Notable faces influenced by Anglo American

Anglo American people are everywhere. “Every other mining house globally, by default, has an executive who was groomed and trained by Anglo American,” says Mike Teke, former president of the Chamber of Mines. “It is a spectacular influence; it is amazing. Who does not come from Anglo American?”

Until the 1990s, the group, in a very real way, ran the region’s economy. After the company’s wholesale restructuring into a more focused mining company, those who grew up inside it can still be found throughout the corporate world in South Africa and beyond.

It is hard to overstate the role played by the company’s extensive bursary programme in the 1980s and 1990s in shaping South Africa’s corporate elite. Bursars run many Anglo American units, but also occupy a variety of positions outside the group.

Anglo American represented a major vein in South Africa’s business culture. Teke says: “The culture within Anglo American, from the Oppenheimers, was this culture of being a corporate, corporatised business. Everything is formal, everything is systematic. Everything has policies and procedures.”

*This content was extracted from the Anglo American Centenary City Press supplement. Click here to download the full supplement.

Ben Magara, the CEO of Lonmin, has nothing but praise for Anglo American. “I’m from Anglo American; our chief financial officer is from Anglo American; our head of project management is from Anglo American; our head of business support office is from Anglo American; a number of our general managers are from Anglo American. I did not bring them to Lonmin, I found them here – such is the impact of Anglo American.

“When I meet people who are ex-Anglo American, I expect them to do things in a certain way. I think that that certain way can benefit this whole country,” says Magara. “If you came from Anglo American, people understood your ethos and corporate governance ... Today, South Africa seems to be missing those obvious corporate citizens.”

Originally from Zimbabwe, Magara was swept into his career by a bursary. “If Anglo American sponsored you, you were one of the cream of the crop. You got a place in varsity because government (Zimbabwe) gave you a 50% bursary and a 50% loan. As you arrive, the companies flock in. They look at the list and say, ‘we want to see that one or that one’. There were other companies, but if you are not called by Anglo American, you are not ‘it’.

“At varsity, I promise you, the Anglo American bursars had all the money. If it wasn’t for the Zimbabwean government and then Anglo American, I would never have gone to university. My parents would not have afforded it.”

Magara’s story is a familiar one – from the bursary to the gruelling early years in the company getting moved from position to position to learn as much as you can. “It was also a great school ... you could learn anything in Anglo American. We used to get transferred every year or second year. It was part of your development; of testing and challenging you. I was on three mines over three years,” he says.

Magara worked at Anglo American for 26 years – seven years in Zimbabwe and then another 16 at Anglo American Coal SA, where, at the age of 38, he became CEO. Prior to becoming CEO of Lonmin, Magara was part of Anglo American Platinum’s management team.

As a long-time insiders saw the culture change as the company reinvented itself after apartheid.

Magara says: “There were old British and colonial elements to it ... symbolic remnants. At [rival mining conglomerate] Gencor, they went to work in a Springbok shirt – you would not see that at Anglo American.

“When I got to New Denmark Colliery, everyone from shift boss level up had to go to work in a tie. When you get there, you remove it and you put on your overalls. And then you go underground.”

Legends about Anglo American’s historic Johannesburg headquarters – 44 Main Street – abound. In the 80s, the personal assistant cleaned bosses’ hunting rifles, and the cigar room is still to be found somewhere upstairs, said a former executive. “Especially at 44 Main, the big boys were the big boys,” says Magara.

“There were even two dining halls. If you were [job grade] E2 and above, you then qualified to go to the third floor and that is where you had your lunch, so you all aspired to that.”

People on the cusp of promotion were furious when the dining rooms became integrated, he jokes.

“I was wondering where I would go next... there were two potential roles for me. One was in iron ore in Brazil and one was Anglo American Platinum,” he says.

“Anglo American used to have this practice – if you wanted to make it to the Anglo American executive, you must have at least worked on two continents and at least in two commodities. For me, Anglo American Platinum was ticking the second commodity.”

Magara took that job expecting it to be a stepping stone to Anglo American. Instead, it qualified him for rival Lonmin – “school fees”, as he puts it – where he took the reins in July 2013, in the wake of the historic strike in 2012 that culminated in the Marikana massacre.

*This content was extracted from the Anglo American Centenary City Press supplement. Click here to download the full supplement.

July Ndlovu, the current CEO of Anglo American Coal SA, is another product of the company’s scholarship programme in the 1980s.

He was 19 years old and just two weeks into his medical studies in Zimbabwe when Anglo American “pitched up” with a list of students it wanted to speak to.

“If you go back to the 80s, Anglo American was everything. In Zimbabwe, it owned mines, it had banks, it had farms, it had forestry companies and it even made bread. The Anglo American name was almost synonymous with anything you could think of as industrial in the country,” he says. “If you really wanted to end up with a fulfilling career, the place you wanted to work for was Anglo American.”

So, instead of medicine, Ndlovu studied metallurgy.

“When I was growing up, a job for life was certainly what most of us aspired to. So if you found a company that offered you the breadth of career opportunities and could offer you work in other countries, you couldn’t be in a better place.”

Anglo American’s role in the region’s economic history, particularly that of the Oppenheimer family, sometimes veers into mythology, but people who grew up inside the company think a lot of it is deserved. “Anglo American was more than a corporation,” says Ndlovu.

“In this region, if you met an Anglo American executive, it was the equivalent of meeting a president of a country. These were people with seriously high integrity – people with presence and authority. If you sat across from Harry Oppenheimer, you didn’t sit with a business leader, you sat with a statesman.”

Ndlovu and some other students met Harry Oppenheimer after receiving his Anglo American scholarship.

“This is another thing they did with us that I call almost conditioning,” he says.

“They flew all of us to 44 Main Street to meet this legend. You sat in the same room as him and you would not eat. This guy looked so humble, but you couldn’t help but realise you were sitting in the presence of real power.

“These guys almost exuded this aura of authority and presence that, as a young person, I wanted to have.”

Anglo American was a different organisation then – before waves of restructuring and divestments turned it into a focused global mining company.

“It has changed in two very dramatic ways, in my view,” says Ndlovu, who rose through the ranks of the old Anglo American to become an executive in the new one.

“Our leadership today is focused more on our business. Before, it was more about society. Now both matter.

“I am a product of the Anglo American that was. But I have adapted to the Anglo American that is... There was something unique about being in the Anglo family and, by extension, the Oppenheimer family. You felt you belonged very deeply.

“Most people don’t realise what it meant to be part of Anglo American – two or three generations of people who have only worked for one company. You go into these mines and people tell you about their father and grandfather who came before them,” says Ndlovu. “A lot of us are deeply scripted by these generations of association.”

*This content was extracted from the Anglo American Centenary City Press supplement. Click here to download the full supplement.

As an Anglo American bursary recipient, Chris Griffith, CEO of Anglo American Platinum, began his career 27 years ago as a night cleaner at Amandelbult platinum mine in Rustenburg. He rose through the ranks to become the youngest general manager during his time, ultimately becoming CEO of Anglo American Platinum, the world’s largest platinum producer.

“It’s unlikely you’re going to retain any individual for 25 years or longer if you’re unable to offer a variety of skills, experiences and work opportunities,” he says.

“Although the majority of my career has been in Anglo American Platinum, I’ve been offered many different roles and many different opportunities, even in Anglo American Platinum. I was also the CEO of Kumba Iron Ore.”

Anglo American represented a major vein in South Africa’s business culture.

*This content was extracted from the Anglo American Centenary City Press supplement. Click here to download the full supplement.

Cornelia Holtzhausen was Anglo American’s first female general manager, running Anglo American subsidiary Kumba Iron Ore’s Thabazimbi Mine until it was put on care and maintenance in 2015. Today, she is a regional director in advisory for engineering consultancy Hatch, which lets this self-proclaimed “operational animal” spend her time on a variety of mines.

Holtzhausen’s route into Anglo American was through acquisition when the company took over the iron assets of Iscor Mining in 2000 to create Kumba Iron Ore. The Anglo American she encountered was already well into its transformation to a modern mining group.

“There was a change of culture,” she says. “Iscor was more family oriented; Anglo American was more businesslike.”

On Holtzhausen’s mine, this was true. “At Thabazimbi, we had numerous families – fathers, sons, daughters, cousins. In Iscor, we had a sense that if the leadership changes, everything changes. Iscor was stateowned. With Anglo American, there was a drive for greater accountability and higher efficiency. It was a global company.”

Holtzhausen started at Iscor’s Thabazimbi Mine’s dense medium separation plant in 1995 as a trainee. When Anglo American entered the picture, she was already a plant manager.

Iscor was making a sincere effort to adapt to the new dispensation by recruiting women and black South Africans, says Holtzhausen.

“In Anglo American, I attended a number of sessions where people were surprised [to see a woman]. From 2006, it was totally acceptable.”

That was when Cynthia Carroll became not only the first female leader of Anglo American, but also its first CEO who had not been raised in the company – and the first non-South African to run it since Ernest Oppenheimer, who was a German immigrant.

Anglo American has lost its hierarchical bend at the top, says Holtzhausen. “Look at the photos of the leaders at the time. Now look at Mark [Cutifani, chief executive]. He doesn’t always wear a suit – he sometimes walks around in jeans.”

*This content was extracted from the Anglo American Centenary City Press supplement. Click here to download the full supplement.

Nompumelelo “Mpumi” Zikalala was in matric at Inkamana High School in Vryheid, KwaZulu-Natal, when an Anglo American team came around in 1995.

Today, she is senior vice-president of De Beers’ Sightholder Sales, and a board member of De Beers Consolidated Mines.

“I did not know much about engineering, even though there was a coal mine nearby. I only found out way later that it was a mine associated with Anglo American,” she says.

“I remember the team saying: ‘Mining is a very difficult industry and we don’t have many women in mining.’

“If you study engineering at varsity, it is one of the most difficult courses to study … That is what excited me, the idea of embarking on a challenging journey.”

Zikalala was appointed as the first female general manager at De Beers Kimberley Mines and later became the general manager at Voorspoed Mine before moving into the company’s rough diamond trading division.

She recalls the sharp contrast between diamond mining and gold mining, based on her experience at Western Deep Level No 2 plant.

“The gold mine experience was a different experience,” she says.

When Zikalala started working in the mining industry, there were few women around, and those who were there tended to be in support service roles.

“When I started working at Cullinan, although we didn’t have a lot of women in mining, leadership was always supportive of driving for inclusion.

“They were also supportive in sharing learnings, and they understood what leadership stood for in their drive for inclusion.

“Although we started with fewer women in mining, we now have a lot of women in various areas of our business; this has become the new norm and there is an ongoing concerted effort to further improve this.

Zikalala recalls how the stop blocks used for mining trucks at Voorspoed Mine were initially too heavy and an engineering intervention was put in place to purchase lighter stop blocks without compromising on their effectiveness.

There are many other examples that exist around how other De Beers businesses have been reviewing their processes to drive inclusivity.

“We have great people. Our gender equity and inclusion journey is led by our group CEO, Bruce Cleaver, who keeps emphasising that inclusion is a business imperative.

*This content was extracted from the Anglo American Centenary City Press supplement. Click here to download the full supplement.

Deshnee Naidoo, another Anglo American bursar, is now CEO of Vedanta Zinc International – a unit of Indian resources giant Vedanta with operations in South Africa, Namibia and Ireland. She is also the CEO of copper mines in Tasmania and Australia.

“Interestingly, the zinc operations were acquired by Vedanta from Anglo American in 2010,” she says.

“I think the role Anglo American has played to shape the industrialists we have seen is often forgotten.”

In 1994, Naidoo, who is from Phoenix in KwaZulu-Natal, got a bursary from the old JCI, which was soon to be unbundled to create Anglo American Platinum.

A reputation for hierarchy and tradition did nothing to inhibit Naidoo’s very “atypical” career trajectory within the group. She arrived at her first job after graduation as a process engineer at Anglo American Platinum’s Precious Metals Refinery in Rustenburg – she was 22 and newly married.

“Very soon into that first year, the distance was not working out. The first thing they tried was to bring my husband to Rustenburg, which he did not want to do,” she says.

Instead, Naidoo’s manager found her a job at head office in Johannesburg, where she would plan the expansion of the same refinery. This was to be the first move in a zigzagging career.

Feeling that the pace of the refinery project was too slow, Naidoo asked for something with “more regular results”, and was teamed up with another “born and bred bursar”, Leon Coetzer, who is now CEO of Jubilee Platinum.

They created a company-wide process control engineering unit, where Naidoo says they trained neural networks to optimise milling long before artificial intelligence became popular.

“The company transcended every boundary. I took it upon myself to meet the chief financial officer of Anglo American Platinum at the time, and asked for a role in the corporate finance team.”

Again, Anglo American provided her with a job doing something completely different. In finance, Naidoo worked in a team that oversaw landmark BEE transactions, totalling R35 billion, that still make up a large chunk of Anglo American’s scorecard.

Then came Carroll. A meeting with Carroll’s then executive assistant led to an offer for another new career: being the CEO’s right-hand person.

“Picture this scene. I said yes on the Wednesday. My youngest was 18 months old. I went back the next day and said: ‘No, I can’t take it because it would mean relocating to London,’” says Naidoo.

“Carroll, being a mother as well, loved my explanation and asked to see me.”

Naidoo became the South African executive assistant to the CEO, liaising with the CEOs of subsidiaries and crafting the big boss’ notes for results briefings.

“What Cynthia did for me was just incredible; you got a bird’s eye view of Anglo American. What was important was to maintain relationships, to be a problem solver, and to ensure that, while you represented the CEO, you did not assume the mantle of authority.

“In many ways, the role requires that you are invisible.

“When I left, I took up the chief financial officer position at Anglo American Coal SA.”

From there, Vedanta hired Naidoo.

“To the outside world, Anglo American looked like a very traditional company, so people can’t believe I did all this inside it.

“I never had an uncomfortable meeting where men were shouting. It was a gentleman’s environment,” Naidoo says.

“This was not formal, it was not policy, but the respect and care was there so your line manager had the power to provide tailor-made solutions. My career was a series of tailor-made solutions. I am who I am because of this journey and, in many ways, I am paying this forward in my current role.”

*This content was extracted from the Anglo American Centenary City Press supplement. Click here to download the full supplement.