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Johannesburg - Businessman Mark Lamberti’s corporate career spanning nearly 40 years came crashing down in the space of just three weeks.
The North Gauteng High Court ruled in early April that the Imperial Holdings CEO had impaired the dignity of Adila Chowan, a former senior employee at Imperial’s subsidiary Associated Motor Holdings when he referred to her as a “female employment equity candidate" without recognition of her status as a professional qualified chartered accountant with extensive experience.
She’s also suing the company for R28m for loss of earnings and impairment to her dignity. The court is yet to make a ruling on this.
Although he apologised unreservedly, Lamberti, 67, resigned from the boards of Eskom and Business Leadership South Africa (BLSA) in quick succession.
On Wednesday morning, the logistics and automotive company he has led for the last four years announced that he had chosen to step down as CEO of the listed firm “in the interests of the Imperial group and its stakeholders who may be prejudiced by such publicity".
The Economic Freedom Fighters, trade union federations Cosatu and Saftu and the Black Business Council have been at the forefront calling for Lamberti to resign from all his positions.
Fin24 takes a look back at Lamberti’s career in some of the biggest companies in South Africa. He holds BCom (Unisa), MBA (Wits) and PPL (Harvard) degrees.
1977 – Lamberti joined the corporate world at 27, after dropping out of engineering and a brief spell as a professional musician. He joined his family business running an appliance and electronics store
According to Finweek, he then moved to listed furniture retailer Bradlows, where he worked for six years climbing the ranks, from store manager to the company’s senior director.
1988 – Joined Wooltru in order to begin a turnaround programme for Makro stores. Back then the Makro chain was made up of six loss-making outlets.
1990 – The creation of Massmart [JSE:MSM], with Lamberti as CEO and leading up to its listing ten years later, the retail chain acquired approximately 50 Game and Dion stores.
2000 – Massmart lists on the JSE and expands further into Africa.
2007 - Lamberti steps down as Massmart CEO. During the time he was at the helm, the company grew from R360m in annual sales to R47bn, while employees increased from 2 000 to 25 000
2008 to 2014 – Lamberti became CEO of Transaction Capital [JSE:TCP], a non-deposit taking financial services group, specialising in lending and credit services. The group listed on the JSE in June 2012
March 2014 – Lamberti becomes CEO of Imperial Holdings and resigns as non-executive chairperson of Massmart
June 2014 – Meeting where Lamberti was accused of referring to senior female employee Adila Chowan as a "female employment equity candidate".
September 2015 – Chowan dismissed from Associated Motor Holdings, following a disciplinary hearing.
January 2018 – Lamberti appointed to Eskom board by then Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa, as part of a broad shake-up at the power utility.
April 2018 – Court finds that Lamberti impaired the dignity of Chowan with his remarks about her in a meeting in 2014.
7 April 2018 – Lamberti resigns as Eskom director after Minister of Public Enterprises Pravin Gordhan said he would seek legal advice about his position.
16 April 2018 – Lamberti quits as BLSA director.
18 April 2018 –Lamberti resigns as Imperial Holdings CEO.
The share price of Imperial Holdings [JSE:IPL] continued its slide on Thursday, trading down 0.33% at 237.90 shortly after the opening on the JSE.
Lamberti was expected to oversee the split of the company into a logistics and automotive arms, later in 2018.
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