Adila Chowan: I fought for women

When Adila Chowan first laid her grievance about Mark Lamberti referring to her as "female employment equity" in front of a room of senior managers, all she wanted was an apology.

He’d told her: "You’re black, you’re female, you’re employment equity, you’re technically competent, I would like to keep you but if you want to go, go."

But Lamberti’s response to the racism and sexism grievance Chowan laid in response to the comment — and the resultant legal action — has ended up costing one of SA’s corporate giants his position as Imperial CEO, and arguably, his legacy.

In the days before Lamberti stepped down from a position he’d held since 2014, he’d also resigned as a board member for Eskom, and Business Leadership SA.

A day before he fell on his sword as Imperial CEO, Lamberti finally sent Chowan a one-line apology, saying he was sorry for "any hurt my words caused you". But the apology had come far to late — and failed, as a consequence, to acknowledge that Chowan’s case had become about far more than just three words.

"It’s incredibly sad that it had to come to this," Chowan said, "because, if he had acted rationally, this whole matter could have been resolved."

Lamberti’s downfall came within weeks of Chowan winning a landmark race and gender discrimination case against him and Associated Motor Holdings (AMH), which falls under the umbrella of the Imperial Group.

The North Gauteng High Court ruling detailed Chowan’s account of how she had been promised the position of chief financial officer at AMH, but was then repeatedly sidelined for white men.

Judge Pieter Meyer said it was indisputable — based on AMH’s almost entirely white, male senior management at the time of Chowan’s employment — that the company had "fared very badly in redressing the imbalances and wrongs of the past".

Ockert Janse van Rensburg, who had no experience of the motor industry at the time Lamberti appointed him AMH chief financial officer, was found by the court to have relied on Chowan for help in working with the company’s accounting system. But their relationship became increasingly strained after Janse Van Rensburg told Chowan she’d been given a brown company car because "it matches [her] skin".

When she expressed offense, he told her that his car was light-coloured because it matched his skin. "I told him: ‘Ockert, please stop. You’re making it worse’," Chowan said.

I knew then, and I know now, that there were so many other women who had gone through what I had, and who did not have the power to fight

But Chowan’s breaking point came when she met with Lamberti — after Janse van Rensburg told her that Lamberti would never appoint her as a chief financial officer. "I think that was one of the worst days in my life. I sat there. I was actually a broken person when I sat there. He insulted me.

Final straw

"There [were] senior executives of the group, and I was totally shocked when he turned and said to me: ‘You’re black, you’re female, you’re employment equity, you’re technically competent, I would like to keep you but if you want to go, go’. Others have left his management and done better on the outside. [This] was basically telling me to go away. I was broken, and upset, and I think that was the final straw for me."

Chowan said Lamberti later made her feel like the only reason she’d been employed within the group was because she was an "equity employment employee". She testified that she’d never been spoken to like this before. "I had built my career. I had been a chief financial officer. I had acted as a CEO. All those achievements were not being recognised, apart from the fact that I was now being objectified in terms of being a female employment equity candidate."

She laid a grievance against Lamberti and Janse van Rensburg with then Imperial chair Thulani Gcabashe, and was later summarily suspended. The lawyer Lamberti had sought advice from in regard to Chowan’s suspension was then appointed to investigate her. The investigation found that Chowan’s allegations were "completely without foundation in fact, and are devoid of substance".

The chartered accountant with the previously unblemished record was dismissed on charges of misconduct her advocate Dali Mpofu would later slam as "completely trumped up". "I was basically marched off the premises," she said.

Hostile gaze

Chowan was subsequently diagnosed with cancer and had just undergone surgery when she got into the witness box against Lamberti and AMH. Both had sought to quash her claim as being without any basis, but failed to do so. She was then offered a multimillion-rand settlement to drop the case.

"I knew then, and I know now, that there were so many other women who had gone through what I had, and who did not have the power to fight. I cashed in my pension. I took every single cent that I had to clear my name and to make sure that another woman doesn’t go through this. This was not just about me, and I knew that."

Lamberti never testified in the case, leaving Meyer to make an adverse credibility finding against him.

The judge found that Chowan was, indeed, entitled to damages as a consequence of the "wrongful impairment to her dignity" she suffered at the hands of AMH and Lamberti. Those damages can be determined through another court case, but it’s far more likely that Imperial — whose board is understood to have asked Lamberti to step down on Tuesday — will seek to negotiate a settlement outside of an increasingly hostile public gaze.