KAIZER NYATSUMBA: Spicer did not pay lip service to empowerment, he practised it

The legendary Michael Spicer, who passed away last week, was a man with great foresight who did more than any other individual to induct me into the world of business.

I first met Spicer at a formal meeting at the Anglo American head office in London almost 20 years ago. It was towards the end of my two-year stint as associate editor on The Independent, during which I had read for an MBA in preparation for a transition to the world of business.

In the second half of that year, when I had finished the course work and was conducting research for my dissertation, I had written to AngloGold CEO Bobby Godsell to express interest in joining the Anglo American group on my return home the following year. That letter found its way to Russell King, the global head of human resources at Anglo American in London at the time, and he invited me to a meeting with him and Spicer. The date was some time in September 2002.

An avid media consumer, Spicer was a regular reader of my weekly columns in newspapers back home, but he and I had never met before. At the time, Anglo American had a strained relationship with the Thabo Mbeki government. Although the company had been granted permission to relocate to London, the government of the time believed Anglo subsequently showed neither loyalty nor commitment to its country of origin.

Both Spicer and King were attracted by the fact that my MBA dissertation was focused on brand management, and felt that I could add value in the same role at Anglo American. They made me a good offer to join the company in Johannesburg in January 2003 in the new position of head of marketing.

Spicer proved to be an amazing boss. From the moment I walked into 44 Main Street he gave me carte blanche to do my job as I saw fit, and gave me all the support I needed. The last research to establish how the company was viewed in the country had been done by MarkData and Prof Lawrence Schlemmer, and it did not make for a good reading. I knew it was important to find a way of linking the Anglo American brand to an asset that would visibly demonstrate its continuing commitment to SA.

I soon realised that SA’s bid for the 2010 Fifa World Cup was just the right opportunity. I figured that since only African countries were competing for the opportunity and SA had come so close to winning the right to host the 2006 World Cup, there was a very good chance that we would make it this time. The sponsorship deal was R15m, and there would be money needed to leverage it.

Two immediate problems presented themselves: there was no such financial provision in the new marketing department, and Anglo American had never before been involved in any form of football sponsorship. And, not a single company had come on board as a sponsor at the time. Convinced that the bid was the absolute best way for Anglo American to tug at the nation’s heartstrings, I prepared a comprehensive proposal and presented it to Spicer — who simply loved it.

He quickly arranged for me to present the proposal to the Anglo American executive committee, which also approved it, together with an additional R15m for a marketing campaign to leverage the sponsorship.

So, thanks to Spicer, Anglo American — which did not have any history with local football, and has never done anything similar since — announced at a big function at the head office that it would be the first sponsor of SA’s 2010 bid. That opened the way for other companies to follow Anglo American’s lead and come on board. I went on to represent the company on the board of the 2010 Bid Company, and we launched an expansive marketing campaign called “Anglo American: Passionate About SA”.

Among the first things Spicer did was get me appointed to the boards of various entities at head office. So, together with him, I served on the board of the Anglo American Chairman’s Fund, which was then chaired by Clem Sunter, and I was appointed to the board of trustees of the Anglo American Medical Aid Scheme. Externally, whenever he could not attend board meetings of the International Business Council of SA (now Brand SA), he asked me to do so for him. He did the same with meetings of Business Against Crime, where I ended up replacing him as a director.

It was clear that instead of retaining certain responsibilities as his own, Spicer went out of his way to expose me to them and delegate them to me. In the process, he empowered me considerably. He did not pay lip-service to empowerment; he practised it.

Whenever I mentioned to him, even in passing, a forthcoming event like the Mining Indaba, his standard response was: “Why are you not there?” Consequently, during my four-way stay with Anglo-American I was a regular in Cape Town, with him not only for the state of the nation addresses but also for the annual Mining Indaba and other important functions, such as corporate events at Vergelegen Wine Estate in Somerset West.

Similarly, when I told him that the board of the 2010 Bid Company had asked board members representing sponsors to consider travelling with CEO Danny Jordaan to campaign for the bid, Spicer’s response was “Why are you not there?” So I travelled extensively with Jordaan to Tunisia, three countries in South America and Spain, to campaign for SA to host the 2010 Fifa World Cup, and to try to lure Real Madrid to come to SA on tour to promote the bid. In the end, Tottenham Hotspur was the team that came out.

Thanks to Spicer’s support, Anglo American also hosted the Fifa inspection team at Vergelegen over dinner and provided it with the company’s aircraft to travel from one part of the country to another. It was therefore fitting that Spicer, Lazarus Zim (after he had joined the company) and I were at Fifa headquarters in Zurich when Sepp Blatter announced that SA would indeed host the 2010 Fifa World Cup.

Spicer also enthusiastically supported my other initiatives to promote the Anglo American brand both externally and internally. When I introduced the Anglo American Alumni Association, which comprised former employees and, more importantly, those who had received Anglo American scholarships over the years, he was an immediate convert. So too when I introduced the annual Anglo American Sports Day, which saw employees coming from different mines and operations to participate in sports at The Campus in Randburg.

Collectively, these initiatives considerably improved perceptions of the Anglo American brand in the country, as was confirmed by a subsequent survey conducted by Schlemmer.

Spicer’s passing is a sad loss not only for his wife Ireen and his two sons, but also for the country. He was a patriot who loved SA with a passion. During our times at Anglo American he was also outspoken on the country’s governance, especially when it came to decisions by Pretoria that affected negatively on business and had the potential to limit foreign direct investment.

He was far more supportive of me than any black executive or CEO to whom I have subsequently reported. Even though he had already left the company, my respect for him was such that I made an appointment to see him at Business Leadership SA to tell him in person when the time came for me to move on from Anglo. I have held him in high regard over the years and was pleased that each time I invited him to be a speaker at the Southern African Metals & Engineering Indaba he made himself readily available.

Rest in peace, Michael. Your contribution to this country (and to me) is indelible.

• Dr Nyatsumba, a former head of marketing and vice-president of corporate affairs at Anglo American, is MD of KMN Consulting and author of “Successfully Implementing Turnaround Strategies at State-owned Companies”.