EXTRACT: A day before he fell on his sword, Lamberti sent Chowan a one-line apology, saying he was sorry for “any hurt my words caused you”. “It’s incredibly sad that it had to come to this,” Chowan told Times Select, “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 – which falls under the umbrella of the Imperial Group.
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 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.”
These words ended in a racism and sexism grievance and later legal action against Lamberti, ultimately costing him his career. His departure as Imperial CEO, a position he had held since 2014, was announced on Wednesday morning and follows his resignation from the boards of Eskom and Business Leadership South Africa.
A day before he fell on his sword, Lamberti sent Chowan a one-line apology, saying he was sorry for “any hurt my words caused you”.
“It’s incredibly sad that it had to come to this,” Chowan told Times Select, “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 – 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 Peter 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 that Lamberti appointed him AMH CFO, 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 my skin”. When she expressed offence, 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.
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 CFO.
“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.
“There was 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. That 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 Imperial 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 CFO. 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 testified.
She laid a grievance against Lamberti and Janse van Rensburg with then Imperial chairperson Thulani Gcabashe, and was later summarily suspended. The lawyer who Lamberti had sought advice from in regard to Chowan’s suspension was then appointed to investigate her. The investigation found Chowan’s allegations were “completely without foundation in fact, and are devoid of substance”. The chartered accountant with a previously unblemished record was dismissed on charges of misconduct that her advocate Dali Mpofu would later slam as “completely trumped up”.
“I was basically marched off the premises,” she says.
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, leading North Gauteng Court Judge Pieter 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” that she suffered at the hands of AMH and Lamberti. Those damages can be determined through another court case, but it is 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.
This article first appeared on Times Select
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.