Every time a woman earns R89 ($6), a man earns R100 ($7).
That’s right. Seventy years since women joined the workforce en masse, these inequalities are as real, though more insidious, than ever, and the repercussions of this disparity ripple across a woman’s entire lifetime. Payslips serve as benchmarks for future raises and these differences accumulate over time, into the difference it takes to pay back student loans and the amount it’s possible to save for retirement.
The wage gap is also maddeningly ubiquitous. Women in executive positions in South Africa earn 11% less than men, 13% less in management, and an enormous 21% less in professional roles, according to research and consultant firm Mercer.
This difference is set up from childhood.
“Girls are socialized differently,” says Anita Bosch, lead researcher at the Women in the Workplace Research Programme at the Faculty of Management at the University of Johannesburg (UJ). Girls aren’t encouraged to enjoy and be good at Maths and Science, and this, says Bosch, changes their possible career choices.
Donna Rachelson, the author of Play To Win: What Women Can Learn From Men In Business, says that socialization is even more subtle than simply what subjects are taken in school.
“Men learn that games are win or lose, and this attitude is taken into the workplace when it comes to salary negotiations,” says Rachelson.
Yolisa Phahle, the CEO of MNet, comes from the BBC in London, and says that in her international experience, many companies prohibit salary discussions amongst employees and it’s difficult to know where the differential comes in.
“I always felt that men earned more,” says Phahle, “But without the numbers it’s hard to prove, and hard to negotiate.”
Luckily for her, her husband was always a step or two above her on the career ladder, and she had a benchmark when it came to raise negotiations.
However, this is not the norm and asking for a raise is certainly a significant part of the problem.
“The assumption is if I do good work, it’ll be seen and I’ll be rewarded for it,” says Bosch. “But that’s not the case. Companies aren’t benevolent. If you need a raise, you must ask for it.”
Women tend to wait until they’re certain they deserve a promotion before approaching management, whereas men negotiate that raise long before.
“Demand more, don’t sit back and just say thank you,” says Lee-Anne Bac, a director of advisory services at Grant Thornton.
“Women are also penalized for their parental responsibilities,” she adds.
Leaving work early is frowned upon, and yet society expects women to bear the bulk of the burden of parenthood. This leads to what is called the ‘motherhood penalty’ and the ‘fatherhood bonus’.
Aside from career paths thrown offtrack by maternity leave, the possibility that a woman could fall pregnant and that her time could or is taken up by parental responsibilities takes a hefty toll on salaries and career trajectories. The opposite is true for men. Being perceived as the breadwinner gives married fathers a salary bump over their single colleagues. Bac says women need to challenge their organizations, and make their partners your true partner in all aspects.
“My husband and I both get home at 5.30PM, spend time with our child and continue work later that evening,” says Bac.
These inequalities are rooted in a patriarchal past, with a workplace built around men. But with an increasingly large female workforce, it’s essential that change takes place for a healthy economy.
No one thing is going to change the wage parity, and remember, as Rachelson says: “Don’t try to be like a man, just understand how the game is played.”

Anita-formal-portrait

Unequal Pay For Equal Work

It’s always a humbling experience meeting artistes. Their discipline has come from years of slog, and they take their assiduous approach and loyalty to the craft to almost everything they do.
Loyalty is a key word.
Katinka Schumann is Divisional Executive: High Impact &amp; Regions at the Industrial Development Corporation (IDC) in Johannesburg. And she has been with the organization 21 years, joining them the year South Africa became a democracy.
It’s the only career she says she has known.
Schumann could have also made a career in music – she spent years playing the viola, but says she was too ambitious, leaving it to her more gifted sisters, two of who are now well-known pianists in Austria and Cape Town.
Growing up in the beautiful winelands of Stellenbosch, in South Africa’s Western Cape, where “art, music, culture and intellectual conversations” were in abundance, hers was “a musical family”. All her four sisters too studied music, goaded on by a diligent mother, who set aside money just so her daughters could take music lessons.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-medium wp-image-30604 alignleft" src="http://www.forbesafrica.com/app/uploads/2017/05/DSC_0175-200x300.jpg" alt="" width="200" height="300" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/DSC_0175-200x300.jpg 200w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/DSC_0175-300x451.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/DSC_0175-600x903.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/DSC_0175-681x1024.jpg 681w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/DSC_0175.jpg 680w" sizes="(max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px" />
“We all played, and would have family concerts [at home]. We played in orchestras from a young age. Somehow there was never a feeling I couldn’t do whatever I wanted to do.”
Which is why, Schumann spent two years as an exchange student in Germany after her matric “to discover what she really wanted to do”. She worked odd jobs, and even studied German.
“There wasn’t a big cheque around me, I really had to look after myself. I had R1,000 in my pocket for the year, I found a job, I sold ice-cream, I sold strawberries, delivered newspapers on Sundays in the snow. But I got a lot of money I was grateful for. It was just one of those things. As children, we were told to take responsibility. Our parents said they were not going to spoil us with comforts.”
Schumann was still finishing her MBA when she received a call “out of the blue” from the IDC, asking if she would like to join.
“I hadn’t even heard of the IDC then. Within days, I convinced my husband about it… I remember I arrived at the IDC starry-eyed, knowing very little about business. But I learned so much. I would walk around with a little black book, and if somebody said ‘dividends’, I would write that down; if somebody said ‘financial structure’, I would say ‘how do you calculate it’. I loved the traveling, every second week, to a different place, looking at different industries, from mushrooms to wine to dirty foundries, and working with communities under a tree, trying to negotiate with a chief versus the CEO of a listed company. The IDC is still like that today – it’s a very broad spectrum you get exposed to at a young age,” she says.
When Schumann joined the IDC, she says it was “a white male-dominated environment with a few black people”.
She says that’s when she knew growing up with sisters and always being competitive was a good thing.
“I didn’t grow up in an environment where you had to fight with men, I just assumed it was like that. So maybe I was oblivious to it, maybe in a way it helped. I didn’t look for conflict. In hindsight, I think they were testing the waters with me. Today, more than half the staff at the IDC is women. They are in many senior positions.”
Busi Mabuza is the current chairperson of the IDC, which is celebrating its 75th year.
“Busi has this calm, mature nature, she’s gentle but also tough. She has a maturity, even-handedness; it’s a calm environment, she never allows it to get completely out of control. So I think as an organization, we have moved mountains, a lot faster than many of our peers or others in the financial services industry,” says Schumann, who has other role models too – in life and art.
Both her grandmothers, she says, were formidable women.
“My mother’s mother came from Holland in 1948, very poor, and through suffering raised her children. She was a tough woman and a go-getter. She was a world traveler on a shoe-string budget her whole life. My dad’s mother was an amazing woman too. Her husband was a lecturer, and started the Department of Economics at Stellenbosch University. He was well-known, but she on the sidelines probably achieved more than he ever did. She spent a lot of time working on women’s issues. There probably wasn’t many women with formal university education then, which she had. She did a lot despite people possibly thinking she was a housewife. I think that’s how our parents’ generation worked it; they made the men look like they were heroes; on the sidelines, they actually achieved a lot on their own. For our generation, we shouldn’t complain. Life for women is a lot easier than it was then.”
In art, Schumann counts her namesake, South African filmmaker and actress Katinka Heyns, a role model.
“She’s probably the best South African filmmaker and producer we still have. She is an artist with words, and very special.”
Schumann had the opportunity to meet Heyns through the IDC recently and calls it one of her “awe moments”.
“I said to her I have always been asked when introduced to people, ‘are you Katinka Heyns’? All my life, I have lived in her shadow because of this name, as it’s not common. Now, when I phone her and say, ‘hi Katinka, this is Katinka’, she says ‘it’s like we are talking to a tunnel’.”
Part of what also makes Schumann’s job at the IDC interesting is the opportunity to assess how companies grow and constantly meet entrepreneurs.
“I have the greatest respect for entrepreneurs; they have so many challenges, and they focus on solutions and try and overcome them. Every now and then they stumble but they have that goal in mind that they have to make it. We see failures as well. You get entrepreneurs who disappoint you, so it is the full spectrum.”
Schumann never planned on staying at the IDC this long – there is still so much to do, she says.
“Our job is never done. Our economy is not growing fast enough, there is unemployment, so there is always scope to do more.”
Schumann also has enough opportunity to work with the younger generation.
“The young women are eager and anxious to move quicker. The one thing I am seeing a lot more is they are starting to use their relationships. Twenty years ago, we didn’t see the power of relationships, of networking.”
Would the 46-year-old mother of three ever turn entrepreneur herself some day?
“I have always had an entrepreneurial flair… I don’t know what I want to do but would like to try it.”
Whatever she does, Schumann will be sure to take her discipline and loyalty to another level.

DSC_0145

Business Is Music  To Her Ears

Depression and anxiety are highly stigmatized in the boardroom and top executives have become masters at keeping it locked down, going to extreme lengths to hide such problems.
In the fast-paced corporate world, if you are falling apart, you dare not show it. But is that a good thing?
Recent research has shown many successful women are victims of stress as they strive to balance work and family. But even as children and careers collide, women need to prioritize their wellbeing.
Take 40-year-old successful corporate woman and mother of two, Nicci (surname withheld for confidentiality), who says she experienced “a ridiculously heightened sense of anxiety” possibly linked to post-natal depression after the birth of her first child.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-6303" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/shutterstock_178716563-300x214.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="214" />
“I was 36, I was trying to run a business, a home and look after my baby. I remember feeling isolated, alone and incompetent, and being an established business woman, that was a terrible feeling,” she says, echoing the thoughts of many like her.
“I have learned there is no such thing as the perfect balance between a career and motherhood. This is a myth propagated by the media and there is no way women are achieving this holy grail. There are times when you have more time for your career, then something happens and bang, you have to pay more attention to your family. It’s also important to note that a man who has a successful wife often simply assumes he will also have the perfect wife and mother and it is our complicity in this which adds to the pressure. We, as women, try and do it all,” says Nicci.
Dr Colinda Linde, Chair of the Advisory Board at the South African Depression and Anxiety Group (SADAG), and a practicing clinical psychologist, feels modern working women have no role models when it comes to managing the demands of a career and family life.
“Even if our mothers worked, few had careers which resembled those of today and the demands of parenting have also changed, with children’s schedules often as busy as those of their parents. In a dual income household, it mainly still falls to the woman to run the home. This leads to feeling divided and not really being present in the moment – when you are at a school event, your phone is still beeping and when you are at work, your home or issues with your children may also be on your mind,” says Linde.
Over time, this leads to stress and burnout. She says while women learn to rely on other women such as housekeepers or mothers to help with child-rearing, they tend not to expect their partners to take on domestic responsibilities.
“There is a trend emerging where men are doing more to help in the home than their fathers did, by a significant amount, but it is still a relatively small part compared to the typical female portfolio of duties,” says Linde.
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Falling Off The Cliff
Richard Hawkey from Equilibrium Solutions, who has worked with Linde and has conducted substantial research, reveals findings where anxiety, depression or burnout, while highly stigmatized as a sign of weakness, are more than common, with women more affected than men.
Hawkey, who calls himself ‘the recovering banker’, says he slipped into severe clinical depression in 2010 after 15 years in a top position in the finance sector.
“As a senior manager, I had no idea how damaging stress was, or that if you are a Type-A personality (achiever, driver, controller), there isn’t necessarily a slow decline to warn you the cliff is approaching – you simply fall off the end one day. I was happily married, with great children and a house in the suburbs, along with all the trappings of success, so how could I have a breakdown and become depressed?”
Since then, he has recovered and is finishing a Master’s degree in Applied Psychology, and also set up his company Equilibrium Solutions, which in partnership with several doctors, has designed Vitals Software, a confidential online stress self-awareness and management tool.
He gathered and analyzed data from 2,500 respondents surveyed via this online resource. Most were white-collar workers, 98% from South Africa.
Hawkey says key findings, such as 37% complaining of unexplained chest pains were “worryingly high”, as was the 50% of respondents ‘living for Fridays’, highlighting high levels of apathy
and demotivation.
He adds women consistently scored higher than men in the manifestation of various symptoms.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-6305" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/shutterstock_172980497-300x262.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="262" />
Hawkey says the situation may well be worse than indicated by the findings, as anecdotal evidence reveals executives are self-medicating, won’t use Employee Assistance Programs and will take two weeks of leave pretending they are ‘going on holiday’, but in fact are booking into a psychiatric unit.
“This anecdotal evidence is quite terrifying. Executives will pay for such treatment with cash and will not use their medical aid in order to keep the problem hidden,” he says.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), 350 million people across the globe suffer from depression, with less than half receiving treatment due to a number of barriers, a prime one being the social stigma attached to mental disorders.
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More Pressure For The Top Brass
While women trying to balance a career and family are expected not to show any weakness, Hawkey adds that women in the upper echelons of management are particularly under pressure, as they have to appear tough and if from a historically-disadvantaged background, have to prove themselves beyond tokenism, while at the same time shoulder the burden of family.
“My advice to women who are feeling overwhelmed is to speak to someone you trust. It’s important to know you are not alone,” he says.

Don’t Worry,  The CEO Gets Depressed Too

There is no point in speculating as to what Russell Loubser, the outgoing Johannesburg Stock Exchange chief executive officer, will be doing next year—because Loubser himself does not know. He could take the route of a hands-on CEO position at a financial institution, as did previous JSE president, Roy Andersen, at Liberty Life. There is also the option of several independent non-executive directorships, for a quieter life after many years of revolutionizing Africa’s biggest exchange. Another possibility is—corporate governance and Companies Act requirements permitting—to perhaps sit on the exchange board itself as a non-executive director or eventually as chairman.
<div id="attachment_262" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-262" class="size-medium wp-image-262" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/CTX7294-300x199.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="199" />Russell Loubser and Nicky Newton &#8211; King</div>
“I am not entertaining any thoughts as to what comes after life at the JSE,” says Loubser, who originally comes from Slurry, near Mafikeng.
“Until the end of this year, I remain completely focused on my work at the exchange. To prematurely assess opportunities could give rise to conflicts of interest. People are approaching me and my response is to come back at the end of the year, if still interested. Nothing is going to distract me in these last few months.”
A few things are certain for Loubser, regarding life after the JSE. As a member of the South African Airways board, the link will continue. So, too, will his three-year ministerial appointment as a member of the Takeover Regulation Panel, previously the Securities Regulation Panel. But as for the rest of it, Loubser says there is genuinely nothing definitive. “It’s not as if I have something planned and will reveal it at the last moment.”
An initial five-year contract, starting early 1997, ended up being 15 years of leadership. When Loubser joined the JSE, trading volumes in that first year were 17,854 billion shares, and 2,3 million deals. For 2010, volumes were 71,252 billion shares from 23,8 million deals.
Loubser always credits his team: “It has been an absolute pleasure to work with people who have been so dedicated to improving the exchange and developing themselves. The early days were extremely difficult. The press was relentlessly critical, the exchange at that time was wholly owned by the stockbrokers, it was not offering value, and was viewed as a necessity in order to trade equities. At that time, no one could imagine demutualisation, listing and creating value for the financial community. With this committed team, we proved our critics wrong.”
Loubser’s management style is to surround himself with smart people and give them lots of space. “You then get the best out of them.”
When Loubser took over, the JSE had an extremely poor reputation at home and abroad. Despite being the largest emerging market at that time, and surprisingly highly ranked by size in world terms, it was seen as an inefficient boys’ club plagued by insider trading and front running. Roy Andersen had made a start with transformation, such as implementing new software and trading systems, and the Big Bang deregulation which included allowing corporate membership of the exchange.
“The criticism we received in those initial years was fair and completely justifiable,” says Loubser. “But even when we started demonstrating our progress, the taint persisted. We had a difficult audience to win over and the first few years were very testing.”
With the JSE clearly demonstrating its ability and achievements, and cleverly diversifying its income stream, attitudes started to change and criticisms became compliments. However, brokers would still like to see lower trading prices. “We are fully conscious of this,” says Loubser, “and are benchmarked against other exchanges by independent parties to see how competitive our pricing is. Trading revenues are a simple function of volumes and pricing, and if volumes grow, there is certainly scope to reduce pricing.”
Despite having accomplished so much at the JSE, there is one huge task that Loubser regrets he will not be able to see through to the end—the complete overhaul of the bond market, which the JSE acquired in 2009. This particular market comes in for much criticism regarding its antiquated telephonic trading, selective pricing, and operating on a foundation of personal connections and relationships. The wish list for this market is a digital, visible, transparent central order book that promotes price discovery and improves liquidity, especially for languishing corporate and municipal bonds.
“My trading career started in the fixed income market, so I would have liked to have been on the ground and involved when the JSE cleans up the bond market, as it did with the equity market,” says Loubser, who represented the banking sector during the formation of the Bond Market Association, now the Bond Exchange of South Africa. He has no doubt that incoming CEO Nicky Newton-King will be able to achieve this. “It will be quite a challenge for her, but she has a fantastic executive committee on which she can rely, and she will need their talents. Severe changes as to how the bond market works are imperative and will be good for South African financial markets.”
One disappointment—despite much effort—is that other exchanges in Africa have not taken up offers to use the JSE’s technology and platforms in order to make their own markets more efficient. When Loubser took over at the JSE, he looked to exchanges in countries such as Australia and Singapore. “We were shocked by our glaringly obvious poor services and huge inefficiencies, and this kicked us into action. Exchanges in the rest of Africa should go through this same self-examination and take a good look at themselves and the potential they have to play in transforming their markets and economies. As yet, they are not seeing the urgency and benefits of an innovative exchange. A good exchange is a strategic national asset.”
Unlike many CEOs in South Africa, Loubser is not afraid to make political comment when appropriate. He has addressed issues such as government spokesperson Jimmy Manyi’s accusations that blacks do not own enough of the companies listed on the JSE board, and he supported Trevor Manuel, South Africa’s Minister in the Presidency in charge of the National Planning Commission, for taking Manyi to task on racism. “At present, South Africa does ‘work’. But this does not mean our leaders can simply stop at this point. It can be so much better and we should not settle for mediocrity,” says Loubser. His frankness also extends to the tragedy of Zimbabwe under the Mugabe regime.
As the JSE grows increasingly more attractive as a takeover target, Loubser says this type of decision would be for the shareholders. “But my recommendation at this point in time would be to wait a few more years. The exchange is presently working on many things that would add value. At a later stage, a tie-up with an appropriate party would be beneficial to shareholders, and would help take the exchange to the next level.”
Loubser says that despite persuasive efforts from his staff to throw him a huge goodbye party, that would not be his style and he prefers a quiet exit. “I would rather get all my staff together in the auditorium a few days before I leave to say my farewells and thanks.” Leaving the JSE after an incredible 15 years will no doubt be heart-rending for Loubser.
“I will miss the JSE a lot. Let’s just say it will be a very difficult and emotional time for me.”
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New JSE CEO—more than well prepared for the role
Nicky Newton-King has been the JSE’s deputy CEO since 2002, joining the exchange in 1996. Her professional qualifications and experience are legal, whereas Loubser is a chartered accountant with a merchant banking and trading background. Prior to this, Newton-King was a partner at legal firm Webber Wentzel, specialising in the securities and financial services industry, with the JSE as a client.
As the JSE is regarded as one of the best regulated exchanges in the world, Newton-King feels strongly about the development of financial markets across the rest of the continent.
“It is time for African exchanges to stand up and make some brave choices if they want to harness emerging market appetite and attract significant international investment. They run the risk of missing out on the emerging market story if they do not focus on building large and sustainable exchanges.”
African stock markets are now at a point of critical inflection, as was the JSE in the early 1990s. “The JSE has been through its much-needed development, and has the battle scars to show for it,” says Newton-King. “It is now by far the largest exchange in Africa and internationally respected. African exchanges need to similarly decide on their strategies for the future. Are they going to stand alone and individually compete for business, or will they work together to leapfrog stock exchange development in Africa?”
Newton-King says that African stock markets must realize that no one owes them a living. “They are not there to serve themselves. If they do not provide offerings of an appropriate and international quality to investors and issuers, they will be bypassed.”
One route would be to regionally harmonize the rules in African capital markets, as seen in the European Union. However, Newton-King highlights the problem of which markets would be willing to concede to the rules of others. Another possibility for African exchanges is to promote cross-listings, in which a company is listed in more than one country, as dual-listings generally increase trade in the home country. Newton-King says that ideally, the dual-listed companies should come to the JSE for their secondary listing—rather than go offshore to London or other such markets. “African companies should preferably stay on the continent.”
Yet another possibility is to create African technology hubs that allow execution in multiple venues through a single channel of access. Newton-King notes that exchanges must then be willing to collaborate and resolve issues such as hub ownership and operational responsibility. A fourth route would be to establish Pan African stock exchanges, by collapsing existing individual exchanges into regional ones. However, Newton-King again highlights the potential problems of ownership and location, and believes this way is more suited to environments which are starting from nothing and have no legacy exchanges to deal with.
Newton-King recommends a combination of cross-listings and technology hubs to promote African stock exchange development. “This would lead to meaningful and accelerated change which would best serve the interests of issuers and investors. African stock exchanges should not go it alone. They should have the courage to work together to create robust capital markets across the continent.”
Looking to the JSE, Newton-King says one important strategy for the exchange in the near term is to decide on a trading model for the bond market. “We have now owned this market for two years and are focused on determining a model which promotes transparency and hence liquidity.”
She anticipates an exciting future for the JSE. “This environment is constantly changing. New regulations, technological developments and innovative products keep us motivated in our aim of linking South Africa to global markets and maintaining our position as a world-class exchange.”
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Farewell The King Of The Exchange… Long Live The Newton-King!

Aspirant young leaders are often given the following exhortation: “It’s the attitude, not the aptitude, that determines the altitude.” Aptitude here may be somewhat underrated, but attitude is pitch-perfect. As for the altitude, it needs an exemplar to give the exhortation schtick. Suresh Kana, CEO of PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) Southern Africa, springs to mind. He’s proved as adept at climbing the corporate ladder as he is at scaling some of the world’s highest mountains.
<div id="attachment_51" style="width: 484px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-51" class="size-large wp-image-51" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/kana53_1-680x1024.jpg" alt="" width="474" height="714" />CEO of PriceWaterhouseCoopers Southern Africa, Suresh Kana, Johannesburg; 3 August 2011 &#8211; Photo by Brett Eloff.</div>
If you think he’s an adrenaline junkie, you’d be wrong. A lifelong vegetarian and adherent to Gandhi’s principles, Kana exudes a quiet confidence. “In my personal time, I enjoy a good challenge,” he says. “Climbing and trekking are a passion and a hobby.”
In his 35 years at PwC, he has risen through the ranks from being the first black professional to join the firm in 1976 and its first black partner in 1986, to being the only South African appointed to the board of the International Audit and Assurance Standards in 1995, serving for nine years. He currently serves on the King Committee on Corporate Governance and other regulatory boards.
Yet despite reaching the pinnacle of success, for Kana there are always mountains to climb, professionally as well as recreationally.
Like his career, there’s been an interesting trajectory to his outdoor adventures. In August 2000, he climbed Mount Kilimanjaro; in December that year, he walked 400km in 10 days across India to commemorate Gandhi’s Salt March, which was undertaken in the 1930s to protest the colonial Salt Tax. Kana has subsequently led two groups—22 people in December 2004 and 15 in December 2009—to Everest base camp. Both groups comprised mainly young adults under the age of 23 with some school kids.
“It’s a huge responsibility,” he admits, “but these expeditions are my way of mentoring young people and setting them on track towards developing into the leaders of tomorrow. They are taken out of their comfort zones and encouraged to think differently and innovatively, and to learn about themselves.”
Their trainer is Kana himself. “We train for about four months. The kids have to be at my door at 5am and show they’re disciplined and committed (do they know that their trainer is up at 3:08am precisely, six days a week, doing yoga and meditation?). You can’t simulate high-altitude conditions – it takes a lot of physical and mental preparation to enable you to face what’s there. By the time the kids write their exams in October and November, their parents tell me how focused and fit they are.
“We start the trek in Lukla, and once we’ve reached our destination at Kala Pattar, we’re 5,600m above sea level—that’s three times South Africa’s highest altitude and at freezing temperatures of about minus 20 degrees. We walk for about eight hours a day.”
All four of Kana’s children have joined these expeditions; two of them have gone both times.
So what happens on the trek? “Organization is key. The children are divided into groups of four and we operate according to certain acronyms. There’s the WAR (Watch and Review) Committee, whereby the sherpas ensure that the children are hydrated, are eating their meals and generally coping. ICU refers to any problems that arise—if so, steps are quickly taken to resolve the problem. For example, a weaker child is placed at the front and stronger climbers behind.”
What about the risks? “There are always risks, but we measure them in relation to the circumstances. This does not stop me as I believe there’s enough in place to assist when I need it.”
And measured against the rewards, “it’s a hugely satisfying experience—with a stunning view. On a deeper level, it centers me. Unlike the boardroom, mountains are vast areas of peace where all is still and nothing matters. It’s about pushing one’s limits.”
Yet he also draws distinct parallels between climbing and corporate life. “Both demand teamwork, risk and knowledge management, excellence, leadership and resilience. Both require you to master your emotions and focus on the task at hand. You have to determine how you are going to react to people and circumstances.”
How does this define his managerial role at PwC? “People rank high on my list of priorities and I have an empowering management style.” He’s not paying lip service; he has, at different intervals, headed up the HR, transformation and corporate social responsibility arms of PwC. “The firm invests heavily in skills development programs, and it shows: our students consistently rank among the country’s top 10 achievers.”
<div id="attachment_52" style="width: 484px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-52" class="size-large wp-image-52" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/kana12_1-680x1024.jpg" alt="" width="474" height="714" />CEO of PriceWaterhouseCoopers Southern Africa, Suresh Kana, Johannesburg; 3 August 2011 &#8211; Photo by Brett Eloff.</div>
Kana’s other enduring passion is promoting good governance. The double dips of corruption and unemployment are of great concern. “Our credibility is at stake at a time when we desperately need foreign direct investment for growth and jobs. Corruption is nothing but a burdensome tax on the poor; it’s unacceptable.”
Nevertheless, he remains upbeat. “I believe that wisdom and truth will always prevail. It’s incumbent on a leader to be optimistic while recognizing what challenges you face. You become an authentic leader when you’re accessible and engage with people, aligning them to a common vision.
“At the World Economic Forum in Davos last year, South Africa came out tops for having the best accounting, auditing and corporate governance standards, as well as the best stock exchange regulations.
“We need to have this mindset of excellence all the time. This means planning for crises and having structures in place for disaster recovery—not unlike the WAR Committee and ICU processes that occur on our mountaineering expeditions.”
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What would he say to other CEOs who merely play golf? “Whether it’s chasing a little white golf ball or a little white tip of a mountain, it’s what makes you wake up in the morning and look forward to your day.”
He’s looking forward to going to the South Pole next: any takers?

Tag: Executive

FORBES AFRICA SOCIAL MEDIA

Unequal Pay For Equal Work

Business Is Music To Her Ears

Don’t Worry, The CEO Gets Depressed Too

Farewell The King Of The Exchange… Long Live The Newton-King!

The Attitude And The Altitude