anglo American SA’s deputy chairperson, sat in Anglo’s ornate colonial-style boardroom at its head office in Marshalltown, meeting with Tony Trahar, the former chair.
“He said: ‘I want you to help us with our transformation journey that we are starting, and the reason I want you to help me is because you are black and most of my executives are white. Very good white people, but they are white’,” said Mbazima.
Mbazima, a Zambian, is one of the five black executive appointments that Anglo’s executive committee and group management committee has made in its more than 100-year history after Lazarus Zim, Kuseni Dlamini, Godfrey Gomwe and Khanyisile Kweyama.
Mbazima has been at the forefront of Anglo’s empowerment journey.
“I have plied my trade as a black guy doing transformation at Anglo American since that day. So those are my credentials and I am going to stick with them,” he added.
For his endeavours at transforming the company that has been at the centre of SA’s economy for most of its life, Mbazima points to executive leaders of most of the miner’s assets who are black.
Sitting in the boardroom just a few metres from founder Ernest Oppenheimer's office, he introduced Business Times to Themba Mkhwanazi, CEO of Kumba Iron Ore; July Ndlovu, CEO of Anglo American Coal SA; Mpumi Zikalala, deputy CEO of De Beers Consolidated Mines SA; and Andile Sangqu, the executive head of Anglo American SA. They are the new faces of Anglo.
“The one thing about the mining industry is that it has very long ladders — you need 20 years to become a CEO. So this is something that has gripped us as a country where we are very impatient to have black leaders come to the fore,” Mbazima said.
At Anglo, six out of every 10 managers in SA are historically disadvantaged South Africans, with women in management accounting for 25% of its workforce.
But the corporate ladder at Anglo still has a number of rungs on it that black executives have yet to reach.
At the board and executive management level, not much has changed.
There are only two black non-executive directors on the 12-member board, both women. A similar picture can be seen on the group’s management committee where Mbazima is the only black member.
Despite evidence of its improved black representation, which is deeper than that of peers such as Sibanye-Stillwater and Gold Fields, the transformation initiatives have always been met with suspicion.
Some industry pundits claim that among the issues are the disparities in the approaches of how black South Africans view transformation versus how Africans without apartheid experience view it.
“A lot of us from Zambia and Zimbabwe were brought here to help, and the reason was really quite simple: there just weren’t any South Africans with that kind of mindset, with that kind of qualifications and with that experience, as a result of the laws that existed,” said Mbazima.
Admittedly, Mbazima said, this had changed, given the number of South Africans who have since got degrees in this field, making it easier for them to come up the ranks.
“Whether the actual appointment of a black guy from Zambia would be the right thing, I don’t know.
“But when we get the fact that they are candidates who have been developed and they all have an equal opportunity to get to that position, I think that gets us to the position that we are there,” he added.
Similarly, Ndlovu, a Zimbabwean who joined Anglo as the first black general manager at Anglo American Platinum 18 years ago, said that when he joined, the group was looking for black role models.
He said Anglo recognised that it would not be sustainable in a country with a black majority not to have black management.
“I have had the experience of being the only one among lots and lots of whites but understood my role as a pioneer, my role to guide, to play a constructive role, and the positive is that 18 years down the road I am still around so I must have done something right,” he added.
Through its transformation journey, Anglo has been able to create a talent pipeline for people to move up the ranks. Among them was Zikalala, who started as a bursar in 1996.
“We don’t just want people to show up by the mere fact that they are female or black. I don’t find myself having been put in a position where I have to be somebody else, because it’s tiring, we want people to be themselves,” she said.
But on whether transformation for this global company has filtered through to group level, Mbazima said: “That’s probably not the same lens we look at it across the globe, but across the globe we are aware of issues”.
While plagued by transformation failures, Anglo’s trudge to its “promised land” has not come without its challenges.
“This is the only country I know where racism was institutionalised and put into laws so … we said we have to do something to make the playing field level for people who come from here and we’ve got to create opportunities for everybody,” Mbazima added.
Anglo’s pursuit of a global mining stage has perhaps complicated its transformation journey, leading some to question the importance of its African, and in particular South African, roots.
Anglo, which was for many years known as an octopus in reference to its tentacles through the South African economy, moved its primary listing to London at the turn of the century with the permission of the South African government. Today, only 25% of its assets are local.
Since its London debut, Anglo’s market capitalisation has increased from R128bn to R458bn in 2018.
“It’s really not about we want to run away from South Africa, it’s about growing the business internationally and locally and we will continue to do that into the future,” said Mbazima.
Two years ago, the miner adopted a strategy to significantly sell off some of its assets, which would have reduced its SA exposure dramatically.
It’s a strategy that has been canned on the back of stronger metal prices and the entry of a new shareholder in Indian billionaire, Anil Agarwal, who has publicly expressed his wish that the miner not reduce its SA business.
I want you to help us with our transformation journey that we are starting, and the reason I want you to help me is because you are black and most of my executives are white, very good white people but they are white
Norman Mbazima quoting Tony Trahar, the former chairman of Anglo